This has been a project that has been on the shelf for a long time. It all started when I picked up a “Small Woodworking Projects” (1992) by Fine wood working back in 1995, which had a cover shot of a clock project on it by Wayne Westphale. Due to my work at the time it was shelved until the past year when I pulled it back out to look at it again.

I liked the design that was there but wasn’t keen on the front face plate as I felt that it covered the interior of the clock too much. I wanted to see more of the workings.  I tried some designs and then thought about a cantilevered design where there was only one mounting plate at the back so that there was nothing obstructing the view of the wheels and pinions.

What is shown in the photos is the layout that I finally arrived at, (after many iterations). All of the wheels and pinions were designed using the British Standard 978- Part 2. All of the parts were cut using a CNC router. For this first iteration I used an exterior grade MDF to reduce the number of variables. A lot was learned about clocks and woodworking but it is likely only the surface compared with what is still to come.

It is currently running within a couple of minutes a day and I am still adjusting the pendulum weights to tune it further. The next iteration will be with a larger module on the wheels and pinions so that I can use a larger cutter and a moon sphere will be added indicating the phase of the moon. A third iteration will move to real wood, at which time I suspect the real fun will begin.

Launch Gallery