# All Wood Skeleton Clock Build - WIP



## strider (28 Apr 2010)

Hi All, Love the site.
I am just embarking on a new project.
I have spent the last few years making pens and smaller items for friends family and customers, but i figured that it was time to test some new skills.

I have had the plans for the David Bryant All Wood Skeleton Clock for about 4 years now and have just not had the courage to start the build.

Well i have decided that it is time.

I do have my own website that I will be post the progress on but I will also try to keep this forum up to date aswell.

If you want to check out my site and maybe sign my guest book then goto my profile and follow the links to my site.

If you would like to see that start of my build also then goto my profile and follow the links on my site.

Anyway. If you have any tips or suggestions about the best way for me to approach this the let me know.

Nick


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## strider (28 Apr 2010)

OK, So the picture above is going to be my next project. the clock is Designed by David Bryant and is made entirley of wood. Wood? I hear you say. Well yes. I have to cut all of the gears by hand and manufacture all of the dials and, well, everything from wood. 

On this page you will be able to track my progress and leave me comments and, or suggestions.

I hope that you enjoy watching me suffer as I embark on this mamoth undertaking.


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## big soft moose (28 Apr 2010)

strider":1x7cuz9n said:


> .



your picture is stuck in the spam trap - it goes away after three posts


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## strider (28 Apr 2010)

Thanks for the update. I thought i had done somthing wrong.


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## strider (28 Apr 2010)

OK. I have read throgh the plans and i think that I can make this work. They are a little confusing, as there appears to be about 50 gears to cut out by hand with a coping saw. Blimey i thought to myself. I may have to rethink this. Gears with 60 teeth all by hand. Erm No. Time to tap up the internet. Foound myself a scroll saw from Axminster for £55 delivered. Excellent. That should save me some time.


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## strider (28 Apr 2010)

Right then, onto the build. I think that i have everything that i need.
Scroll Saw - Should be delivered today. So Check
Plans. Oh so many plans, Check




Stock Pile of wood that I can mill to the required sizes. Check




If you have any words of encouragement then feel free to leave me a comment. I don't think that this is going to be quick but stick with it.
thanks for looking.


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## Dibs-h (28 Apr 2010)

Skeleton clocks do look so nice - not wood, but I do think a metal one would be nice too. Laser cut - sod doing it by hand!


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## big soft moose (28 Apr 2010)

Dibs-h":1fdmfi7n said:


> Laser cut - sod doing it by hand!



or cnc router maybe

mind you that said you can buy skeleton mechanisms from axminster, stiles and bates etc , so if you arent going to do it by hand it might make as much sense to just buy the mech and build the housing


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## woodsworth (28 Apr 2010)

looks like quite a challenge keep us updated. I've been looking at a few of these clocks, but wouldn't know where to put it, so i opted not to embark on a build. I will watch with great interest. thanks for sharing


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## Harbo (28 Apr 2010)

A bit similar to the one I am making - but in brass and steel:






Good luck!


Rod


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## dannykaye (28 Apr 2010)

anyone know if gear hobbing works on wood? if so a dividing head and a hobbing cutter might make for an easier way to go


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## strider (29 Apr 2010)

Thanks for all of the great comments so far.

Really happy. The scroll Saw that i ordered arrived and I am really happy with it. I have yet to have a go, which will then tell me if it was worth my while buying it. If anyone has any newbie scroll saw tips that would be great. I have had a quick scout through the scroll saw forum, seems to be loads of good advise on there.

I did notice that the insert plate is a little low, but having looked at the scroll saw forum i see that i can just raise that a little with some tape.

Any how. here is a picture of the unboxed scroll saw.






I need to clean the grease of off the table, but then i should be good to go.


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## miles_hot (29 Apr 2010)

good luck with this and thanks for sharing the WIP - looks like a pretty serious challenge but it'll be great when you've done it!

If some of the gears will be the same size would a router / lathe combination work - produce the outside shape and then cut off the gears to the correct thickness?

Miles


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## strider (29 Apr 2010)

I have thought about that. I think that I will use a router trammel to get the outside dimension of the gears and then cut the teeth on the scroll saw.

I have a great pdf of a router trammel it you want it, let me know and i will post a link to it.


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## wobblycogs (29 Apr 2010)

Good luck with the build. 

