Thread: My Wooden geared clock

Originally Posted by 1964deano

The most telling picture is the last; it shows the rather generous gaps their are between the joints.

Wouldn't a little bit of tweeking have fixed up the gap issue? I think it would have looked great if you were able to succeed with this.

Cheers

No....although I was very keen to make this approach work, I dont think tweeking would fix that. I also dont like the heavy look the completed wheel would have. Futher the final design I have come up with will be light. The weight of the handwheel is an issue in that it forms part of the gear train and such is turning all the time along with the hands and thus needs to be light.

Dean.

Hi all here is my partially finished handwheel.I really like the light feel I have achieved here. It is 300mm in diameter compared to my timing wheel which is 266mm.


Still have to cut out the bearing recess and the three bolts holes that bolt it to the drum and ratchet. The numerous hex holes are to be filled in with purpleheart and fixed with a 4mm torx head which will be countersunk.
This will happen hopefully in the next 4 weeks.
cheers

Dean.

Hi all here is a quick update...have finally finished the handwheel and here are the results.cheers

Dean.

Looks good Dean. Fits in nicely with the rest of the clock.

Hi all here is some progress I have made despite having inflamed a disc in my lower back by sitting too much. Just to top it off, the drum sander spat out my finished pendulum head on the final pass into a brick wall! So i had to re-make it. At least the new one doesnt hace burn marks! Hopefully i will re-assemble this weekend. Dean.

Dean

Dean this is an amazing evolution!!

How many hours do you think you have put into this?

Hi Artme ...not quite sure around 3 yearsish on and off. Its hards to say. Hopefully this week i will start to finalise the electronics and the pendulum set up if my back behaves...

Dean.

Finally I made some progress today after my back has settled down some more. The pendulum that was held together with gaffer tape is now held together with 6 self tapping torx head screws. I also made a magnet housing that has a 1/4 npt thread so that i can screw the pendulum rod into the housing so that it is nice and tight. Cant wait to put it all together and contine with the testing.
Dean.

Got up early this morning after time trialling my clock only to find that clock had stopped. Both ropes are gagging on the pauls bolt heads so its off to garage to do a quick counterboard on the drill press. Have also recently converted from battery to mains power! I have used a 6V 800Ma transformer.I can now see how the final housing shape might look like.
Last night I finally decided to try inserting the second circuit in my design. With my clock, my dream is to reduce the weight to 4kgs from 10kgs...so far so good. I plan to use 1 circuit to do the pushing (hereafter called C1) and keep time within 5%; so far so good (almost). When I turned on the second circuit (c2) had to adjust C1 down to stop the pendulum over stroking. I then pushed the bob progressively up to get the time within 5%. We will see how the timing goes for a couple of hours this morning and report the findings back later. Love that hand wheel for wing up the weights!
happy long weekend alll....
cheers Dean.

Hi all here is my progress over the last week in pictures......its keeping time I like that in a clock!


Dean.

Hi
I am finally onto the design of the hands of my clock. These have been the hardest element to design so far. I have drawn inspiration form hands on watches and have taken a particular liking to these hands from a Breitling moonbrilliant detora watch as pictured below. I have come up with these two designs also below. They are a simple design and I will have to see if they suit my clockface when i make them. They will be made from purplheart (eventually) and have an ally insert in the hole which will be highly polished. I will be making the prototypes on Wednesday. cheers
Dean.

For a first design I love the result! The second hand needs some mods but otherwise I think they are a keeper. What do you think? Feedback welcome. The finance committee has already requested that the tip of the minute hand not cover the numbers and the hour hand be a little shorter.



cheers...

Dean.

Hi all another day another set of clock hands! Below are the latest and hopefully final hand iterations They are a little smaller but not quiet sure whether they get lost in the overall size of the dial.
Time will tell( ha ha) Dean. Ps does someone know how to make the pics show side by side and thus smaller?