Thread: My wooden clock movement

how does the humidity affect it?

Bob, the wood swells very slightly in humid conditions which affects the meshing of the gears and the wooden bearings. It generally keeps going but can sometimes run slow. The bearings are dry lubricated with graphite powder and run wood to wood.

Rhys H.

Hobby Horse ,Glad to see another woody having a go at making wooden geared clocks. Got several questions ,are the gears cut from plywood and were they cut out on a bandsaw or scroll saw?. Did you have full size paper pattens to work to?.
What timber did you use for the arbors and bushes?.
How much weight is needed to keep it running,and for how long?.
keep ticking Nine Fingers (john)

I don't know a thing about wooden clocks, couldn't you seal the gears/cogs with a natural oil of some type?

The clock look great, well done.

Pal

Rhys, Have you thought of soaking the timber in something so it cannot absorb moisture.?

John, I built the clock from European oak which I bought in 200 x 25 rough sawn. I made up the front and rear panels from 3ply which I made from the oak and glued with epoxy glue. The wheels, pinions etc were made from self made 5 ply oak and finished at 12mm. I cut them all out on my Hegner scroll saw and finished the teeth on a 1"x 42" vertical belt sander on which I run a 240 grit belt which I have slowed down from its original speed by changing the drive pulley.
There are paper patterns but I was reluctant to cut them up as one then has no reference point and I discovered that zerox prints are not accurate thus I made up a jig mounted on an index plate and marked the teeth out before cutting them.
The timber used throughout is oak and the arbors run in holes that have been burnished out to be slightly oversize to give clearance and are then lubricated with graphite powder. I had wanted my first clock to be on traditional lines in much the same way that they were built originally thus it is all wood. The next one will have brass bushings on the dowel arbors or perhaps brass rods.
The clock needs 5lbs to run but with a 4:1 set of pulleys it obviously has 20 lbs on it but still only 5 lbs on the weight arbor. It will run 36 hours on one wind.
I have seen your clocks on the forum and greatly admired them.

Echinada, I did try to soak some swamp kauri with a thinned epoxy and was really disappointed to see how little penetration it had. I would think that with Oak there would be very little penetration at all. As time goes by the clock is becoming less affected by the humidity as the high spots on the bearings and teeth are wearing in. The experts also recommend that the teeth are left with absolutely no finish on them and are left as bare wood which the graphite sticks to and wears in.

Thanks all for your comments.

Rhys

Hi again Rhys,
Love your tall grandfather clock.
Attached are photos of my latest clock,will be delivered this afternoon after many months of work. I was an order for a 50th birthday present.
Running time with twin weights is 85-90 hours.
still ticking nine fingers JohnAttachment 61958

Attachment 61959

John,
Congratulations on a fine job..the recipient is a very lucky person.
I think I saw in a previous post of yours that you designed the wooden movement and many questions come to mind. Timber, arbors, bushes,
escapement etc. Perhaps you could give a brief rundown on the design.
I do not imagine you are stopping your clock building now...what is your next project? For myself I have the Inclination plan from Clayton Boyer to start on when the christmas rush is over and the the shops I supply stop bothering me for a while.


Rhys

Very very nice

nine fingers, i made a grandmother clock just like that for my year 12 project (only without the wodden movement!). i would love to know hoe to do the movements... is there any books which detail the procedure ect... we had a wall mounted one that my parents got as a wedding presentbut somone broke into our house and stole it! never the less the folks were stoked when i had finished. I made mine out of solid jarrah, what is yours out of?
hobbyhorse, i love the clock mate! i would love to make one one day...... got plenty of years ahead of me so i don't think i will rush into it! happy new year everyone!
cheers steve

Steve, Thanks for the comments.
If you Google "wooden clock movements" you will come up with many sites on the internet. Two that come to mind which have free plans and are very helpful are "Garys wooden clocks" and also Brian Laws site in UK which is on www.woodenclocks.co.uk .

Cheers,
Rhys.

Rhys, Sorry about the delay answering your queries about my wooden clock.
Just about all wooden clocks have the hour and minute wheels in front of the clock workings,I think they detract from the clocks general appearance.
I'll try and explain what I done to over come this.
Working from the winding arbor,I have a 16t and a 60t fixed together but free running with the ratchet fitted to the 60t.
The 16t drives a 64t fixed to a bush which takes the hour hand ,this is free running over the minute arbor.
The 60t drives a 20t fixed to the minute arbor that revolves inside the hour bush. the rest of the working are normal wheels and pinions.
The wheels were cut from satin box I laminated ,starting at 12mm for winding wheels down to 6mm teeth for the 2nd wheel. All arbors and bushes was machined from lignum vitae, turned on a metal turning lathe.
I contacted Clayton Boyer ,regarding weights and running times of his clocks, most run for 25--30 hours with up to 7lb weight.
hope you understand nine fingers (john)

Hi Hobbyhorse,
In all of my clocks I have finished the gear teeth with same finish as the rest of the clock (1 part each Turps,Tung oil and Polyurethane). On the gears about 4-5 coats which sinks well into the face of the teeth and hardens. After each of the last 3 coats I polish the teeth with a small felt buff in a die grinder. The result is highly polished teeth which don't require any lubrication. I have found that the gear train runs much more freely after this treatment than leaving the teeth as bare wood which I have also tried. It also pays to allow the train to run a full wind a few times without the escapement to run the gears in.
I do have the advantage of cutting the teeth using a dividing head which ensures that all the teeth are precisely spaced however without careful depthing before drilling the plates and particularly without the treatment outlined above my clocks seem to be affected by atmospheric changes
and definitely do not run as well.
Cheers John

John Nine Fingers, Thanks for your information. I agree that the minute and hour wheels in front do tend to clutter the clock and your solution sounds like a good one.

John Pomare, Thanks also for your information. What you are detailing makes sense and I will adopt it on the next one I build.

Rhys