# Simplicity Wooden Clock



## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

*The Plan*

Since I can't afford a bunch of quarter sawn white oak to finish the dining table right now, I thought I'd look for a project that requires less materials. Having just read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, I've been fascinated by wooden clocks. Being a Mechanical Engineer, I also have an affinity for anything with gears. I found woodgears.ca few years ago and have been fascinated by the stuff he makes. I've also looked into building some kind of kinetic sculpture like the Quadrapult as seen here on YouTube. BLitwin was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions I had about his marble catapults. Obviously, I have never gotten around to building any of these monstrosities, but it gives me something to think about when I'm stuck at the in-laws without a shop.

A few weeks ago, I saw the wooden clock posted by btbam87. It really inspired me to do a little research into Clayton Boyer's designs, in addition to other Googled wooden clock plans. Clayton's designs were much more attractive and diverse than any others I'd found online. The elegance is what really caught my eye. I grew up with clocks, so I figured I could get used to the ticking sounds that most of these clocks emit. Clayton has a great sense of humor, and an interesting business model. In order to buy some of his more advanced plans, you must first submit a photo of an easier clock that you built. I think this is great, as it reduces the probability of a disgruntled first time clock maker floundering around with a celestial calendar. BTW, if I actually pull this off, guess what I'm ordering next…

Anyhoo, I ordered the Simplicity clock plans a few days ago, and they showed up in the mail in a manilla envelope. The package contains over 20 pages of instructions and templates for the gears. It's pretty intimidating. He recommends making a copy and using the originals to spray adhesive onto the proper thickness baltic birch plywood to cut and sand the parts exactly to the line. Since these were all drawn in AutoCAD, I may extend the exercise and try to reproduce the design. He suggests not using the copies as the template, as some copiers might skew the image, throwing your gears out of round.

I think the only tool I'll need to buy is a cheap 1" belt sander from Harbor Freight to sneak up on the lines. I've already got a scroll saw, but surprisingly he recommends using the band saw. I ran by Ashby Lumber and MacBeath's yesterday to get an idea of what plywood is available. I'll probably go with something contrasting and exotic because you're not supposed to use finish on the gears, as it can gum up the works. I've still got a bunch of mahogany that I'll probably use for the dial face and possibly the pendulum bob. I've also thought about inlaying a compass rose on the pendulum bob just to try it for the first time and to add some visual interest. Maybe not, as it'll be moving constantly (hopefully).

I'm going to try and be extra careful about blogging during this process, as it's rather time consuming and difficult looking. Hopefully, I can help someone else if they're inspired by this project. Wish me luck! It was about time to start another project anyway…


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## KMJohnsonow (Feb 16, 2010)

CaptainSkully said:


> *The Plan*
> 
> Since I can't afford a bunch of quarter sawn white oak to finish the dining table right now, I thought I'd look for a project that requires less materials. Having just read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, I've been fascinated by wooden clocks. Being a Mechanical Engineer, I also have an affinity for anything with gears. I found woodgears.ca few years ago and have been fascinated by the stuff he makes. I've also looked into building some kind of kinetic sculpture like the Quadrapult as seen here on YouTube. BLitwin was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions I had about his marble catapults. Obviously, I have never gotten around to building any of these monstrosities, but it gives me something to think about when I'm stuck at the in-laws without a shop.
> 
> ...


Good luck.


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## matt1970 (Mar 28, 2007)

CaptainSkully said:


> *The Plan*
> 
> Since I can't afford a bunch of quarter sawn white oak to finish the dining table right now, I thought I'd look for a project that requires less materials. Having just read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, I've been fascinated by wooden clocks. Being a Mechanical Engineer, I also have an affinity for anything with gears. I found woodgears.ca few years ago and have been fascinated by the stuff he makes. I've also looked into building some kind of kinetic sculpture like the Quadrapult as seen here on YouTube. BLitwin was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions I had about his marble catapults. Obviously, I have never gotten around to building any of these monstrosities, but it gives me something to think about when I'm stuck at the in-laws without a shop.
> 
> ...


good luck is an understatement!!! what a cool clock…good-good luck…


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## GMman (Apr 11, 2008)

CaptainSkully said:


> *The Plan*
> 
> Since I can't afford a bunch of quarter sawn white oak to finish the dining table right now, I thought I'd look for a project that requires less materials. Having just read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, I've been fascinated by wooden clocks. Being a Mechanical Engineer, I also have an affinity for anything with gears. I found woodgears.ca few years ago and have been fascinated by the stuff he makes. I've also looked into building some kind of kinetic sculpture like the Quadrapult as seen here on YouTube. BLitwin was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions I had about his marble catapults. Obviously, I have never gotten around to building any of these monstrosities, but it gives me something to think about when I'm stuck at the in-laws without a shop.
> 
> ...


