How to Make a Wooden Gear Clock

I Have Usually Wanted to Develop a Clock

1 day I will find the time and the income to sit down and minimize out the gears to make a wooden clock. I have done a whole lot of study on the topic and I am ready when I do uncover individuals precious resources. Get a look at the following and uncover all the valuable information I have located.

Gears are really easy in idea, but the math website link between them can be complicated. If you never get the math right, you will not have a clock that tells the time accurately. I have invested a great number of hours filling a lot of pages attempting to figure out how a clock motion functions.

I know this might not need to be explained, but learning as a lot as you can about how to build a wooden gear clock is the 1st stage to building your very own. The procedure of generating a clock function just correct is a little tricky and will get some trial and error to make it maintain time, but that is part of the exciting of the project.

You may want to take a minute to flip via some books on the subject. You can both purchase books from Amazon or your local book store, or you can do what I did and go to your nearby library and check out some of the books they have have on clock fix. Clocks have been about for many centuries. So there is loads of data about the artwork of clockwork. It is so considerably entertaining to understand about the background.

You can also commit some time on YouTube and observe every little thing feasible about clocks and how they perform. You will be surprised at the quantity of information accessible on some of these websites. I know I was.

Before men knew how to make gears and tension springs and other mechanical elements, they kept their time by the sun. The sun was really predictable and as long as it wasn’t cloudy or the middle of the evening, you could tell the time of the day by viewing the sun and the shadows that the sun cast. (I feel men and women have been capable to inform time with the stars at night.)

I think people have been extremely ingenious about using the sun to assist them figure out when it was time to plant their gardens, when the worst storms of the yr generally show up and so on. Some sundials have been more substantial than a modern day residence. Some of the ones that come to thoughts are Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

I want my gears to display three various units of time. I could add on many far more at a later date, but proper now I want these gears to flip 3 hands: The 2nd hand, the minute hand and the hour hand.

Right here is what I need to have to figure out. Every single time the 2nd hand rotates a total revolution, the Minute hand demands to flip 12 degrees. Every time the Minute Hand Turns a total revolution, the Hour hand turns 60 degrees.

So I can have all 3 wheels turning in the very same course I will need to have two much more gears in between the gears turning the hands. Now I have to go figure out how to establish the correct gear ratio.

Lets look at this Example:

The Yellow, Red and Blue gears all have 60 teeth. The Green gear has 10 teeth. The Cyan gear had 6 teeth. The Green gear is attached to the Red gear and the Cyan gear is connected to the Blue gear.

Each and every time the Yellow gear turns one total rotation, the Red gear turns a total of 6 rotations. Every single time the Red gear turns one total rotation, the Blue gear turns 10 instances. Search at it this way: one Rotation times six rotations times 10 rotations = 60 rotations. This means the Blue gear represents the Second Hand and the Yellow gear represents the Minute Hand. Every one particular rotation of the Yellow gear, the Blue gear will flip 60 times.

You can also search at the math like this:

60/10 x 60/six = six/1 x 10/1 = six x ten = 60

For my initial try at building a wooden gear clock, I want to build one thing simple and simple. I took a minute to look by means of all the free programs I could find on the internet. I had basic criteria I wished to meet when building this first task.

First I needed something that was little enough it would not price a ginormous sum of cash to construct. 2nd I want anything that is not as well intricate because I am preparing to cut most of the pieces with a coping saw (considering that I don’t have a scroll noticed). As a initial venture, it wants to be straightforward.

I went back through several of the free of charge PDFs I have collected over and I determined on a plan that will be straightforward adequate to print on standard 8.5×11 in paper. I also want the wood to be a dimension that is manageable so I can sit down and just start off cutting, probably in front of the television.

I printed out all the pages so I am am ready when I find the wood I want to use. I printed them on typical copy paper. First it is low-cost and straightforward to get a hold of. 2nd, the paper is not that thick. If I have to sand the paper off the finished pieces, I don’t have to fear about it too much.

