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  1. #46
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    How quickly the progress turns from making assembling - my utterances after dinner from “I’m going out to do some cutting” to “I’m going out to do some tweaking”, to “I’m going to stare at the (stopping) clock for a while”

    I’ve been caught up in a number of intrusions from “the real life” so here are some make up posts.



    Having cut all the other parts and assembled a makeshift spray booth I set about making wheels and experimenting with spray varnish.



    Ive never enjoyed painting and I still don’t

    In fact, I think it’s been a mistake. The colour change is inevitable and although I started to get a reasonable result to continue this across all the project I feel is beyond me.



    No matter - assembly had begun and it got exciting very fast.



    Some time spent “depthing”.

    In a wooden movement the depthing is done by fine tuning the teeth on pinion and wheel. On a metal clock depthing is the term for adjusting the distance between arbor centres based on finding the position where the teeth of pinion and wheel interface most perfectly. This is done with a depthing tool by which an accurate measurement is transferred to the frame plates.

    The goal here is to get the wheels and pinions to interact with as little friction as possible to prevent binding and keep the amount of energy required to a minimum.

    It’s accepted that once the train moves when simply blown on its good to go to the next step.






    Much filing, sanding and polishing. Not to mention getting the templates off and finishing the inside cutouts.




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  3. #47
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    Things start to come together quickly now.



    A critical step I’ve learned here is that the arbors need to be exact lengths and especially the tube spacers.



    The hands have been stained Jarrah so they contrast with the mechanism and dial.



    Ended up with a good finish on the bob and weight pulleys but still don’t like the effect on the colour.



    Some time focused on the dial train depthing.



    Install the clicks, weights and escapement.


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  4. #48
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    The escapement is where things start to get interesting.

    With the pallet anchor and crutch hanging down the mechanism can allowed to “run-down” - meaning the weight raised on the barrel and then released so the going train runs freely until the weight reaches the ground.

    Literally until all the potential energy has been converted into kinetic energy. This helps bed the wheels and pinions in and lets us see where binding may be occurring.



    The weight cap is left off so shot can be added or removed.

    The pallets are engaged as is the crutch pin with the pendulum.



    Looks like a clock.



    Looks even more like a clock!



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  5. #49
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    Now we officially enter the tweaking stage. As Clayton puts it “this is where everything looks like it should work but it doesn’t”



    I end up needing to cut a new crutch.

    (And new pallets)



    It starts and stops, it ticks but only for a number of seconds.

    I experiment with more weight, I figure you can always do with “more cowbell” anyway!



    I spend hours working on the dial train, teeth and eventually pull everything down and refine the wheels with the dial gauge.



    I get the runout between 0.001 and 0.003” for all the wheel and smooth out the addendum/dedendums.



    I reduce the gap in the pendulum with some super glue.



    The same is done to get a snug fit with the minute hand.




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  6. #50
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    And after reassembling it runs for over 15 minutes!

    Pallets are still not right.



    I reset the time, wound it and left it last night running with an app that uses the microphone to listen to the escapement and, by counting the ticks and tocks can establish the beat and help with what is called “regulating” the movement.

    My first readings show how amazing Clayton’s plans are - no adjustments to the pendulum length:



    Obviously remains to be seen over longer periods what the error is, but I was staggered to see it so close to 60bpm.


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  7. #51
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    A trick for getting the socket set grub screws working well.

    Clayton mentioned that using CA in the hole would help when the screw wouldn’t “bite” and I took it one step further.

    The super glue worked perfectly to harden up the thread.

    I also had a chat with a local machine shop and bought an M4 tap with a 3.3mm bit. I learned from him that you subtract the pitch 0.7 from the gauge (M)4 and that’s the size of bit to drill for the tap.

    Admittedly the taps are made to work with metal and it’s a bit hard to turn them squarely enough to get started so I put a drop of super glue into the 3.3 then tapped it after it set and then ran the glue in again, turning the socket set grub screw in and out and cleaning it. Once this second run of glue is set the thread runs like a machined one and bites hard to boot (may need a quick cleaning run with the tap).