I've only skim read the thread so far but I thought I'd share my experiences. I starting making one about 10 years ago as my first serious piece of woodwork. I was a very poor student back then so I had to cut all the pieces by hand with a cheap coping saw. I got to the point of assembling it and found that my accuracy wasn't quite what it could have been and the gears wouldn't run smoothly. I could turn them by hand but they would lock up occasionally. Much sanding later and they ran more freely but it was clear they would never run completely smoothly and had to be remade. At that point it got consigned to a box where it's sat ever since  

One thing I would recommend is lubricating the axles with graphite from a very soft pencil. Made a world of difference to how free running my gears were. Making sure the axle and socket has no play in it is important too. I had to drill mine with a hand drill which wasn't good enough. I'd recommend a hard wood for the axles too if you can get it.


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## Harbo (29 Apr 2010)

Dannykaye wrote


> anyone know if gear hobbing works on wood? if so a dividing head and a hobbing cutter might make for an easier way to go



There was a gentleman demoing just that at the Midlands ME show last year.
Cannot remember his name but he is quite famous in Clock Making circles and written several books on wooden gear clocks.

Rod


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## StevieB (29 Apr 2010)

Just stumbled across this thread - I have the same plans sitting somewhere, just waiting for a moment when I can knock one up 8-[ Will be interested in how you gget on, might even give me a boot up the backside to get on and start mine!

Steve


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## xy mosian (29 Apr 2010)

Funny I thought there was a post from bugbear in here somewhere, mentioning Harrison.

Ah well. For what it's worth, I have an X-ray image, in a book, of a sixty tooth Harrison gear. In that he has set sixteen un-equal segments, with radial grain, into a deep groove in the edge of his wheel before cutting the teeth. The tooth shape does not bare much relationship to a modern gear tooth shape as far as I can tell. The space between teeth at the root seems quite wide being similar to the height of the teeth. Sides of the teeth appear to be parallel and the tops roughly semi-circular.

From other experience I have seen mill gear teeth inserted separately into the edge of a wheel. I wonder if a wheel could be produced with short radial slots each fitted with a slightly longer length of long grain hard wood to form the teeth. That would eliminate a great deal of work and provide teeth of maximum strength.

HTH

xy


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## strider (1 May 2010)

There was a post mentioning harrison. Oddly, the magazine article that inspired me to build this clock (the woodworker, April 2005) mentioned this. I have scaned the article and place a link to it here. It may take a while to download as it is about 10mb. I will post the link in my next post.

I have some updates to put up anyhow.

All about little things called gears. Hopefully should be posted by the end of today.
:shock:


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## strider (1 May 2010)

OK. So I have finally started woodworking, Got my scroll saw, and some new blades.

Decided on 2x3mm pieces of stock glued togetherfor the gears (we will see how that turns out. https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/gluing-end-grain-t41339.html) Glued the patterns onto the face of each gear. Had a cup of team while the glue dried and watched an episode of the new yankee workshop. Yay Norm  







Once the glue had dried it was time for my first attempt at scroll sawing. Not as easy as i expected. Thankfully i have made enough gears that I coud use 1 as a practice.

At this point i realised the I would need to make a zero clearance insert for the table. I amde a quick on on the lathe out of mdf. Not brilliant, so i will make another one, that I a little more accurate.

Once that was complete I managed to get 4 out of the 5 small gears that I had prepared cut.






They need quite alot more sanding, but so far so good.

Let me know what you think


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## strider (4 May 2010)

Good morning to all, and i hope you have a great bank holiday. I got a fair amount of work done on the clock over the weekend. I finished cutting all of the smaller gears out, all of which are yet to be sanded.







This meant that I could then move onto some of the larger parts. The first of which ended up being the Brocot Escape Wheel. the first thing that I had to do was to thickness plane some stock down to the 10mm required. I chose a nice pice from my stock pile. (Not sure whaat the wood is, but it is very yellow, maybe someone could shed some light on it)

Once i had the stock to the required thickness, i had to cut it and glue it so that I had no grain running across the teeth.






Once the glue had setup, overnight. I stuck on the template,






Once the glue on the template had dried it was off to the bandsaw and scroll saw, for a good couple of hours cutting.






