Carving Away

Yesterday I finished adding the curves, twists, and gnarl to the first numeral. Giving my Foredom a workout as usual.

On to the "III". Hoping to finish this piece next week

New Quartz Progress

All cut out and assembled!

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you’ve seen this pattern before. Draw, saw, drill-tap-thread, assemble. My little jewelers-saw and my screw-threading jig have certainly seen some miles over the years.

Next up…sculpting these parts into something pleasingly un-flat.

New Quartz Commission

New quartz clock on the way!

The design is set, and cutting has started. I decided to saw this one out by hand, rather than CNC. I like using the hand-tools from time to time. I figure it's also good to stay in practice with the old jewelers saw.

More on this one soon!

It's alive!

There’s a new heartbeat in the shop!

The new mechanical clock had its first pulse yesterday, and was ticking away through the night. This is always one of my favorite parts of creating a mechanical clock.

I also really love this type of escapement. If you’ve been following, you know that my most recent mechanical commissions featured the six legged Arnfield gravity escapements. While I really love those too, there’s something about the familiar, reliable, predictable performance of a well-made dead beat escapement.

Finished Frame

The clock frame is finished!

The holes in the plates were carefully drilled to accommodate the clock-train, along with the holes for the pillars that hold the main plates together. Then the pillars were turned and tapped, the plate screws were made, and voila!

I actually wanted to show the drilling operation on the mill, but the truth is I kinda got mentally lost in the work and forgot to drag out the camera. It’s a pretty straightforward drilling & reaming job, although it does require all of my concentration. Those holes need to be perfect, because they hold the arbors for the gears…and the distance between the gears is crucial.

This part of the process starts to get fun for me, primarily because the clock starts to take shape in three dimensional space. I have the gears cut, and I can see the first ticks (my favorite part) right down the road.

Barrel Threading

Yesterday I used the lathe to thread the barrel of the new clock.

This clock will get its energy from a weight. That weight will hang from a kevlar line, wound around this barrel. As the weight pulls down, the barrel turns.

It’s threaded so when the clock is wound, the line will neatly follow the grooves, and doesn’t get crossed or tangled.

Polishing

The escapement was fully hardened, and now it’s all polished up.

While most of this piece of steel was polished for aesthetic purposes, there are four surfaces that needed to be an absolutely perfect, mirror-finish - the surfaces that interact with the escape wheel.

That piece of steel rocks back and forth with the swing of the pendulum, interrupting the spin of the escape wheel. When it does, the surfaces that stop the escape wheel slide across the tip of each tooth. In order to slide friction-free, those surfaces needed to be polished to a mirror-finish.

In addition to the finish, the geometry needs to be perfect, so rather than attacking it with buffing wheels, I methodically polished it in steps. First with small precision polishing stones, and then soft wood sticks and very fine-grit diamond paste.

I’ve already checked the wheel & escapement on a test plate. Everything seems to be working as it should.

On to the next thing!

Steel Hardening

Fun with salt lava!

I can’t think of a better way to hang out in the Michigan cold than next to a 1500° vat of molten salt.

Yesterday I fired up the salt-bath kiln to harden some of the steel parts for the new clocks. This kiln does a really good job of evenly heating up delicate parts. With a torch I always had a tough time heating it up to the right glow without melting off the delicate thin areas. Also, since the parts are immersed, there’s no carbon buildup or scaling. A little soap & water and the salt and oil comes right off.

Next steps:

For the torsion springs it’s off to a second type of kiln to spring-temper them.

For the escapement pallets it’s time to start polishing. Like….lots and lots of polishing. Maybe forever.

The Great Wheel

Timelapse showing the 160 tooth “great wheel” being cut. This gear is used for the power/weight assembly, and is the biggest one in the gear-train.

More ratchet cutting

This morning I cut a 40 tooth ratchet wheel for the power/winding assembly of the new mechanical. This will be stacked on the same arbor as the 80 tooth one I cut yesterday. This one ratchets the weight (power source) back to the top, and the other one retains a loaded spring in order to keep power to the clock train when the clock is being wound. It’ll make more sense once I have all the parts finished, and I can show how they all work together.

More soon!

