Thread: Waldo’s Grandfather clock

I’m pleased to see that you are living up to your signature, we should all remember that you can’t rush quality.

Looking forward to the “blow by blow”.

G'day Waldo, thought you'd dropped off the face of the earth. Good to see you're still making sawdust.

I've really enjoyed the read so far, thanks Waldo.

Can you finish it before everyone in the world has been vaccinated?

Originally Posted by Wongo

Can you finish it before everyone in the world has been vaccinated?

Bwahahahahaha

AlexS, no mate I hadn't dropped off. Just been busy creating other mancaves and building a greenhouse for my plants, as one of my escape rooms. Bob, I was wondering who'd be the first to make reference to my signature. Wongo, just go back to your corner mate and watch the show.

If all works out I've been able to attach a zipped copy of the grandfather clock in Sketchup for anyone who might be interested (created with Sketchup Pro 2018)

Grandfather Clock 2019 copy.skp.zip

So the last several days I've been looking at the grain of the timber and working out what I'm using and where and jointing an edge on all the slabs so I can dimension stuff up.

Today I started with the top rail to the chassis frame. After using the template to trace the rail onto the stock I then ran it threw my new toy, an 18" Harvey Ambassador C18 bandsaw from Gregory Machinery (it purrs like a kitten).
Then the scary moment I was dreading, putting it through the router with out a fence and using a pin to guide the stock in. Previously I used a nasty huge Whiteside bit from PWS, and last time I used it I got massive kickback off it. So a while ago now I contacted Grahame at PWS and organised a Whiteside compression bit off him.

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I had my heart in my mouth doing this, but the bit is so smooth and great going uphill and downhill with the grain that it was such an easy experience (spinning things in a router table scare the hell out of me, especially the first time I use a great big nasty bit. After a small run in with the stock against the bit I removed the pin.

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After then marking the rails etc for the frame for dominoing, I was ready to run the Domino over for the loose tenons.

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It was then time for my first glue up for the clock, after which I celebrated a hard earnt thirst with a nice golden ale. My assembly table has got a bit of clutter on it so I'll have to tidy the damn thing up and just keep the essentials on it.

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Next up I'll continue working on the left and right gable frames.

Jigs make my life easy. With 7 hinges: 2 per side door to the movement, either side; 3 hinges to the door; and only 10 minutes to make for a simple jig, they make my life easier when things are repeated.

There is a lot of pre-work to be done to the gable frames before I start thinking about any assembly and the days I've spent in Sketchup have been invaluable as I've taken the initial plans and tailored them to my own taste - along with the many hours on YouTube watching McGuires Clocks.

The hinges are sourced from Grahame Brown Antiques. I could only get the bent flap hinges in an English antique bronze, not the polished brass I was hoping for. I then bought some polished brass hinges from CMI-Hermel in Brisbane, where the Hermel clock movement comes from, but when they arrived they were so bent out of shape it wasn't funny, so I've gone back to the original ones from Grahame Brown.

The shots below tell the simple story.

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Tommorow I'll:

• measure out the placement of the door hinges for the front chassis frame assembly, route the rabbets;
• route the right and left gable frames to accept the back panel; and
• mark the gable frames and front chassis frame for dominoing.

The next part of the getting the left and right gable frames and front chassis frame ready is to measure and mark out where the tongue for the locks will need to go.

Due to the hinges that I'm using, the doors will overlap the frames by 4mm and so I sat down to work out what that means with the lock, it's keyhole and the door knob. Add to that that I'll be running a profile to accept the glass in the front door and floating panels in the side doors on the inside edges of the doors, the outside edge will have the profile that you see in the shots below.

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I chose little cabinet knob (above) as I wanted to it to be unobtrusive and have a degree of finesse about it. I ran into the problem that the keyhole brings it very close to the edge profile and too close that I can't use the knob whatyercallit that sits behind the knob (below), as it goes past the face of the stile and over the profile.

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I then measured the placement of the lock in the doors and marked the tongue from my dummy to the frame edge. I said earlier that I like jigs, so I made up a simple jig to route the striker plate.

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So you lot, that's the update for today.

