Ship's Wheel Clock

[brianhabby]

Not sure if this should be here or over on the spinny section but it's a project so I guess it really belongs here. Anyway, it might finish up fitting in the 'Past Mistakes' section before I've finished

This is what I have in mind, or at least something like it:

It's my daughter's birthday in May and she's always had a penchant for things with a nautical theme and since there are almost no clocks in her house, I thought a clock inside a ship's wheel might be a good idea. Trouble is I'm really only a novice turner so may screw it up.

The clock that I have is about 120mm diameter so by my reckoning the size of the outer diameter excluding the handles should be about 320mm. However, my lathe (A Draper WT90) has a limit of 300mm, so that pretty much determines the size.

I've never turned anything of this size before but decided to have a go - might finish up with more fire wood - we'll see. This is my blank of 2" thick chestnut: You can see my careful design work on the face

I had to make it as round as possible on the bandsaw before I could start otherwise the corners would catch on the lathe bed:

Here it is mounted on the lathe:

Being a bit apprehensive about such a large piece of spinning timber, I brought the tail stock up for extra support:

After some careful work I had turned it to a cylinder and trued up the face:

That's where I got up to today. I am planning to cut the two circles from the same piece so the grain will match. I will have to drill holes for the handles to fit into and am thinking that maybe that should be done before cutting the circles to ensure all the holes line up. Not sure how I'm going to drill the holes yet, my lathe doesn't have an indexing facility.

I've got to think about how to turn the handles so they are all identical, not sure how to go about doing that either :?

That's it for now, stay tuned for the next episode

regards

Brian

 

[Bradshaw Joinery]

looks to be a interesting project!!

im no wood turner, but to help keep the handles all the same, you could score or guage the lengths between the decorations and the mounting sleeves with a caliper?

 

[brianhabby]

I've been struggling a bit to get both sides of the disk perfectly parallel and am at a stage where I think they are as good as I'm going to get them. I've been picking the brains of those on the turning section for help with this but also with the handles.

That's my next job, to turn eight identical handles. Once the handles are turned I will then be able to mark out the rings on the disk properly.

So until next time . . .

regards

Brian

 

[brianhabby]

Here's the handles I turned today:

I clamped a sample behind the lathe to help keep me focused while turning them:

Next job is to line up for drilling the holes in the main piece.

Stay tuned...

regards

Brian

 

[brianhabby]

Bit of an update...

After a lot of head scratching I decided that to drill the holes for the handles accurately would require a jig and this is what I came up with:

The drill is hot glued to a piece of wood and then slides between two scraps into the blank which is clamped in place. I first drilled the 20mm holes with a forstner bit followed by 12mm holes. Then it was back to the lathe to do this:

I glued the dowels in place with a small amount of PVA at the outer end. I wasn't sure how I was going to get them out at this stage but read on to see what happened. I glued the dowels in place after cutting the circles but before going all the way through. The idea is that when I break through the dowels will hold everything together so the outer ring doesn't get damaged.

As it turned out, when I was cutting through from the other side, my parting tool caught one of the dowels and dislodged everything enough to make removing the dowels easy but not enough to cause any damage so it worked out just fine.

Eventually I finished up with this:

My grandson, Dale wanted to keep the middle bit - he though it made a cool UFO - but I hadn't finished with it

You can see a bit of a lip on the inside of the outer ring in the above photo which is a result of cutting through from two sides and not lining up perfectly. Although not perfect, it was very close and easily cleaned up on my oscillating spindle sander:

Next it was back to the lathe to finish the smaller ring - and that was when I had a dig in. I'm not sure if it was my enthusiasm, the wrong lathe speed, or a blunt gouge but I had a dig in that took a chunk out of the piece:

I suspect it was a blunt gouge if I'm honest - a lesson learned there. Fortunately, I was able to glue the bit back in the piece and continue until I had the smaller circle cut.

I was eager to get a feel for how the clock was going to look and this is it so far:

I'm really pleased with how this project is working out. The next job it to part off the handles and then put it all together.

Until next time...

regards

Brian

 

[marcros]

its coming along nicely Brian.

 

[brianhabby]

After turning the two rings I had to finish the outer holes for the handles. Although started at 20mm they were finished to 12 mm to fit the dowels in so it was time to go back to the drilling jig. To try to avoid breakout on the inside of the outer ring I turned another, sacrificial, ring from MDF as a backing piece. It worked okay but there was still a little bit of breakout - cheap forstner bit I suspect :x

After a dry fit to check everything was going to line up it was time to finish it and this is the finished piece hanging on my daughter's wall:

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out - and so is my daughter

regards

Brian

 

[dedee]

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out

Pun intended I hope

Nice piece and plenty of ingenuity to boot

Andy

 

[brianhabby]

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out

Pun intended I hope

Nice piece and plenty of ingenuity to boot

Andy

Never occured to me but well spotted

Thanks for the comments

regards

Brian

 

[No skills]

Was wondering how this project was going the other day, nice to see it finished - lot of thought gone into making it =D>

 

[pip1954]

i love the clock but there is something about the wood work but it still looks very nice
=D> well done
pip

 

[marcros]

i like it, but would prefer the grain in the rings to go 9 o'clock 3 o'clock. Good work though, well done.

 

[doorframe]

This one is definitely going on my ever growing To-Do list. Well done Brian =D>

I wonder what Rico would have made it out of?? :lol:

Roy

 

[brianhabby]

i like it, but would prefer the grain in the rings to go 9 o'clock 3 o'clock. Good work though, well done.

I agree marcros but the breakout I mentioned is what determined its orientation - it is at 6:00 o'clock.

I wonder what Rico would have made it out of?? :lol:

Roy

Knowing Rico he would probably have found an original ship's wheel

regards

Brian