I am happy with how this gear has turned out. It was alot of work but i think that taking the time to make sure it is right will enhance the final appearance of the clock.

So now that gear was cut I have a little offcut of the same material that I can use for another part of the clock. The Anchor Plate.






This part sits above the Brocot Wheel. So I think that I will be nice to have them made from the same material.

Let me know what you think.


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## motownmartin (4 May 2010)

Excellent thread, i've always wanted to see one of these made, I would imagine the gears will have to be cut with precision.

Does it matter what species of wood you use, do some woods move more than others, I don't know, just a queery.


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## miles_hot (4 May 2010)

bloody good work with the jigsaw there - the big gear looks almost computer generated it's so well done 

Miles


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## strider (6 May 2010)

Sneaked an hour in the shed last night. Got the anchor plate drilled, cut and sanded.






Also, i have uploaded the magazine article that inspired me to build the clock in the first place.

It may take a little while to download as the file is a 10mb PDF. I scanned it from the April 2005 Woodworker magazine that I subscribe to.

http://www.stridershouse.co.uk/clockbuild/WoodenSkeletonClock.pdf

Hope you enjoy the article as much as I do.


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## strider (6 May 2010)

Oh, forgot to say motownmartin,

I am not sure if there are certain woods that you should use. I am using hardwood as that is what I have, I belive that most people would use a high grade ply wood then veneer it, but at the end of the day I think that if the stock is prepared and dried properly then it should be ok. I will let you know if I get any odd movement from the wood.

Strider


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## xy mosian (20 May 2010)

Fascinating thread Strider, any more progress?

xy


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## strider (27 May 2010)

OK, apologies for the lack of progress lately. Been a bit busy with work, but I did manage to grab a little (well a whole day) quality shed time.

Got quite alot of work done. got the frames cut and sanded, (not without a great deal of hassle)

I went to a local printers and got the A1 plans duplicated, so that I could cut the templates out and glue them onto the wood and cut round them.

Never has the old addage (measure twice, cut once) come into play more so with what happened next.

I had got the paper templates cut out ready and I got my wood blanks prepared for the frames, when i thought that I would just check my measurements. The frame dimensions state 270mm. However, upon measuring the plans they were comning in at a little over 255mm. 

Not good i thought to my self. So off to sketchup land i went for a good few hours or re drawing the plans for the frame. You can download my sketchup diagram from http://www.stridershouse.co.uk/clockbuild/skeletonclock.skp if you want to have a look.

I printed them out at 1 for 1 scale and then painstakingly spliced them all together.






Then I carefully drew round the template onto my blank and then proceeded to cut out the first frame. Once this was done i attached the 2 blanks together and with a template bit installed in my router table i made the 2 frames.






This gave me 2 identically sized frames. Now i have to scroll saw the middles out.






Once all of the middles were cut then it was time for some (alot) of sanding. this took a fair while but I am very happy with the result.

The cherry looks amazing.






Both of the frames now look the same. So from here it is onto the 2 remaining gears to be cut.

Again i did not want to have and grain running across the teeth, so alot of cutting and gluing 

I have to make 2 of these but the process is the same for both. I cut 8 little triangles and then glues them into 4 squares of 2.






Then the 4 block of 2 were then glued into 2 block of 4.






Those observant among you will notice that I have glued the wrong sides. these have yet to be cut apart and reglued.

Oh well. That is where i am up to at the moment, apart from the blank that I have glued up for the ratchet mechanism.






let me know what you think.


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## strider (2 Jun 2010)

Got some work done this week. Got the frames all sorted and made the frame pillars. I made some changes to the
frame as i was not happy with the top circle. So in true woodworker fashion i chopped it off. In the plans it says the the frame is supposed to look like the eifle tower. I think it does a bit more now.











Now that I am happy with the shape i can move along to some other bits.

First on the agenda are the Frame Pillars. I wanted to do somthing a little bit different with these. At the International Woodworking Exhibition at the Ally Pally back in february or march, i bought the new Robert Sorby Spiralling tool.






Time to have a go in anger with this tool. I am really happy with the results that I managed to achieve with this. Took a little while but i think that you will agree that the results speak for them selves.






These are made out of solid Mahogany.

Next thing to do was to shape them so that they looked a little more refined.