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  8. #52
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    Confession time.

    I’ve blundered and I can’t work out how.

    There is an error of a few mm in the distancing of the rear frame holes! I have no idea how I ended up with it - the plans didn’t scale and I checked they matched the originals (against window).

    The drill press has some quill play but I tried to ensure that didn’t impact the depthing and anyway I had Centre punched the templates before cutting etc.

    It may remain a mystery and my disappointment is palpable.

    As they say a bad craftsman always blames his tools and whilst many bad craftsman have plenty of poor quality tools to blame this really does look like some kind of blunder on my behalf that is so stupid I can’t even think how I did it!!

    Maybe 3mm could be accounted for with quill play of .5mm if it was allowed to multiply - but they weren’t drilled that way. Each was drilled to a centre punch from the template!

    Well, I can’t really account for that kind of depthing error woth shaping the pallets and just making a slightly bigger tooth escape wheel won’t do either. The geometry is relative.

    So as Clayton advises; looks like a new frame:
    “Bust that one out of there and start fresh”

    I’m going to go and take a few deep breaths now. Lol


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  9. #53
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Sydney Upper North Shore
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    I’m really enjoying this build. Thanks for all the pictures.

  10. #54
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    Jan 2015
    Location
    Australia, Sydney
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    Default Clayton Boyer “Simplicity” build

    Ok I’ve stripped the clock down and pulled some Baltic to recut a frame which I will be scribing out by hand!

    Turns out that my cursory attempts to confirm that my bubblejet was making accurate templates has led to me spending hours meticulously cutting out warped parts.

    And it’s not as though Clayton doesn’t explicitly state to be cautious with copies, and to cut the plans he ships after making copies for reference.

    I’m very familiar with digital printing having spent my whole career in companies like Canon, Ricoh, FujiXerox etc...

    I knew all too well that laser devices, which use toner, fix the image to the page with heat and pressure applied through the fuser unit. This heat and pressure causes (uneven but somewhat predictable) shrinkage to the paper, *after* the image has been laid down by the imaging engine. Then if you are printing double sided the first side print gets shrunk again when the image is laid down and fixed to the second side.

    This was a challenge when trying to print things like circles front to back and have them line up and be 100% size both axes.

    Paper, being wood also shrinks according to the moisture content and relative humidity of where it’s stored and then inside the machine.

    Anyway, inkjet is cold set and doesn’t use much in the way of pressure rollers. The printing is single sided and with good quality paper the chances of there being skew or stretch is small

    Inkjet also have to be very accurate to be able to print high text and line art so they lend themselves well to vector drawing printing.

    I double checked all this today printing from the dxf file on both the bubblejet and the laser and then doing copies again on the bj.

    Turns out that the BJ distorts the image diagonally but only in the long direction. Thus the most important piece, the back frame, which has to be laid out diagonally across a letter (or in my case A4) page when held up against the window looks perfect at first because the parallel sides are spot on the whole way... but the copy is elongated. So the depthing is screwed up, by what looks like as much as 2-3mm in some cases!

    The problem never showed with my original test frame because I marked it up and cut it manually on the sled because I didn’t stick the templates on square (enough) to cut geometrical shapes. The final one I ripped on the saw then applied the template to it and thus transferred the error to the job!

    Nuff said.


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  11. #55
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    Jan 2015
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    I am now emotionally recovered enough to recommence wrorking on my clocks and will try to knock out the frame today.

    Fortunately I have plenty of Baltic Birch.


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  12. #56
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    Australia, Sydney
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    The new frame came together much faster than before and although I tried not to rush it hasn’t come out as well.

    The changes to the depthing has also revealed that the problems I started to experience are embedded In all the parts.

    I’ve had to re tune all the wheels to accommodate the tighter depthing and nothing in the going train is playing nicely any more.

    I spent quite some time tweaking the wheels before doing a trial assembly and everything just locks up.

