Music Box Repairs Christchurch
Kiwi Garages Book Excerpts 4
Before I arrived, he had been
repairing a nineteenth-century music box that reportedly came over on one of the first four ships carrying English settlers to Canterbury.
The ships - the Charlotte Jane, Randolph, Cressy, and Sir George Seymour- were chartered by the Canterbury Association and left Plymouth in 1850.
The internal mechanism of the music box sits on the bench and looks extremely complex.
It produces musical notes using pins protruding from a revolving cylinder, which in turn 'pluck' the teeth of a steel comb.
Most people wouldn't dream of attempting to take it apart.
'I told the customer, leave it with me for a week and let me stare at it.
I'll find out how it works then I can try to gain an understanding of what I can do to fix it.
Now I'm confident I can.'
As we talk, half a dozen repaired clocks tick away in the background.
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