Clocks, wooden of course

[cbehnke]

I got into hobby woodworking a few years ago because I wanted to make wooden geared clocks. Recently I saw some wooden pens and I loved 'em and decided to make a few. I make some boxes now and then, but I love my clocks. Here is one I did a few months ago.

The body is Tiger maple with Rosewood accents. I think I used Bloodwood for the hands...I forget, it was from some free scraps I received. The gears are Baltic Birch ply.

The clock is showing 7:02 in the picture. The clock runs on a gravity system, you can't see it, but there is a 6 lb weight hanging from it that drives the gear train.

The large "C" shaped piece near the bottom of the clock gently rocks back and forth and engages the sawtooth looking gear and lets the gear train slowly unwind in a precisely controlled fashion...and that's how it works. any questions?

 

[mredburn]

Very nice, My dad likes wooden clocks also.

 

[Fibonacci]

Very nice. Is that scrolled?

 

[cbehnke]

yes, but not as much as the past

Very nice. Is that scrolled?

yes, parts of it are. the gears used to get a TON of scroll work....I used to cut each tooth one by one on the scroll saw. I recently changed to a pin router method that allows me to use my router to cut the gear teeth. This was the first clock that I used the pin router method. It's much faster and produces more uniform gears that operate much more consistently.

 

[Woodlvr]

Beautiful. I need to learn about using a pin router method to make the gears. They are a lot of work but worth it I feel.

 

[Fibonacci]

I would be very interested in the pin router method as well.

Is there information on that available?

 

[Grampy122]

Check this out.

http://www.woodline.com/instructions/Clock instructions 9.pdf

 

[cbehnke]

http://www.woodline.com/instructions/Clock instructions 9.pdf

Yes, that is where I got the idea for using a pin router. I went a step further and designed my own gears. I bought the woodline kit gears, which are great, but unfortunately they were a bit small for my liking. So i bought a gear design software program ($25), designed my own gears, and had a metal fabrication shop Laser CNC a set of gear templates ($200 for 8 gears) to use with the pin router.

if anyone wants any info on how to get started on making a wooden gear clock, email me and i'll send you some info that might help you get started and save you some headaches along the way.

 

[nava1uni]

Nice looking clock.

 

[GrantH]

These are incredible.

 

[TellicoTurning]

I got into hobby woodworking a few years ago because I wanted to make wooden geared clocks. Recently I saw some wooden pens and I loved 'em and decided to make a few. I make some boxes now and then, but I love my clocks. Here is one I did a few months ago.

The body is Tiger maple with Rosewood accents. I think I used Bloodwood for the hands...I forget, it was from some free scraps I received. The gears are Baltic Birch ply.

The clock is showing 7:02 in the picture. The clock runs on a gravity system, you can't see it, but there is a 6 lb weight hanging from it that drives the gear train.

The large "C" shaped piece near the bottom of the clock gently rocks back and forth and engages the sawtooth looking gear and lets the gear train slowly unwind in a precisely controlled fashion...and that's how it works. any questions?

Those clocks are really cool... my son has decided he wants to make them too... he recently bought a new DeWalt scroll saw just for doing them...

he got his inspiration from the attached website...

Wooden Gear Clock Plans from Hawaii by Clayton Boyer