    So I’ve quit while I’m ahead.

    One of the reasons I increased my working speed a few weeks back was i foresaw an overseas job posting that has now become a reality.

    I will probably not have the time to complete this without rushing and making it worse not better.

    My workshop will have to be packed and shipped to be stored or I may have to consider selling tools and stuff.

    The car is sold and I’m going to get the house ready for renting.

    Looks like I may have a couple of weeks to try to fit in the necessary tweaking to get the clock to run but if the errors in my plan copying are deep seated then it’s all over for this round.

    Very disappointing but there is no doubt that I’ve learned more doing this project than anything else I can remember doing for fun!







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  13. #57
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    Well, no immediate success with the new frame but the escapement geometry is better.

    I have decided to cut a new escape wheel and anchor because I feel that the original one ended up too small from repeatedly dialing it in and compensating for the error in the frame.

    Anyway time will tell that’s for sure.

    I still feel reasonably sure I can give it the attention it deserves before I have to leave for Singapore.

    All the tools I don’t need are being packed and stored or sold.






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  14. #58
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    Mar 2014
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    West Wodonga
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    Been watching this for a little while.

    It looks as if you have cut most parts with a scroll saw. If you have access to electronic drawings, would you have increased the accuracy if they had been cut using an cnc router and thus obtaining a better fit up later. Realise you may not have a cnc router of course.

  15. #59
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    Hi mate, yes, everything was done by hand/scroll saw because I wanted to make it entirely myself.

    Actually I used the .dxf file from Clayton, which he kindly provided, in two ways:

    1) earlier on in the process I used the laser cutter at the school to cut parts out so I could compare machine cut pieces with my own work. Interestingly, I couldn’t really take this process to the next stage anyway because the machine wouldn’t easily cut the thickness of stock required and results in burning discolouration.



    The machine took the .dxf file as a print job from Adobe Illustrator with the scale set correctly and the stroke thickness set to a hairline (.1mm I think) and it appears to cut “to the inside” of the stroke line as printed on the plans supplied by Clayton.

    Clayton points out in the plans that many copiers distort images and that the plans should be copied for future reference and the parts cut from the plans supplied.

    I didn’t do this because i thought my copies were true (checked inadequately by sighting against original through a window/light box) and I knew I’d stuff some up so I didn’t want to destroy the only original copies I had on hand.

    2) in order to see if the problem could be solved by printing the original plans from illustrator on my own printers (one a laser, which I suspected might distort from heat fixing causing asymmetric shrinkage along vs across the paper grain) and I found that on the bubble jet the same distortion crept into the print - so it seems to be in the mechanical process of the print not the imaging engine (scanning or printing).

    The error showed up as stretch in the diagonal on the A4 and was quite small - probably no more than 1.5mm across the whole page.

    Consequently the only parts affected in a material way are those which have critical dimensions and are large enough for it to amplify.

    Most of the wheels would have been very slightly oval but not in a way that was not fixed by using the dial gauge to control runnout. The main shelf part of the frame has no tolerances that would allow the error to show and the rest of the parts are too small.

    The problem manifest in the worst possible way as the rear frame is the one part with the most critical tolerances (essentially the depthing for the whole going train) *and* long enough for the error to manifest *and* laid out on the plans along the diagonal!


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  16. #60
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    Jan 2015
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    Australia, Sydney
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    Well guys, my time is up - it has become a genuine race against the clock!

    I’m moving to Singapore for work for the foreseeable future and had to draw a line in the sand as to when the workshop got broken down and stored, sold or packed.

    I got the clock finished and starting to run - it ran for several minutes with the whole running and dial train installed.

    But the tweaking and tuning left over from the dimensional issues I “baked” into the build meant that things were probably a lot more temperamental than one would expect.

    I’ll link to a video of the movement running with the escapement and also freely running down and call the job done but not complete.

    The clock has been pulled apart and carefully boxed with my favourite clock making tools as a project to come back to in the years to come.








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