If this is the very 1st issue you have produced with your scroll noticed, you could not want to invest a whole lot of income on supplies. I know I did not want to chance scrapping pieces of rosewood on badly reduce gears. You will want to practice on scrap wood initial.

The place can you discover scrap wood? There are many options. View the side of the road on garbage day. Often men and women will throw out scrap wood or broken furnishings you can reuse to make your clock. You can also stop at a home building internet site and ask the staff if you can rummage through their dumpster for scrap wood.

If you have been woodworking for a while then you may well want to invest some money on nicer wood, especially if you want to give this clock away as a present. The effortless woods would be redwood and oak. If you actually want to go exclusive, you can look up some of the specialty wood companies on-line. You can get every thing from driftwood to mammoth tusk. It all depends on how considerably you want to invest.

Both way you need to think about the sort of wood you are going to use. The wood is some thing you will be searching at for a prolonged time so make sure you can dwell with it.

If you have a scroll saw, I would spend your time wisely and cut your gears with it. Making use of a scroll saw will give you much more rapidly more immediate benefits. You will be in a position to observe your clock locate its shape faster. Then you can spend a lot more of your time sanding and staining and doing all the other issues that want to be accomplished when developing a wooden clock.

You do not need a scroll noticed to reduce out your gears. In reality cutting them out by hand can be a excellent meditation physical exercise. All you need to lower them out by hand is a coping saw and a bit of patience.Consider your time and minimize gradually along the suggestions. If you rush through it, you will not have a excellent gear. There is no cause to hurry. You have a lot of time. If you rush, then you may break 1 of the gears. Then you will have to begin all more than once again.

Take your time. You will want to do this gradually. Minimize them with time and efficiency. You will want to stick to the lines as actual as possible. The much more actual you can minimize the gears, the greater the clock will run. Would not be nice if the 1st time you developed a clock, It ran properly? It is definitely anything to strive for.

You could just depart your clock in it is raw wood state. It would look stunning that way, there is no doubt about it. You may possibly want to bring out that stunning grain even much more. You also may want to seal the wood, defending it for many years to come.

What color stain must you use? It all depends on what you are trying to do. You might be making an attempt to match the decor in your bedroom or you might be trying to carry out the organic factors of the wood you are utilizing. You may even be making an attempt to make the low cost wood your employing look like a more pricey wood.

Whatever you do, make confident you comply with the directions on the side of the can. If you never apply it evenly or wipe it off when the directions say to, you may get blotches and streaks. What you want is a nice uniform color all more than the wood.

Feel about staining the gears two distinct colors. This will give the moving gears interest, one thing that may deliver together many distinct pieces of furniture in your residing space. All you have to do is decide why you are creating the clock.

The challenging element is in excess of and now you get to view your clock come with each other. Take some time and gather all the various elements you have taken the time to reduce out, sand and stain. Locate the guidelines and the written plans and lets start placing it together.

You might uncover that some of your elements do not fit very properly collectively. That may possibly be simply because of the stain and the sealer. All it takes is a bit of sanding in which the joint fits and you should be in company.

You may want to mount the piece on the wall as you go. Seeing it come with each other in a style that makes it run appropriately is so satisfying, specifically when that pendulum commences to swing. All the gears begin to move collectively. This is why we started out this project to commence with, to watch the gears move. If we can get them to move, that would be incredible. If we could get them to keep time,

There are many issues you require to do if you want your clock to last. Some of the things you have to do are the identical you would do when you are taking care of anything that is wooden. 1st you want to deal with the wood a couple occasions per yr. You may possibly want to deal with the wood more than that if it is located exactly where there is a moving breeze. You will want to use one thing like mineral oil to deal with the wood.

One more point you will want to do is oil the joints and shafts so almost everything continues to move freely. If friction finds it is way into the clock, it may possibly quit. You want your clock to function for as prolonged as attainable.

The Escapement wheel will be the a single that will put on out the quickest. You may well even want to make an further wheel for substitute elements for later on. It would give you one more wheel to practice your cutting on.

Make confident you maintain it running all the time. There is nothing at all like a clock that is keeping time. You constructed it to preserve time. I you never keep it working then why have it?