This is genius we can tell that KM is in construction.
Sorry KM you should have another look.


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## TwangyOne (Apr 21, 2009)

CaptainSkully said:


> *The Plan*
> 
> Since I can't afford a bunch of quarter sawn white oak to finish the dining table right now, I thought I'd look for a project that requires less materials. Having just read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, I've been fascinated by wooden clocks. Being a Mechanical Engineer, I also have an affinity for anything with gears. I found woodgears.ca few years ago and have been fascinated by the stuff he makes. I've also looked into building some kind of kinetic sculpture like the Quadrapult as seen here on YouTube. BLitwin was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions I had about his marble catapults. Obviously, I have never gotten around to building any of these monstrosities, but it gives me something to think about when I'm stuck at the in-laws without a shop.
> 
> ...


Good Luck! As soon as get my "To-Do" list whittled down a bit more I planned on buying the plans myself… of course I screwed up and mentioned this at the family Christmas party, and now I guess while I'm at it, I'm supposed to make an extra 2 more clocks too lol. I like that idea of the compass rose on the bob, too bad it wouldn't show well enough to do it on the face also, but with such a large cut out in the center it would lose most of it's design that makes it so recognizable.

Let us know how it goes!


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## edreher (Feb 3, 2009)

CaptainSkully said:


> *The Plan*
> 
> Since I can't afford a bunch of quarter sawn white oak to finish the dining table right now, I thought I'd look for a project that requires less materials. Having just read "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, I've been fascinated by wooden clocks. Being a Mechanical Engineer, I also have an affinity for anything with gears. I found woodgears.ca few years ago and have been fascinated by the stuff he makes. I've also looked into building some kind of kinetic sculpture like the Quadrapult as seen here on YouTube. BLitwin was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions I had about his marble catapults. Obviously, I have never gotten around to building any of these monstrosities, but it gives me something to think about when I'm stuck at the in-laws without a shop.
> 
> ...


Have you used some of those scroll saw sanding "blades"

Great project. I'll put one on my list to do.


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

*Back to the Old Drawing Board...*

So, after what feels like months, I was able to do something in the woodworking arena. I ran over to MacBeath's in Berkeley, CA and grabbed some quality plywood. Then I came home and drew up almost the entire clock in AutoCAD, measuring everything very carefully on the original plans with digital calipers. The point being, instead of gluing the plans to the plywood, cutting them out, hence destroying the original plans, I'm going to have a fellow LJ cut the gears out of the plywood with a laser. This will allow me to keep the original plans and the gears will be perfect. I can also make a second clock for some friends' wedding present with very little duplicated effort. It took about five hours, but I made all of the gears and the hands. I'm hoping the end result is accurate. Here's the main gear in the center of the clock face:










They're all on different layers, centered at 0,0, so hopefully, my buddy will be able to cut out perfect shapes from 1/4" plywood, them ship them all back to me with a minimum of effort on either of our part. The 1/2" pieces will be two layers of perfectly cut out 1/4" gears. I'll let you know how it turns out. Here are the hands:










I really like the look of this clock. It's very gothic. If this project works out, I'll be purchasing the celestial calendar plans. Here's the hour wheel:










NOTE: None of the above images are to scale to protect Mr. Boyer's design. Below is the escapement and pallet:


















P.S. I have no idea if what I've drawn will end up working. I'm sure it's very close, but not 100% accurate. I may very well just have to spray adhesive the plans to some plywood and do it old-school…


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## Jero (Mar 23, 2010)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Back to the Old Drawing Board...*
> 
> So, after what feels like months, I was able to do something in the woodworking arena. I ran over to MacBeath's in Berkeley, CA and grabbed some quality plywood. Then I came home and drew up almost the entire clock in AutoCAD, measuring everything very carefully on the original plans with digital calipers. The point being, instead of gluing the plans to the plywood, cutting them out, hence destroying the original plans, I'm going to have a fellow LJ cut the gears out of the plywood with a laser. This will allow me to keep the original plans and the gears will be perfect. I can also make a second clock for some friends' wedding present with very little duplicated effort. It took about five hours, but I made all of the gears and the hands. I'm hoping the end result is accurate. Here's the main gear in the center of the clock face:
> 
> ...


I too use Autocad for drawing most of my plans. A few hours in front of the computer can save hours trying to figure stuff out in the shop. I've been toying with the idea of getting laptop and put cad on it. That way I can make changes to the plan right out in the shop, saving some time.

It will be neat to see how this turns out.