Sometimes it takes a heck of a lot of work to seemingly get no where, then you have a day when you get no where because you bugger up and mis-calculate a measurement, that happened last Saturday when I dimensioned the floating panels for the left and right gable sides, spent a day routing them all up. Only to come back on Sunday when I did a dry fit and saw my stuff up.

So I had had to start the floating panels all over again.

So with the big nasty panel raising bit back in the router table I started out again. This thing scares the carp of of me, because of its size and the big gapping hole in the router lift with it in. Needless to say I have a very strict way I approach when I'm using the router table and that means my eyes are always glued on the router bit and I have a very set way I make sure the stock is well clear of the bit, hold it there, watch the bit and with my right hand hit the switch to turn the thing off, wait for it to stop spinning before I move the stock away from the table.

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With the raised panel routed, I then get the rabbet bit to do the rabbet on the underside of the panel so that it will fit into the rail and stiles of the gable sides.

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I had the timber for each gable side nicely figured out, but my stuff up with the panels meant I had to recut them. I was going to leave the timber below for something else in the clock, but it has some nice fiddleback in it that I decided to use it for the right gable side. This way I leave the really nice timber for the components that you'll see most.

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With the panels redone, I did a dry fit of one of the gable sides to have a look at things before I started the next phase of doing a half glue up of the left gable side. I always use chalk to mark on the timber which side things go and the grain direction. For any stock that runs horizontal I run the grain left to right and anything that is vertical, I run the grain down (in the shot below you'll notice I've got the larger panel running the wrong way, if you look at the arrow marked on it), using this method I know when it comes to applying the finish I know which way I'm rubbing on and off (wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off... - watching the Karate Kid all those years ago paid off).

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Happy with the dry fit, today was about sanding from 240 down to 1500 on the the routed profile of one stile and the straight edges and profiles of the rails where I wouldn't be able to get to once they were glued. To make my life easier I've started by gluing up one half of the left gable end so that it'll be easier to insert the floating panels and then do the second glue up to the gable side.

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Tomorrow I'll sand the right stile profile, the floating panels and do the final glue up of the gable side and do it all again for the right gable side.

If anyone can remember back when I built that great big cabinet, when I was doing the floating panels I first put flyscreen rubber in the rails and stiles so that the floating panels would be nicely held secure (with room for movement) so that overtime as they might settle they wouldn't end up being lopsided.

So I'm doing the same again for the grandfather clock.

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With that done I then glued up the gable side. To get to that glue up, I first sanded everything down to 1,500 grit.

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Today was a major step forward being able to glue up the front chassis and gable sides.

Glue ups stress the hell out of me, it's one of those times that if things start to go wrong, you can hear me shouting in the shed down the other end of the street (something which SWMBO is always telling me).

I had moment when the neighbourhood would've heard me, I was running some timber through the thicknesser this arvo and I didn't take much notice of a daggy bit on one end which had a crack running through it. It was just about to come out of the thicknesser, when the corner on the end gave way and parted company (it was a good size chunk about 24mm thick) instead of getting spat out it got caught in either the head and the rollers, making the machine take a big lurch to one side with a big bang. I thought I'd killed the trusty beast. I took the cover off and a few other things and couldn't see any damage. Next thing after putting it back together was to turn it on and see what happened next. Thankfully the damn thing growled back into life, so I shoved a big long wide board into its throat and continued to thickness it down.

I've taken some of the stress out by using Titebond's Hide Glue which gives me a bit longer air time and is very easy to come back and clean up the excess glue.

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As I began to start on the next section of the g/clock I took a while to lean and ponder and sort out what timber I have left and layout some of the templates I'll be using...

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I thought I'd have some timber left over, but I soon realised this arvo that I'm a bit short, so I'll be putting the trailer on the back of the car and heading off to Matthew's Timber this Saturday to get some more Fijian Mahogany.

Is that Great Grandfather Clock finished yet?

I still have a pack of Mulga box making boards stickered & strapped in one of my containers for you from about 8 years ago, should be dry now.

G’day Cliff,

No. Mr Wongo said I can’t finish until everyone’s vaccinated.

Is it that long since I won that Mulga in the Free Prize Draw? You could always send it down. I was up there 2 years ago, but I didn’t get out to the tablelands.