All Wood Skeleton Clock Build - WIP

[strider]

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

 

[strider]

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.

 

[big soft moose]

.

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

 

[strider]

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

 

[strider]

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.

 

[strider]

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.

 

[Dibs-h]

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!

 

[big soft moose]

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

 

[woodsworth]

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

 

[Harbo]

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

Good luck!


Rod

 

[dannykaye]

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

 

[strider]

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.

 

[miles_hot]

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

 

[strider]

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.

 

[wobblycogs]

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.

 

[Harbo]

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

 

[StevieB]

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

 

[xy mosian]

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

 

[strider]

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:

 

[strider]

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