Day 9 work
The different parts were glued up, namely;

1. the 3 piece main frame
2. the 5 piece winding wheel (5 wheels glued together to form a pulley like part)
3. various wheel spacers onto the wheel arbors
4. 3 pinion gears onto the wheels
5. the coopered main weight and the counter weight/handle.

The weights glued up
The long weight will contain about 2.4kg (a little over 5lbs) of lead pellets. I bought these in 1kg bags from a divers supply store. This weight drives the clock and the attached cord is wound around the winding wheel.

The smaller counter weight will be left hollow as only a small amount of weight is necessary. It has two functions (1) as a light counter weight to hold the cord taut. The other end of the cord is attached to the main weight. (2) the counter weight also functions as a handle to rewind the clock. This is done by simply pulling down on the handle which in turn raises the main weight. Most clocks of this type use a winding key for this function, but the handle is quicker and simpler.

This was the first version of these weights. I had to modify them slightly later on. I will explain why in another blog.

the arbors were all polished (wheel axles) before inserting them into the frame . I also ran the winding wheel on my disk sander jig, first to get the smaller diameter inside wheels round and then again after gluing all 5 disks together to get the outside larger diameter wheels round and balanced.

Test assembly and problem Areas
I temporarily mounted the wheels to see if the teeth would match up perfectly. They didn’t. This was due to two potential problems:

• The plan called for 6.5mm ply for the three main wheels and I could only get 6mm ply. So an accumulated difference of 3mm putting the final hour dial too far out.
• I might have made the hub cap on the back of the winding wheel too thick.

Potential solutions

• Extra washers to move the wheels outwards
• Removal of some material on the back of the winding wheel which would have the effect of moving the hour dial in towards the back
• Change the height of the various arbor spacers

Part of the realityof a project like this is that some problems will almost certainly be encountered. Great disappointment and frustration can be one outcome. On the other hand a lot can be learned from the work involved in finding solutions to the problems. It is a choice to decide which of these two ways to approach it. I’m going for the latter.

Thanks for reading!