Designed my first pendulum clock this week. Put it together to test it and surprisingly, I only need to make a few tweaks to it. The hook on the pendulum needs to be thicker (it is being held steady by paper jammed into the gap). Also, the clock hands came with the mechanism and will be replaced with wooden ones. I am deciding on colors for the wood ones. I am definitely going to do a black options, but I am not sure if natural wood will stand out enough. I am also thinking of offering the mint and pink colors from the clock.
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That is so cool! You will never be late for that very important date. I love the movement.
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Use the lightest, thinnest material you can here. The majority of clock mechanisms are not able to maintain good time with the additional weight, which is why the hands are usually stamped from extremely light and thin metal.
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I gave up on making my own hands for this reason. There’s just nothing thin or light enough for almost any reasonably-priced clock mechanisms you can get. Acrylic is way too heavy, even at 1/16th.
Stamped hands are inexpensive and come in an almost neverending variety of shapes and sizes, I just couldn’t justify spending any more time wrestling with sourcing materials and canned the idea. Let me know if you find something light, rigid, flexible and inexpensive that lasers well.
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I made some from slightly-less than 1mm (1/32nd?) acrylic that worked, but the clock in-question came with large hands so the mechanism was a bit more robust than most.
I think 1/32 veneer might work as well, but would likely warp.
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Great looking clock!
Sadly I can’t see the video (neither Windows nor VLC could decode it). Any chance of loading it to YouTube or Vimeo and sharing the link here?
As for hands, there are a lot of very cool ones out there already - maybe you can find something pre-made?
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Here is the link to YouTube.
As for the hands, the current clocks I make do not have large size faces, so the clock hands are less than 3.5" in length. I use very lightweight 1/16" wood and the clocks have no issue with keeping time. Larger hands do cause issues with the clock mechanism.
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This is wonderful.and whimsical!
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Wow! Very nice clock. Where did you get the mechanism?
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I have replaced, or created clocks using, mechanisms purchased from Amazon.
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I got the mechanism on Amazon.
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Such a fun clock!!!
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I absolutely love and adore your clock.
I also love your style and whimsy personality.
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That is amazing!
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Nice work!
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Love it!
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If you ever go bigger, we’ve discussed those mechanisms previously:
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I have a clock from when I grew up in Africa, my parents had two and on one trip over to visit them (in the UK) I asked if I could have one - brings back memories.
It hangs on my “Africa wall” behind me in my living room, with pictures/paintings/prints and laser-cut stuff, and a beautiful, big traditional hand-carved mask. I even remember where we bought that when I was about 8yrs old (Pretoria, outside the zoo, where natives set up blankets to sell their wares to tourists…)
HOWEVER, it used a typical “ticking” mechanism that would drive me absolutely batty in the night! So I replaced it with a continuous-motion mechanism that is totally silent. Got it on Amazon, wasn’t expensive at all, had it for several years now and keeps good time - I rarely even look at it for the time, but when I adjust it for our stupid “daylight savings”, it is pretty much spot-on.
Not 100% certain it’s this one, searching my order history I saw I had ordered others around the same time. No idea why, possibly made a clock for someone? Sheesh, getting older sucks!
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This is the only clock I can see from my seat in my living room -
I’ve run into a few geeks with them in my decades of IT-Security travels, it’s a fun conversation piece. Also keeps amazing time, to the second over the 6 months or whatever between adjustments for EST/EDT. Uses AC line frequency, so a testament to how accurate that can be.
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It’s fantastic, don’t change a thing. Hands are great
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