In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Dorian Clair, a horologist and antique clock restorer who has been repairing clocks for 72 years and keeps San Francisco's tower clocks running, inside his Sanchez Street shop in Noe Valley. Their conversation traces the whole arc — from the broken Westclox alarm clock a neighbor's mother gave him on his eighth birthday in 1954, to the Navy submarine where he kept fixing watches, to the storefront he has run for 39 years and still describes, when he leaves the house each morning, as going to play. Dorian walks through how a clock actually works — the escapement that gives the pendulum its push, the twelve-to-one gearing between the minute hand and the hour hand, why a weight keeps better time than a spring — and the habits that separate a repair that lasts from one that doesn't: polishing pivots instead of bushing holes, keeping a tired old mainspring rather than forcing in a new one, fixing worn gear teeth with twenty minutes and a file. He tells the story of the Ferry Building clock, an 1898 Howard movement with a 13-foot pendulum that was nearly broken up with a sledgehammer and dumped at sea during the building's restoration until his third proposal saved it, and of the Samuels Street clock on Market Street he lost to vandals despite weekly meetings with Dianne Feinstein over a set of protective grilles. He's candid about the edges — the customers who leave bad reviews when he tells them they've been winding a clock with a jerk, the rent that is now ten times what it was, the watches he gave up 25 years ago when parts disappeared — and easier about technology than you might expect, from the Apple Watch on his wrist to the synthetic oil he calls the most important thing to happen to clocks. In the second half, his apprentice Max joins to talk about the pocket watches his grandmother left him, a gap year that became a full-time job within a week, the lead-alloy steel that started the throwaway era in 1959, and why a properly serviced clock should be around for hundreds more years. Whether you're mechanically inclined, curious about how the objects around you actually work, or wondering how a craft gets passed from one pair of hands to the next, this episode is a masterclass in doing only what's good for the clock, diagnosing a problem in thirty seconds after thirty years of looking, and maintaining something well enough that it outlives you.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

🕰️ Where to find Dorian Clair:Website: https://www.dorianclairacr.com/

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:Instagram: @tradesshowTikTok: @tradesshowYouTube: @tradesshowSubstack: Trade SecretsWebsite: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:Instagram: @brianaaugustinaSubstack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:01:25 Meet Dorian Clair03:06 What A Horologist Does05:55 From The Navy To Noe Valley08:52 Why Repair, Not Build11:05 Thirty Seconds To Diagnose12:26 The Simon Willard Banjo Clock13:53 What Makes A Good Clock15:12 How A Clock Actually Works16:58 Never Do What The Customer Wants19:45 AI's Never Gonna Put Me Out Of Business22:48 The Trouble With YouTube Repairs24:40 The Samuels Street Clock29:26 The Ferry Building Clock Tower34:58 Three Proposals And A Sledgehammer38:28 A Favorite Clock In The City39:45 The Chimes Are A CD41:29 The Apple Watch42:04 Why Clocks Over Watches43:34 Meet Max46:15 A Gap Year That Became A Career47:08 Passing On The Craft48:46 Working On History50:20 Advice For Young Tinkerers51:46 The Clocks They Won't Take In54:05 Shortcuts That Ruin A Watch56:15 Quick Round: Technology's Cost57:43 Synthetic Oil And The Timing Machine60:40 What Excites Them Now62:40 One Thing To Take Away