My First Ever French Marble Mantel Clock Restoration Experience

When I opened the box I was nearly as destroyed as what I saw inside. I had somehow recently gotten "the bug" for collecting and restoring old clocks. So far I'd only done two- both pretty simple, mainly cosmetic projects, and both American made; a Seth Thomas and an Ingraham. But then I had seen an auction for a Black Slate (in fact they are actually Belgian Marble) French - made clock which caught my eye somehow; dusty and dingy, looking as if it had just been pulled from sitting in a garage for 50 or 60 years, but the case appeared to be rather 'clean' in terms of not showing signs of broken slabs and crumbled edges, and all I could see then were it's possibilities. Not huge in size, it surprised me to learn it weighed close to 28 pounds, and I paid more for the shipping from Connecticut to Kansas than I'd paid for the clock itself. When the driver handed me the box, which outwardly didn't appear damaged at all, I somehow knew I was not going to be happy with what I was about to find inside. First grabbing my camera so I could get pics of every step in opening the box in case all I had was a box of rubble. Peeling away layer upon layer of bubble wrap and foam sheeting I thought "Maybe it's okay- the seller had done what seemed to be a very thorough job of packing.... but I kept hearing little rocks and sandy grit tumbling inside as I made my way to the center. Then the "sand" began falling out between layers and onto the table until the center content no longer felt solid, but "clunked" and morphed it's shape each time I rolled it over to remove the last layers. And there it was- the base plinth broken into 5 or 6 pieces, the top of the case missing a large corner section plus near the entire length of finished edge down one side, a few other large sections I couldn't yet identify, and all this gritty, sandy stuff which I soon learned had originally been the inner shell- the rough box framework, similar to a cement board product, which had been the basic shape upon which the marble finish components had all been bonded. I sat silent and motionless, staring at the pile for what seemed like hours before giving the seller the bad news, and as we talked my spirits began to lift. But when he told me he was about to refund me entirely, even the shipping, the strangest sense of almost 'anger' hit me like a slap in the face. No, I said, you're not to blame- it was clear the trouble you went to in packaging and no reason you should bear all the loss. While talking, I'd started "playing around" with the chunks of marble on the table, much like you might ready a pile of puzzle pieces, turning them all right side up or rotating, and not really paying much attention to the process, and suddenly noticed I'd put several slabs "together", and the rough joints of a few 'closed' up rather well instead of being ground off while en route and looking more like a wide groove waiting for a mortar filler. Now I was ashamed at having been defeated before I'd even tried. That's not like me- I'd always enjoyed a good challenge, I thought.....and well, now you've got a good one! The seller agreed to give me a few days before doing anything about a refund, and I went straight to work educating myself in both the known, traditional methods for repairing a marble case and, as an admitted perfectionist (a lifelong and potentially debilitating illness just as surely as alcoholism) with a lot of hands-on experience with surface finishes and finished surface materials, potential alternative methods that I might find to work better. Two weeks later, the 'results were in', and I was totally 'hooked'. I'll let the pictures do the talking from here; they say it better than I ever could. That was mid August of 2020; today my first little marble project is still right here on my desk, smoothly "tick-talking" to me all the time, and at 159 years old looking far better than I will at half that age, LOL!