Mahogany Pennsylvania Tall Case Clock
The clock is finally completed and up and keeping time
In an earlier post I showed the start of this project. It has taken about six months to complete. The clock is all West Indies mahogany. The movement is an eight day cable weight driven movement. The chime can be selected for one of three chime melodies or silent for night time. In keeping with the circa of the clock the waist door does not have glass. The weight shells are brass and the pendelum is an 8″ brass disc on a wood stick. The flame finials are all hand carved by me and I have the pile of wood scrapes to show the learning curve. The finish is one coat of boiled linseed oil, two coats of amber shellac and three coats of garnett shellac. All followed up with a serious coat of furniture paste wax and buffing. The glow of the finish is beautiful. This was my first experience with shellac and I will be using it again. I used the flakes and mixed what I needed. Very cool and very easy. Plus it dries so fast there is little chance of runs or sags or dust. I sprayed all the shellac ( I have an Apollo 1040 turbine.). The inspiration for this came from Glenn Huey’s book on Period furniture. Although the plan is from the book I had to make many changes since my movement different than his and also I just never follow plans directly. I have to make it my own.
This project taught me a lot about woodworking, dispite over forty years of practice. It pushed me out of my comfort zone and I loved it.
Cheers to you all,
Dean, The Grenada Barefoot Woodworker!!
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The clock is finally completed and up and keeping time
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The bonnet removes for access to the movement. There are side windows so the operating movement can be seen when it chimes.
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Hand carving the finials was very slow going. I have a large scrape pile to show for the learning curve but they came out very nice.
Comments
great work man! I also have Glenn's book on period furniture and have wanted to build that clock.If you had to guess, how many board feet of material should I order.Thanks,Rob.
Hey Rob; I would figure on about 50-60 board feet. Most is finished size of 7/8 to 3/4 inch thick except for the parts for the goose necks and the bracket feet. I made the back from mahogany as well and it is 5/8 inch thick which let me attach the chime rod assembly directly to the back. Makes for a nice sounding board. I did not use any secondary wood, the clock is all mahogany but I live in Grenada and we have the trees here. I reasonably followed the plan and the thickness of materials but I had to alter the width and height of the clock to accommodate my movement. For me the carving was the toughest. I have a significant bucketful of attempts before I got three flame finials I was happy with. I would give it a try and then watch several YouTube videos and try again. A challenge but very fun. If you have any questions I would be happy to help. I made a video slide show of the project if you are interested.
cheers,
Dean
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