Horologist Ken Settles has studied timekeeping for almost 30 years at his Snyder shop, ushering through a parade of broken clocks -- up to 120 -- each month.

Repairing a clock is like solving a puzzle. It takes a steady hand and much patience to understand its workings, according to this clockmaster who next year will turn 58. With 300 clocks on display at his shop (called About Time), you would imagine Settles had his hands full pushing each clock back one hour to end daylight saving time.

People Talk: How long does it take to turn 300 clocks back?

Ken Settles: We don't because none of them are kept at the correct time. We have them set so they all sound at different times. We need something making noise so when you come into the store you can hear at least one sound. We want you to hear chimes. We want you to hear the cuckoo clocks.

PT: How do you feel about daylight saving time?

KS: Honestly? It brings us a lot of business because people have to play with the front of their clocks, and it always gets them in trouble, especially now when it's time to set them backwards. Boy, the Monday after setting clocks back is the busiest day of the year for us. People come in a constant stream with the clocks they messed up over the weekend.

PT: Is it all the same problem?

KS: Yes. Clocks don't like their hands pushed backward.

PT: What occupies your spare time?

KS: I'm very involved in youth hockey, though I've slowed lately. My son started when he was 6. He's 38. I still run all the off-field officials for the Buffalo Bandits -- the clock, penalty boxes, the statisticians upstairs. Those are all my crew. I've been doing the Bandits since day one.

PT: How did you get caught up in timekeeping?

KS: My in-laws had the shop and I lent a hand. And then I became an apprentice under Milo Smith, who passed away at age 85 from cancer. He was from Buffalo, a master watch- and clockmaker who had polio as a child and wore a brace on his left leg, the best person I ever met in my life -- outside of my wife.

PT: What is your talent?

KS: I'm very very good at troubleshooting -- understanding and diagnosing the mechanics of what makes things work. Clocks are pretty complicated depending on the movement. You'd be surprised at what some cuckoo clocks can do. They drink beer, they play music. The dancers dance and waterwheels turn. Those are all separate parts that have to move inside that clock. We get cuckoo clocks shipped to us from throughout the world.

PT: Is there a clock you will not touch?

KS: Tower clocks. I have a fear of heights. They are tremendously large, and they require a lot of power, whether it's weight-driven or electrical. And you have to get up there. It's not me.

PT: What have you learned from clock repair?

KS: Patience. If you don't have it, you can't do this job. It may take you two hours, three hours. When I was apprenticing, and I took my first grandfather clock movement apart, I got it back together four-and-a-half days later. If you don't have the patience to sit and watch it run, and understand what every wheel and cam and lever does inside the clock, you will not diagnose the problem and you won't continue in this field.

PT: You must be good at puzzles.

KS: I hate puzzles. I have absolutely no patience outside of fixing clocks -- and after we fix them, we test them from four to eight days.

PT: Have you encountered a clock you could not fix?

KS: Yes. I've done about 32,000 repairs, and there are probably six or seven I couldn't fix.

PT: Each clock must tell a story.

KS: Oh yeah. It's kind of fun when we get clocks that are two or three hundred years old, and we read inside the clock all the different people who have repaired it over the years, and the dates they repaired them. You mark the clock after you repair it.

PT: Are clocks becoming passe?

KS: Goodness no, especially not wind-ups. We do more now than ever. The industry has totally moved away from electric, only the digital ones that you can see at night. I don't have one electric clock in the store. If the power goes out, you still want to know what time it is.

PT: How many clocks do you have at home?

KS: I think 13 right now. I don't have as many as some people have in this industry. I just never had the time to collect.

PT: Do you wear a watch?

KS: A cheap quartz, a Fossil.

PT: How are you at time management?

KS: Fair. I can get wrapped up in a project when I shouldn't -- in a clock that isn't worth repairing but has challenged me. So I'll spend 10-12 hours on a clock and maybe make $50.

PT: Because you want to beat the clock.

KS: Because I can't let it beat me.

jkwiatkowski@buffnews.comnull