Timelapse - Ratchet Cutting

I have more quartz clocks to make, but I wanted to take a week or two to make some progress on the mechanical clocks I’ve started. This is the ratchet for the barrel assembly (the stack of parts that powers the clock).

New Clock!

The new quartz clock is finished.


This one is a throwback to a clock I made waaay back in 2009, which was simply titled “Quartz 9”. A lot of people liked that one (it was even used for a few tattoos) so I decided to revisit the design.


This one got a pretty big response, even before I finished it. It looks like my time with it will be limited to just a few days, because this clock has already been spoken for.


So…what’s next?


I have a few irons in the fire right now, and I’m not sure which project I’ll tackle next. There are two mechanical pieces that I’ve started, so maybe I’ll take a week or two to make some progress on one of those.


Finishing touches

Funny thing…I actually already finished this clock, but when I hung it on the wall I decided it needed a little more contrast between the hands and the face. I darkened the metal part of the hands, re-cut the paper part, and used a touch of white oil paint on it this time. That way there’s contrast between the paper blades of the hands and the face, as well as contrast between the two parts of the hands. Hopefully it pops better, and I’ll have some finished photos for you soon.

I have to wait for the oil paint to dry before I adhere it to the metal, otherwise I’d already be finished.

More soon!

Almost there

Almost there! The body of the clock is finished. Only a few things are left - I have to make the hands, modify the quartz motor to accommodate the hands, and add the paper.

This is a small quartz clock, measuring just 16” from top to bottom. Even so, the invested hours are significant. There was a time when I could make quartz clocks much quicker, but as my metal-carving skills improved, so did the detail, and thus the time required. Sometimes I wish I could make them quicker again…like not add the detail, but I can’t seem to help myself.

Time to make some hands!

Grinding away

With a Foredom rotary grinder in hand, I’m slowly carving away at the new quartz clock. It’s starting to take shape now.

Drill tap thread

After drilling and tapping the necessary parts, and making the screws and spacers, the new quartz is assembled. The next step will be sculpting everything with the Foredom.

New quartz clock in the works

My last quartz clock was on the larger side, and was horizontal, so I decided to switch it up and make a smaller vertical piece next. Here are the drawings, along with a short time-lapse video showing one of the parts being cut out with a jewelers saw.

More soon!

New Horizon

I’ve just finished a quartz piece titled “New Horizon.” It has a horizontal design and features hand-painted old-english-style lettering around the dial. Some very tiny brushes, a magnifying visor and a lot of patience were required to paint the lettering on this one.

It’s worth noting that the paper I used is particularly challenging to paint on. It’s a type of rice paper called kitkata, and it’s made for printmaking, not painting. It has a soft, almost fuzzy surface texture, which makes it difficult to brush a nice crisp line. However, that quality is also why I love it. The soft surface looks beautiful, and I like the contrasts against the hard metal. It also takes the weathering process well. To get that aged look, I drench the face of the clock in water and rough it up with a hard bristled toothbrush. Most paper would disintegrate, but the longer fibers of kitikata just stretch and fray, giving me the control to make the weathered edge look the way I want.

I’m very happy with this piece. The overall design is one of my favorites to date, and I’m especially happy with the way the dial turned out.

This clock measures 36” wide. The body is hand-carved brass, and the dial is acrylic and oil on kitkata rice paper.

“New Horizon” is available for $7,200. If you’re interested, contact me. This is currently the only quartz clock I have for sale.

Two more on the way

New clock parts! Some people get excited for Christmas presents - I get excited for this. I’ve just returned from my water-jet vendor with pieces for two more clocks. Everything looks perfect, and I’m now looking forward to assembling and sculpting some new work.


As mentioned in an earlier post, I now have three projects in the works: A very elaborate moon phase clock, a horizontal time-only mechanical clock, and a horizontal quartz clock.


While I could work simultaneously on all three, the weight of my hours will first go toward the quartz piece. Then I’ll tackle the horizontal mechanical one, followed by the more involved task of completing the moon-clock. 


What’s nice about having other projects in the works is if progress stops because I need to wait for a tool, or supplies, I have other clocks I can work on while I wait. It’s a good way to stay productive. The only challenge is staying organized, and keeping really good notes so I can pick up where I left off.