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Back to the Old Drawing Board...*
> 
> So, after what feels like months, I was able to do something in the woodworking arena. I ran over to MacBeath's in Berkeley, CA and grabbed some quality plywood. Then I came home and drew up almost the entire clock in AutoCAD, measuring everything very carefully on the original plans with digital calipers. The point being, instead of gluing the plans to the plywood, cutting them out, hence destroying the original plans, I'm going to have a fellow LJ cut the gears out of the plywood with a laser. This will allow me to keep the original plans and the gears will be perfect. I can also make a second clock for some friends' wedding present with very little duplicated effort. It took about five hours, but I made all of the gears and the hands. I'm hoping the end result is accurate. Here's the main gear in the center of the clock face:
> 
> ...


My girlfriend got me a little notebook just for that purpose (which is what I use to peruse LJ over coffee). I didn't want it to be exposed to the sawdust, so I leave it just inside the garage door. It's also great for cooking online recipes. It was actually pretty fun drawing up the gears. It reminded me a lot of my Mechanical Engineering classes, but that was twenty years ago…


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Back to the Old Drawing Board...*
> 
> So, after what feels like months, I was able to do something in the woodworking arena. I ran over to MacBeath's in Berkeley, CA and grabbed some quality plywood. Then I came home and drew up almost the entire clock in AutoCAD, measuring everything very carefully on the original plans with digital calipers. The point being, instead of gluing the plans to the plywood, cutting them out, hence destroying the original plans, I'm going to have a fellow LJ cut the gears out of the plywood with a laser. This will allow me to keep the original plans and the gears will be perfect. I can also make a second clock for some friends' wedding present with very little duplicated effort. It took about five hours, but I made all of the gears and the hands. I'm hoping the end result is accurate. Here's the main gear in the center of the clock face:
> 
> ...


I forgot to mention that I got white oak and walnut plywood, so the various gears can be made out of contrasting woods.


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

*Yet More Drawings...*

I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.

I'm making one entire set of gears out of white oak and another out of walnut, so I can mix and match every other gear to hopefully give it some contrast. I'm thinking about making the dial ring out of one complete piece of mahogany, then laser engraving numerals into the clock face. We'll see. Even though I'm still in the drafting phase, doing things like intersecting perpendicular bisectors have really taken me back to my drafting classes in college. The gears aren't recommended to be finished, because it can gum up the works, so the look of the ply will be the finished look. I may ask Mr. Boyer if I can pre-finish the ply before cutting it out, thereby ensuring there is no finish on the mating teeth. Part of me feels like I'm cheating with this laser thing, so I may have to still make a clock by hand. The only reason I thought of the laser option was because I have to make some close friends a wedding present, so I thought I'd kill a couple of birds with one stone.

Kim said that we should make a bunch of these and sell them at the local craft store (she always uses "we" in the strangest situations, i.e. we should put new shocks on the pickup). That's when I had to tell her that would be violating Mr. Boyer's design, and I can only make them for family and friends, non-profit. I thought that the fact that this subject came up was very interesting because it's been the topic of conversation here on LJ's and Marc (TheWoodWhisperer) asked Darrell Peart the very same thing in his online interview.

The good news is that I seem to be able to draw the gears up (we'll only truly know if the clock runs properly), but if this is a success, then I'll be working on the celestial calendar gears this winter when work slows down. So, still no actual woodworking, but progress has been made. Hopefully, I can cut up some ply today.


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## jlsmith5963 (Mar 26, 2009)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Yet More Drawings...*
> 
> I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.
> 
> ...


Hey captain thought you might enjoy a little inspiration…


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## Eric_S (Aug 26, 2009)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Yet More Drawings...*
> 
> I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.
> 
> ...


HOly freaking crap thats insane. How many gears does that use?


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Yet More Drawings...*
> 
> I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.
> 
> ...


That's breathtaking! Does it move?


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Yet More Drawings...*
> 
> I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.
> 
> ...


I just talked to my laser guy. Instead of chopping up the plywood into parts for each gear, I just found out I could've laid it all out on a 24×36 sheet. Maybe next time. I'm always amazed at my lack of communication skills, and the interesting challenges it creates.


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## TDW (Mar 25, 2010)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Yet More Drawings...*
> 
> I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.
> 
> ...


Just looking through some postings on clocks and ran across this one. I know the posting is old. Did you ever get the plans to completion?


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

CaptainSkully said:


> *Yet More Drawings...*
> 
> I finally got an afternoon in the shop, so I took my drawings out and was preparing to start slicing up the white oak and walnut plywood into gear-sized squares to send off to my laser guy. It was then that I started going through each page again (the plans are pretty complicated, with options that necessitate different parts combinations), and I noticed there were several gears that I hadn't drawn up. So, I headed back to the office and fired up AutoCAD again and spent another couple of hours drawing up the rest of the parts. Even if a final part isn't made of ply, the laser will make a perfect router template. The two gears that the weights hang from to give it a 2:1 were especially important, both mechanically and aesthetically.
> 
> ...


Captain How's the clock coming.


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