A video of the clock...

This is a video someone put up of the clock I am working to reproduce.  It gives an idea of the amount of work that will be necessary but it also gives nice details on some of the parts.

Ugh...

So while doing some housework over the past few days, I threw out my back.  I am going to try to do at least a little on the clock during the week.

Helpful photo...

While reading some old posts on the previous time I did the corners, I came across this photo.  Thought it might be a helpful reference to what I am doing.

Corner posts cut

I was able to finish cutting the fourth post today.  Really not too much special to say about this other than I noticed my speed is picking back up.  As I get back into the blacksmithing, my confidence is getting back to where it was.  Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

The next step is to create a decorative pattern at the top and bottom.  This is just to make things look prettier.  Also, I will be adding a finial to the top of each post.

Just one quick picture.  These are the four posts.  The "B" is just to remind me which is bottom part of the post.

Some progress made today despite being a bit sick.  Second post is cut out and straightened.  Third post is mostly cut out, just had to quit due to setting sun.  I hope to try and get the fourth done tomorrow.  I've set an aggressive goal of having the frame rebuilt by the end of the year.  If I can do that, it gets me back to doing gear work sooner which is what I find really interesting.

Down with the Imperials!

Just a bit of a change.  Up until know when I took photos, I would often put a ruler in the photo to give a sense of scale.  However, being in the US and our country having trouble with common sense, we still use Imperial measurement.  I believe one of only 2 countries that still use it.

I hope that someday others will find this blog to be useful information.  As 95% of the world uses metric, it only makes sense for me to use metric in the photos.  So tonight I ordered a few metric rulers to use in the photos and when I am doing work.  I will move away from any Imperial measurements in this blog.

Aside from making it easier for the majority of the world to use, it also a peeve of mine that US hasn't switched over.  I figure its a bit hypocritical of me to not use metric.

So, any post prior to this one, Imperial measurement.  Any post after this one will be metric.  Sorry for any confusion.  :)

After work today, I fired up the forge and worked on the second post.  The work is pretty much the same as the first post so no need for extra photos or descriptions.  Only problem now is how early it is getting dark.

Imported old blog

Just a quick note here...

In my previous blog documenting the building of my clock, I had used the Xanga website to document the work.  Due to changes at Xanga, I thought the old blog was lost to the nether regions of the Internet.  Thankfully, I was finally able to export the old entries from Xanga.  After a few issues, I was finally able to import them here.  This drastically jumped up this site to about 470 posts.

Anyway, they are now part of the history of this blog.  Kind of sad for me to look at it because I see how between 2008 and 2013, I struggled to get back into doing the project.  Hopefully I can keep things going here.

I did notice some of the older posts are not showing their images.  I will try to get those working later this week.

Some quick work today

In order to keep things moving, I am trying to do at least a little bit of work during the week.  I just did about an hour tonight but it was enough to do some cleanup on the corner post.  In the last post I mentioned that the post curved during cutting and that I did not straighten it out right away.  This is a photo of what I am talking about.



So, what is the reason for not straighten it out right away.  The reason is a thin piece of metal that is left over from cutting.  The way you cut away a large piece in blacksmithing is use a chisel and cut from both sides.  Technically you can come from only one side but that has it own set of issues.  Anyway, when you cut from both sides, the cut does not always meet perfectly in the middle.  What you get is that the cut on one side just slips past the cut on the other side.  This creates a very thin piece of metal.  This photo shows this.  This is a closeup with the photo only being a few inches.  The top of the photo is the piece of metal and bottom of the photo is the anvil surface.  If you notice on the bottom of the piece is some ragged looking metal.

To cut that metal off, I heat it up in the forge and clamp it in a vise.  Next I use a hammer and chisel to shear away the metal.  The process is pretty quick.  After the metal is sheared away, I use a farrier's rasp to remove any extra bits of metal.  If I do this when the metal is hot, the process is very quick.

Finally I straightened the piece out a bit.  The first photo here shows it next to another piece that has not been cut.  The final photo today shows it next to the drawing on the layout table to give an idea of what I am going for.

Clock work has begun

I have finally restarted my clock project and it feels good.  Today was probably the most satisfying day I've had at the forge in many years.  Even though the work is not all that impressive to look at, it is an important first step.  So without further delay...

Today was beginning work on the frame.  The most important pieces for the frame are the corner posts.  This is not just because of the structure but also because they are decorative in nature.  Getting these done is an important morale booster for the project.

First step is to cut the posts to length.  I rough cut them first (a bit longer then they need to be).  That is because dealing with a 10 foot piece of metal is a bit unwieldy.  The photo below shows the rough cut pieces.  There is also a drawing on the left that is the pattern for the corners.

The photo below shows the pieces cut to length.  At this point I am getting ready to transfer from the pattern to the metal.  I trace where I need to make cuts and then make small nicks in the metal to show where to cut.

This photo shows the beginning of cutting.  I am removing part of the side of the post.  This is for decorative reasons.  I start by tracing the pattern with a type of steel pencil.  This pencil makes a thin scratch in the metal that I can see once the metal is heated.  I then follow up with a small chisel to etch the line a bit deeper.  This photo shows that.

I begin following up with deeper cuts.  Once the line is well defined, I switch a larger and heavier chisel and begin hitting much harder.  This also begins to curve the piece.

As things progress, the metal curves more and more.  I don't fight that curving.  I will clean it up once the waste piece is removed.

The last photo shows the waste piece now gone and the full curvature of the post.  Once again, I will correct that later.  My next post will show why I did not just go ahead and do it while the piece was still warm.  Well, that's it.  The sun was setting and not too much to show but it definitely feels good to start up again.