clocknews

The Christmasperiod I spend studying the plan and we made some descisions about construction the clock.
1) The frame will be made from Tulip (Magnolia). This is a strong dense timber which can be cut easily and won't twist! Hiemstra sr. will cut 10mm timbers from a big block on his Widia saw. I can't say no to this offer!
2) I want to try to make a few parts different from the original plan, especially the spacer parts. Because I don't have a lathe myself I want to try to mount the frame using wedges. I can cut those and it will give the clock a more medieval look.
3) We are going to make a test frame to figure out the distances between the gears. Brain mailed me he had to puzzle a bit. The measurement should be quite OK but a garantee could not be given. Bert wanted to make a full adjustable "space frame" so all the axles could be moved freely. Great idea but as hard to make as the clock itself I guessed. My idea is making two testboards. The first one "horizontal" to check all the teeth working properly and a "vertical one to check the movement of the total axles. We haven't desided yet, time will tell.
I'm a bit worried about the padoek timber, because it was stored outside the timber started twisting when I stored it in my nice, warm, workshop. Now, a few weeks later, the wood twisted even more! I hope the gears I allready made won't have any negative effect from the twist when assembled. When I turn the gears they wobble a bit.

sep 28, 2003	Started making the pegs and the wholes for the spacers. The result sofar is encouriging! I also found out I'm a little "out of shape" using the scrollsaw for this kind of work so a bit more training will do me good!
sep 25, 2003	Went to the workshop in Oosterbeek again to work on the spacers. Working with " senior" I learned some neat tricks using the table saw. The spacers were made within matter of minutes! How nice it is to have someone besides you who's a pro!
sep 20, 2003	Haven't worked on the clock for a long time! Actually I was a bit "sick and tired" working on it. Specially because the twisting of all the wood. The tulip wood I got for the frame also twisted. That was the limit! Now the wood is still twisted though but some pieces also re-twisted a bit so I started to cut the pieces for the frame. The last months I rethought the whole plan and decided to make some adjustments to it. For solving the friction of the gears, specially there where the gears are near the frame, I decided to use little wooden washers to give them some space. The outer axle sized must be made smaller but making something smaller is much easier then making it bigger! Secondly I decided to make the frame more easy and use little pegs to fit the spacers between the front and backplate. I also changed the shape of the front and backplate a bit....you must add a personal touch somewhere! To fit the front and backplate accurate I drilled two 6mm holes to line out the plates. The horizontal backplate is connected to the vertical one with "half wood connection". I used the router and a normal chisel to do that.
jan 25, 2003	Today I made a bigger testframe to sort out where problems could be expected. I also made some hands from thin scrap tulip to make the working more visible. The big news is: it really works sofar! Great! There are a few problems to be expected tough. The twist in the timber is the problem, especially where the gears run into the frame. There's friction, if it's too much I don't know yet but I think I have to make some more space between the frame and the gears. Next thing to make ik run smoother is to use dowel axle instead of solid beech rod. The dowel makes it much better!
jan 23, 2003	I made the ratchet today! It fits perfectly well and make a great sound when turned! Because I still don't want to use any glue but want to be sure everything has got a snug fit I decided to dowel the three drum parts together. You never guess what kind of wood I used to make 2mm dowel ....I used wooden cocktail sticks, sanded them to size and took the drillpress to "turn" them slowly into the wood. It worked great!
jan 21, 2003	Today I went to Hiemstra's workshop again to make the drum and the keyshaft using his lathe and routertable. He also offered to saw tulip for the frame. I made a complete list for two clocks which took him busy for an hour! But now I've got perfectly flat thin timber for the frame! Mark and me discided to make the drum part in two sections, the 13mm and the 38mm part. We used a block of beech to make these parts on the lathe and we drilled the holes on the routertable. When they were ready I found out the drum wouldn't fit and is to wide! Just my luck I took the testframe with me! I forgot the adjust the with of the drum to the with of the gears. These aren't 10 mm extact but a bit wider. Lucky us! Because we made the drum in two parts it was easy to make the 38mm thick part a bit smaller with the tablerouter! Secondly we made the keyshaft with the lathe and the router. We used the lathe to make the 13-8 diameter and the router to square the top! What an easy job if you have proper tools!	more pics are on normal film and have to be developed,
jan 15, 2003	I finished all the front gears, nr.38, 39, 45 and 46, and tested them together on the flat testframe. It seems nr. 38 isn't good enough to work properly. It was one of the first I scrolled. I sanded the gear a bit more and decided to try it also on the vertical frame. With a bit of fiddling (finding the right teeth to match) it seems the gears still works. Unfortunaly the new timber is twisted also! Within a few days it twisted a few inches! It will be hard to make strait parts with this timber....it's now to late to change everything but if I knew this before I started I would have chosen an other kind of wood.

