Thread: My wooden clock movement

The wooden clock pictured at the start of this thread worked just fine for about 5 months during which time we in New Zealand had a drought and the atmosphere was very dry, however, the rains did come again and the clock stopped as a result of the high humidity. In frustration I finally took it all to pieces again and set up each arbour in the lathe and polished the bearing surfaces between two ice cream sticks lubricated with graphite. I maintained the pressure on for perhaps a minute and kept plenty of graphite on the surfaces. This polished the ends nicely and on reassembly of the clock it ran very well. We have just had a very wet couple of days and it managed to keep going through all of that.

I would not make a wood to wood bearing again but will try using brass sleeves on the arbour ends to get a better performance. I would also use Pomare's system of turps/tung oil/polyurethane on the wheels.

Rhys H.