I love midcentury design. Love, love, love it. There were many great clock designs from this era. This post looks at the Ingraham Sentinel Wafer, by famed midcentury industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss.

Ingraham used a nearly identical case for several other clocks; small differences give this one all the panache. The dished and cratered case back lifts it from the wall and gives it the three-dimensional 'wafer' look, sort of like a flying saucer. The design of the hands and dial seal the deal for this one.

These usually had case fronts in a copper or chrome finish. This white enamel may not be original but I think it is brilliant.

Here are some first looks inside the clock. Nothing unusual, a little rust, dust and dirt, but not at all bad.

This is the Ingraham Z motor. It has a large sealed rotor with an eight-tooth pinion gear. This one has a date stamp of "4 55" for a production date of April, 1955.

An unusal feature of this motor is that the coil is also sealed inside, and the coil leads go to bolts with hex nuts to attach the cord. I haven't seen another motor designed this way.

Like most electric wall clocks, the gear train is very simple, and is contained between staked or riveted movement plates. There is no easy disassembly. Inspection shows the gears (including the rotor piniion) in good condition with no obvious wear, just some dirt and oil debris.

For riveted movements like this, I clean them by thoroughly spraying with a fast drying electrical contact cleaner. Then I oil appropriately, especially the pivots, and run the clock for a while, and then repeat the process. Lather, rinse, repeat. I do this until the oil that comes from the pivots is clean.

With sealed rotors, there is another gear train inside. I don't have the skill to rebuild rotors, and those that do charge a healthy (and deserved) fee. There are, however, procedures for relubricating sealed rotors that can extend their life and solve minor noise and operational issues.

Other cleaning procedures for this clock involved scrubbing rust from the case interior and the dial backing plate. It leaves fine pitting to the metal, but you don't want loose rust particles in your clock movement.

Here's a closeup of that gorgeous dial:

And a final view of the clock. This one has gone to a new home but I remember it fondly.