I knew I would be redoing the part...

For starters, I had fun on my vacation.  I had a chance to visit a pioneer village in Ohio with a blacksmith.  The blacksmith was a younger, self-taught blacksmith.  We traded a few tips with each other before I headed out.

Today I finally got back to the forge.  What I wanted to work on was the gear for the main wheel.  A long time back I made both the outer wheel portion of the gear and I also made the hub and spokes.  Although I have taken a few pictures of the two parts together, I had never gotten around to joining them together.

I had made an attempt to join the two parts a while back but it was a rushed job just before sunset and I messed it up some.  I originally was not going to use the current hub and spokes (it has a few problems with quality) but I decided that it would be good practice.  I am glad that I did.  The parts where joined together and I was finally able to have something that looked a little like a gear on the clock.  Here is a picture.




The wheel and spokes are firmly connected.  In fact, I was a little surprised that I did not have to play with it too much to get a nice firm connection.  The gear spins very easily and overall I am fairly happy with this first attempt.  But there are problems.

The biggest problem is that it is the outer circle is not properly centered.  This means that as it rotates, it is a bit lopsided.  It is not by a great deal (about 1/4" in the center) but it means that the total difference when the wheel is spun is about 1/2".  That would mean that if I kept it as is, I would have to file almost 1/2" worth of metal from one side.  Not going to happen...

I tried to be careful when I placed the hub and spokes in the wheel but just the minor amount really threw things off.  While thinking about it, I realized the better way to do it.  The hub and spokes should be placed into the wheel first, then the hole for the axle would be punched.  The advantage of that is that I could more easily make sure the punched hole is in the exact center.  Especially if I punch the hole is a little smaller, I could then file the sides to make sure that it is properly centered.

Next time on the forge, I will pop out the existing hub and spokes.  I will double check but the outer wheel seems to be workable.  Then I will remake the hub and spokes and put the new hub and spokes back into the wheel.

So, even though this part will not be used, I learned a valuable lesson about the center of the axle.  Hopefully when I remake the gear, I will get it nice and centered.

Additionally, I did do some cleanup on the wheel to get rid of some of the bulge from the weld.

No work for a little bit...

  Because of vacation, I will be away from the forge.  Believe me, I was tempted to bring the forge with me...  :)

Almanus Manuscript

  Well my copy of the Almanus Manuscript just arrived and it is a major boost to my documentation of medieval clocks.  This document was written in the latter half of the 15th century by an otherwise unknown monk.  Apparently, he was an assistant that helped repair clocks.  As part of that job, he would frequently document the clocks with sketches and comments.

  I am very, very happy with the purchase so far.  The only downside is that the clocks are mantle clocks which are much smaller than the turret clock that I am creating.  However, all the basic mechanisms are either the same or very similar.

  Anyway, back to the book...

Verge and Foliot Suspension complete

  I was able to get out to the forge today and finish up the verge and foliot suspension.  Once again, the verge and foliot are basically a "T" shaped vertical bar that rotates back and forth.  This serves the same purpose as a pendulum on more recent clocks.  I still have to do some cleanup, final shaping but the hard work is done.

  The piece was made of 3 pieces of metal.  The first piece is the upright piece that attaches to the clock frame.  The next piece is riveted to the first.  It also bent to make sure that it is directly over the area where the verge and foliot will be placed.  Finally a third piece was forge welded to the second piece.  This piece was bent and includes some small indents where the verge and foliot will hang from.  This is a picture of the piece on the clock frame.

This photo has been altered to show how the suspension will work.  The yellow line will be a thread (probably horse tail hair) and the red line will be the verge and foliot.  Once again it will rotate back and forth.  It may not be obvious, but there is a hole for the verge and foliot to pass through on the new piece.

Short entry

  Because of the demise of my fiber optics router (blazing fast), I am forced to use dial up until the new router arrives.  So this entry will be short.

  I continued work on the suspension mechanism for the verge and foliot today.  I was making excellant progress until there was an unexpected problem.  The sun went down.  Anyway, I hope to have the entire suspension mechanism done tomorrow so that I can move on to beginning the verge and foliot.