A lot has been made since I posted the gears and frame a couple weeks ago. Most noticeable is the decorative piece of frame that's been added to the lower left side. With this piece the shape of the clock seen in the drawing is starting to emerge. Also complete, is the pendulum, hanger, escape pallets, and arbor for the great wheel. The whole train is set now. If I hang the clock on the wall, I can swing the pendulum, gently push on the first wheel of the train, and keep the clock ticking!

Pretty soon, I can start making the chain, which brings up another interesting part that I just completed Read More...

Over the last nine or ten months, I've taken a break from the marathon creation of mechanical clocks, and enjoyed the more instant gratification of the motorized pieces. These have been a great way to explore some visual ideas, and give people a slice of my world for a tenth of the cost. It's also been awhile since I've heard a new clock tick for the first time, and No.6 has been sparsely visited since I began working on it. It's time to get lost in the shop again, and this next onslaught of creation will be all about the gears. Read More...

After about a month and a half of making quartz clocks, and a show in NY, it's time to get back to work on the mechanical clock.

Machining pinions is my next step toward the completion of No.6. A pinion is really nothing more than a small gear. If the gear that a pinion is meshing with has six times as many teeth, that means the pinion is working six times as hard, and has to endure six times as much wear. Because of this, the leaves ( teeth ) of a pinion must be made of hardened steel. There are two basic types of pinions that can be used, both of which work quite well. The first, referred to as a 'solid style' pinion, is cut from a piece of steel round stock. The setup for this method is almost identical to that used to cut the larger gears. The other type, pictured on the left, is called a lantern pinion. These are made of brass, and have hardened steel pins fixed between the flanges. These pins act as the teeth. I prefer this style of pinion. The hardened steel pins can withstand a lot of wear, and I think the look of them is very interesting.

Here's a few pictures of the setup and process. Read More...

This is a short entry to let everyone know I've added larger files to the gallery. Now when you click on the picture to the right of the thumbnails, a higher res version pops up.

Also, the show in the Hamptons went GREAT! One of my mechanicals sold, and the overall experience was nothing but positive. The work will remain hanging for a week, so when it's all wrapped up, I'll post the details.

Whenever new things are attempted, problems inevitably present themselves, making the first of every breed take much longer than the ones that followed. This piece needed to be finished for a gallery opening, which I'm leaving for on the 14th of this month. I'm not sure why I decided to start trying things a few weeks before my first show, but thankfully, everything worked out. This is my seventh quartz piece, but the first to incorporate handmade, working gears with a motor. It's a hybrid clock that brings the best of two worlds.

Enjoy! Read More...

When I first started cutting gears four years ago, I hadn't even heard of the term 'steampunk'. Part of my concept was to create pieces that looked like relics from a fantastic world that never existed. I wanted to see the artisan craft of clockmaking forced well outside its boundaries of tradition, and the visual put before the practical or functional. These concepts happen to have much in common with the world of steampunk; and congruently, so does my work. I make it a point to visually go wherever my sketchbook leads me. In this case, it landed me in a group show, alongside some of the most talented steampunk artists around. I can't think of a better reason to visit New York for the first time! Read More...

With its distressed kitikata rice paper, and the eye catching magnifiers on the hands, No.5 has drawn quite a lot of attention since its completion eight months ago. This piece reliably ticked away in my room, and will now do the same in a new environment, as No.5 has been sold! While I'd like to hold on to the mechanical clocks that I've spent so much time on, I welcome the empty spot on my wall. I have a lot of ideas waiting, and they're going to need a nail to hang on.

Larger pic. Read More...

For the web appearance of Quartz No.6, there's good news and bad news. On the positive side, I feel that this piece was a visual success. I'm happy with the overall design, I like the raised details on the face, and I'm happy with the way this paper weathered around the edges. What's unfortunate, is that this clock won't help with my goal of getting more items in my online shop. For anyone who was awaiting a new piece to purchase, I'm afraid you'll have to wait longer, as this one was snatched up before I finished it! Read More...

I'm always surprised that as long as skeleton style clocks have been around, more artistry isn't seen on gear spokes. Even on very expensive, jeweled, ornate clocks, I very often see the standard straight spoked gears. Just for the record, I didn't start this because I thought it had never been done before; although this fact does drive me a little, as I feel somebody ought to do it! In some part I'm making clocks this way to celebrate the mechanics of clocks by making the parts themselves pieces of art. Another concept at the heart of it, is taking something that's inherently precise, and complimenting it with forms that are imperfect, asymmetrical, and created more subconsciously. Read More...

Pictured here is an 80 tooth gear, fresh off the lathe. Eventually this will be cleaned up, and those strange gear spokes would be carved into it. I left it unfinished for this picture because I found it interesting how the metal was repetitiously peeled back by the cutter. In the following words, i'll get into my gear-cutting process. With ten pictures, and a bit of text, this entry becomes a little long. Read More...