jan 11, 2003	I went to the Arnhemse Fijnhouthandel (woodshop) today to get some more padoek timber and to show the results. The people overthere and some customers were impressed by the result so far. I asked them about the twisting of the padoek timber. When one of them looked at the gears he told me the grain of the timber was diagnal through the wood. This type of timber twists a lot, are therefore bad for making gears and they are the cheapest timbers. From the complete stock I choose the wrong timber, just my luck! He took me to the lumber attic, where the padoek is stored, and showed me the differences between all the timbers. He taught me how to look for proper graining and watch for way of cutting the wood! So together with him I rearched for better ones and went home with, hopefully, better wood. I learned a lot today! So people: If you want to build a clock, buy wood cut with a straight grain horizontal through the timber! He also gave me the advise on woods for future clocks. The sell some fine 9mm thick Teak, unfortunately the timber isn't wide enough to make the big gears but those can be made. My idea for using Tulip for the frame wasn't his idea. He would prefer Poplar, which should be much harder. I will talk about it with Bert and Hiemstra sr. what to do!	Look at the difference with the other padoek! The Teak example
jan 9, 2003	I made a very simple testframe using two pieces of ply, mounted on two brackets the same size as the clock spacers, to test the two bottom axles! Fortunately the twisted gears are running OK! They are not running in the same line all the time but the gears don't jam! Great news, also because I drilled the holes on the same distance Brain refers to in the manual. There was just one part were the gears braked a little bit but by turning one gear just a few teeht further the problem was solved.	Pic is gone...
jan 8, 2003	Now there are enough gears ready I tried them. With my compasses I set the axle distance as mentioned on the plan on a piece of old BB ply. My rulers and compasses aren't able to measure tenth of millimeters so I tried to make it as accurate as possible but rounded if off to 0.25 mil. The plan is to accurate for scrollers I guess! I drilled the two points and used just a little piece of rod to make a single mounted axle. The result was quite positive! I think I'll make something like this for the whole axles!
jan 5, 2003	The last few days and the weekend were spend making more gears. I worked for hours scrolling theeth! Tow 60 theeth gears are finished also! Because my experience with the wood and scrolling is growing accurate scrolling becomes easier and takes up less time! I changed blades again. Now I use #5 Hegner blades. I still need to change blades quite often but I want very accurate work so I like the blade to "glide like butter" and not "chop wood". The blade gives me a confident feeling when scrolling. If there is a better blade, please let me know! I finished 10 of 14 gears now but disaster struck when I went to my brother in law to make some photo's. Because of bad muscle tension and pain I dropped the bag with the finished gears. The timingwheel was damaged, some chips broke of. They were quite small but because they came from the end of the theeth it looked worse. I PVA-ed the chips back you don't see anything if you don't know it. Hopefully it won't harm....
jan 1, 2003	The Christmasperiod I spend studying the plan and we made some descisions about construction the clock. 1) The frame will be made from Tulip (Magnolia). This is a strong dense timber which can be cut easily and won't twist! Hiemstra sr. will cut 10mm timbers from a big block on his Widia saw. I can't say no to this offer! 2) I want to try to make a few parts different from the original plan, especially the spacer parts. Because I don't have a lathe myself I want to try to mount the frame using wedges. I can cut those and it will give the clock a more medieval look. 3) We are going to make a test frame to figure out the distances between the gears. Brain mailed me he had to puzzle a bit. The measurement should be quite OK but a garantee could not be given. Bert wanted to make a full adjustable "space frame" so all the axles could be moved freely. Great idea but as hard to make as the clock itself I guessed. My idea is making two testboards. The first one "horizontal" to check all the teeth working properly and a "vertical one to check the movement of the total axles. We haven't desided yet, time will tell. I'm a bit worried about the padoek timber, because it was stored outside the timber started twisting when I stored it in my nice, warm, workshop. Now, a few weeks later, the wood twisted even more! I hope the gears I allready made won't have any negative effect from the twist when assembled. When I turn the gears they wobble a bit.
