Having a go at a Boyer

[JakeS]

I called a number of high street printer to get an A0 printout costed. it was £65. Blow that for a lark.

While I would tend to agree with CheshireChappie's advice for anything precision, it's also worth looking at online poster printers and so on when pricing up large-sheet printing. The top result on a Google search for "A0 poster printing" offers a single A0 fly poster for £4.99 including delivery, unless there are some serious hidden charges somewhere.

 

[bugbear]

I don't wish to rain on anybody's parade, but here's an old engineering tip. NEVER use a printed out drawing as a template, and NEVER scale directly off a print. For something like this, which will require a fair degree of accuracy to work well, ALWAYS use the dimensions quoted on the print to mark out directly on the workpiece material.

(PS - If you have a fair bit of latitude with fitting parts together, or their relative sizes don't matter that much, the print-out template might work; I'd respectfully suggest that such latitude is unlikely in this case, even with the rather odd gear tooth profiles used.)

I agree with everything you say - in principle.

But I think these clock plans are designed to be buildable when made using the prints as templates.

They certainly ARE buildable that way, given the number of success stories and WIPs out there.

I think the working practices recommended for these clocks also call for a certain amount of heuristic checking and fitting, post cutting, which smacks more of 18th century one-off techniques, than 20th century interchangeable part techniques.

BugBear

 

[Ian down london way]

I called a number of high street printer to get an A0 printout costed. it was £65. Blow that for a lark.

While I would tend to agree with CheshireChappie's advice for anything precision, it's also worth looking at online poster printers and so on when pricing up large-sheet printing. The top result on a Google search for "A0 poster printing" offers a single A0 fly poster for £4.99 including delivery, unless there are some serious hidden charges somewhere.

And when the on-line order print arrives, and its 1% out, and you call them up, I think they will very probably say "Sorry sir, we can't guarantee zero-distortion - we print banners!

 

[JakeS]

And when the on-line order print arrives, and its 1% out, and you call them up, I think they will very probably say "Sorry sir, we can't guarantee zero-distortion - we print banners!

Oh, you're quite probably right - which is why I excluded anything 'precision'! I wouldn't be at all surprised if you got the same treatment from high-street printers as well, though.

 

[xy mosian]

I agree with everything you say Cheshire, although, in this case, bugbear raises a good point. Errors introduced by printers can be corrected, with due regard to the print medium of course. Errors introduced by sticking paper patterns down need more consideration. Ideally the pattern would need printing directly onto the final part, anything else in the process is prone to adding error. Perhaps patterns printed to some plastic film, acetate maybe, could be glued to the final material to avoid paper stretching. Then again the use of some computer guided cutting system should get rid of all errors, pattern transfer and human guided cutting.

xy

 

[Ian down london way]

Well, if only to embarrass me to finish, I've now started a WIP thread.

wip-cogitation-designed-by-clayton-boyer-t65479.html

 

[trsleigh]

Well, if only to embarrass me to finish, I've now started a WIP thread.

wip-cogitation-designed-by-clayton-boyer-t65479.html

Good man, I'll be following with great interest. =D>
Toby