I had to drill 13mm holes in the frames to accept the 13mm tenons on the end of the turnings. Once all 3 parts were turned and holes drilled it was time for the first dry fit.






With the dry fit complete I glued the frames pillars into the back of the frame and set them aside to dry.






I think that this is acctually starting to look like somthing now, not just a pile of parts.


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## gasmansteve (2 Jun 2010)

Looking good Nick, love what you have done with the spiralling tool must get one of those :lol: 
Regards
Steve


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## RussianRouter (3 Jun 2010)

Hi Strider

What a poject you have taken on here,you must have the patience of a saint...either that or a lot of time on your hands. :lol: 

Its looking real good and the only comment I would make is to get all those cog teeth splinter free as like any real brass cogs if there's any burs on the cog then this will interfere with its smooth running.

Fantastic progress. =D>


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## mike-reid (8 Jun 2010)

this is such an amazing project! you must be very satisfied so far with the effort you have put into it!
cant wait to see the finished clock


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## strider (9 Jun 2010)

indeed i am very happy so far. Had a day off of work yesterday and got loads more done. I will post all of the pics and the progress tomorow or maybe this evening.

thanks for the comments.


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## mike-reid (9 Jun 2010)

I DONT SUPPOSE YOU MADE A COPY OF THE PLANS BEFORE YOU BUTCHERED THEM UP?


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## strider (9 Jun 2010)

Hi there. As it happens i did but to be honets they are only about £12 to buy.

Go here

http://www.myhobbystore.co.uk/product/15070/all-wood-skeleton-clock-db3335/?source=2

these are the exact plans that i bought.

hope you get some and build a clock. Mine has tought me alot so far. 

More Pics coming soon.


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## mike-reid (10 Jun 2010)

cheers mate, im on it! not likely it'll be as good as yours, i will be doing the lot by hand. 
i think i will defo do this as my main show piece for my business, it would be a real conversation starter with customers i think


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## strider (22 Jun 2010)

Got alot of work on the clock done recently. 

To start with I had to make both of the chapter rings. It only took me about 3 attempts to get it right. I tried all sorts of ways to make it. cutting 22.5 degree miters, This worked but then i had no way to make the shape 
perfectly round. Then i made it up from sections, but this left me the same problem as before. So bascially I thickness planned tome stock down to 10mm and then jointed the edges. Made up a blank and then user the router table to cut the circles. This worked very well and enabled me to get both of the chapter rings from 1 blank.

This is the main chapter ring.





This is the seconds chapter ring.





Once these were both cut I hade to turn 7 little posts for the chapter rings to be mounted on.

I hope that you agree that the chapter rings witrh their grain running at 90 degrees to the frames look rather nice.






OK. Now i have to get back to cutting the remaining gears. These took a while and I now have the task of sanding all of the teeth perfectly smooth. I bought my self a small set of files for this.

60 tooth gear.





64 tooth gear.





Now that all of the gears are cut (yet to be sanded) I suppose that I should turn the shafts to put them on.

this is the first shaft.






I had to get the thicker part of the shaft to 13mm and the thinner part to 8mm. 

I remembered watching a New Yankee episode once, where Norm said. the best way to make sure that your tenons are the right size is you use a spanner. Ok i thought. lets try that. Out with a 13mm and 8mm spanner and started to turn.

Blimey i thought when i had finished the turning that acctually works really well.

so now it was onto putting the clock together again.


















And these are the shots of where i am at currently.

Hope you are all enjoying this build.


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## mike-reid (22 Jun 2010)

holy s$$t that is impressive.
i really am blown away by this project. truely a work of love that!!


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## Steve Maskery (22 Jun 2010)

I stayed with my uncle this last weekend, in Wiltshire. He has built this same clock, mahogany and box, and used PTFE for the bearings. It only stops when the weight hits the floor and keeps perfect time.

Not bad for an 85-year-old who didn't take up woodwork until he was 80!

S


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## strider (22 Jun 2010)

Awsome. Did you take any pics?

I was wondering how i was going to lubricate the shafts and what have you.

Strider


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## Steve Maskery (22 Jun 2010)

No, I should have done.
S


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## Dalboy (22 Jun 2010)

A great project and well worth the effort. Keep up the good work

Found these a little while back http://www.woodenclocks.co.uk/downloads.htm hope they might be of use to someone


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