nov 27, 2002	Trying the sleeves I found out using dowel for the shafts instead of solid beech will give less friction! It also makes it more easy to use some wax on the inside. The profile of the dowel will hold the wax. Maybe this is a good idea. Yesterday. I told Marks father about the quick wear of the blades scrolling padoek. He said I problably used the wrong blades and/or my brand of blades is crap......so he gave me a few dosen of Hegner blades to try them! Great present, thanks! I only forgot to write down what kind of blades I got so I have to go back when I know what kind of blade will work. I scrolled gear nr. 26 with a blade, problably #5, and the result was much better. The blade itself is more flexibel and thinner but while scrolling I felt myself more confident scrolling closely round the edges. After scrolling I had to file the gear less and it looks great! Unfortunately, my arms hurt a lot today so I had to quit quite quickly (:-) but history is made. The first axle with gears is ready! (duh, you still have to sand and varnish it.........red.)
nov 26, 2002	Tonight I went to Oosterbeek, with Mark Hiemstra, to work in his fathers workshop to make the sleeves. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera with me.......but I think in the near future I will be there more often. What a great place with lots of professional tools! He father also got a router to make the gears but I still want to try it manually using the scrollsaw. Why? Simply because not everyone is so lucky, or have the experience, (like me) to use those kind of tools! But, we came to use a precise lathe to drill the sleeves. Ectually, the lathe is for metal use but drilling holes should not be any problem. In the beginning we tried it using the trail and error method. With some experience we found out that a 6.1mm hole would't be sufficient to let the 6mm shaft turn smoothly so we ended with a 6.3 drill. This one worked ok. Drilling the two long sleeves was the hardest part. Because the drills aren't long enough we had to drill from to sides. Because we had to use the full lenght of the drill it wasn't possible to make the hole absolutely straight. The shorter sleeve could be drilled from one side, so those ones were OK. Because we used beech for the sleeves we desided, after two test sleeves, to use candlelight wax as a lubricant. This made the drilling more easy and more precise. So after a few hours of trying and drilling I ended up with two complete sets of sleeves!
nov 20, 2002	This week I started with the first gear, nr, 25. the timing wheel. I tried to draw the wheel first but within a few minutes I decided to glue the plan onto the wood using spray adhesive on one side. This will make it easy to pull the paper of. I found out it's to hard to set the 12° with a compasses! If there's a difference of 0.05° in the compasses this will make a difference of 30 times 0.05 = 1.5° after 30 theeth. I took me a while to sort that out! I did it by increasing the with of the compasses to 72°. The deviation is 6 times smaller. This method worked out well. With the compasses I centered the drillholes for the 12mm drill. I thought drilling would be more precise as scrolling and sanding. I used a new drill so the holes looked fine! The scrolling was not much work but I found out that the #3r didn't work out. I wasn't able to scroll straight so I took a normal #3. This one gave no problems. This blade wears down so quickly! Wow! This kind of wood must by quite hard. I used one blade to scroll off the edges and the middle parts! The wheel looks fine I guess, It will need some sanding to make all the theeth the same. It's quite exciting to know that you will only know if your work is OK from the moment you will assemble it.... I also made the smallest gear, nr. 45, the 8th teeth gear. I tried to scroll it completely but this gear is to small to do it on the Hegner. So I scrolled as precise as possible and used a small file to make all the teeth the same. I also found out my drill is making the 6mm holes I little bit bigger. The 6.1mm drill won't be necesarry for me! I hope my old drilllingmachine won't give me any problems in the near future.
nov 9, 2002	Next issue. Where do we find proper hardwood material 10mm thick! Bert and I went today to the Arnhemse Fijnhouthandel to look for suggestions. With more than 40 different kinds of wood there was plenty of choice! Most of the wood is still the "raw material" but they have a hobby attic with little pieces. My first idea was to make the gears with lime. We found some nice pieces but is lime hard enough? Next to the lime there was a bundle of bright red wood, nice thin timber called "padoek". Never heard of it but it looks great! It feels quite solid but not to heavy. So we bought a small leftover part to try it out. At home we found out the timber is a bit twisted but exactly 10mm thick. What a luck! So we are going to try to make some little gears with it. Lets hope this kind of wood will work out fine!
nov 5, 2002	We printed the plan full scale and studied it a whole evening together. While studying the plan we started to understand how a clock actually works! But where was the Yoke for? We didn't find it on the 3D prints with the plan? A quick mail to Brain gave the solution. It was also visible on the 3D drawings on the website. We stupid amateur clockbuilders!! We already found our biggest problem. How are we going te make the sleeves? I don't have a lathe and don't have any experience using one. The sponsoring doesn't bring me enough cashflow to invest in one. We really want to make the clock using only wood! A former neighbours father is a professional housemodel maker. His son will help us with it he promissed! Great!