"Low technology is not always bad, especially if you want it to last for a very long time," said Jonathan Betts, who is not related to the Smith of Derby boss. Other timepieces were destroyed in the turmoil of the last century, but Betts said several cities were interested in reinstalling them.
"It's a delightful position to be working with them 100 years later and still looking after all these pieces." The clock on the customs house on Shanghai's Bund was made by JB Joyce and Co, now part of the group. "We were doing pieces in China 100 years ago," said Betts. It comes with a 100-year guarantee, though the company says it should last much longer. The timepiece is accurate to within 30 seconds a month and uses GPS technology to correct itself. The clock will be unveiled at the end of the month and the tower opened to the public next year.
China big clock install#
Staff from Smith have travelled to Ganzhou to install it in the 113 metre high Harmony tower, at the heart of a new development described as part business, part residential and part horologically themed park. The clock is the largest of its kind in the world when measured by size of dial and hands and has taken a year to design and build.ĭespite weighing 10 tonnes it was flown to China to meet the customer's deadline. The tower includes a viewing gallery so visitors can inspect the movement, which is made from hardened steel with bronze finishing and brass and gold-plated components. "The unusual thing is that it's exquisite – it has to look lovely because it's on public display." He pointed to the 1976 incident in which Big Ben's clock mechanism exploded. "The greatest challenge was to make it safe ," said Bob Betts, managing director of Smith of Derby. The four giant clock faces were produced by Yantai, a 95-year-old Chinese firm. It used its expertise to make hands weighing a mere 65 to 70kg (about 150lb). Instead, Smith turned to EPM Technology, a Derby firm that creates carbon fibre panels for F1 cars. Traditional steel hands would have weighed around 2 tonnes each. "It becomes much heavier than the size would suggest, because there is so much more mass to it." "When you get beyond a certain scale, the complexity and difficulty becomes magnified beyond the degree to which is larger," said Jonathan Betts, senior specialist in horology at the National Maritime Museum in London. The £1m project has required new technology as well as historical expertise. In recent years most people have opted for cheaper, lighter electric versions. The firm said the last time it built a large mechanical clock from scratch was in the 1950s, although it has continued to refurbish and repair them. Founded in 1846, the company also has timepieces in St Pancras station and St Paul's Cathedral. It may be a classic example of China's ambition, but the clock was made in England by the family firm Smith of Derby. The faces are 13 metres in diameter – almost twice the size of those on the Houses of Parliament tower – while the minute hand is 7.8 metres long.