Another quick video.  This is showing the arbor in place on the clock.  This arbor is for the crown wheel.  I am making good progress now and I hope over the Christmas/New Year holiday to get the clock ticking.

Verge and Foliot work

So I am progressing and I need to get better about updating this site.  I have mostly finished the verge and foliot.  I still need to add tabs that will engage the crown wheel and do a bit of shaping for where the weights will hang but it is looking good.

Here is a short video showing it action.  I apologize for the low quality as this is my cell phone camera.

Ack! Haven't posted here in a while but progress to be shown!

Sorry for the one or two of you that might be checking on this blog.  :)  I haven't posted here in a while but I have been working.  I guess because I've built the frame before I was not worried about documenting it too much.  Anyway, the new frame is done and it looks much better.

I will try to better from here on out about posting regular updates.

Things have been happening...

  I had the past week off from work and I managed to do the most significant work I've done on the clock in a long time.  I would have been able to do more but it is still too damn hot in Florida to be able to more than a few hours at a time.  Once I get my notes together, I will post an update.  Things are still moving forward.

Trying to recover information

Due to the previous blog site I used (Xanga) closing down and them not being really good about letting me download a full version, I am going to try over the next few weeks to go back over the old posts and restore images.  I should have most of the original images but I may make a few mix ups.  Hopefully, I will have all of the Xanga links gone in a few weeks.

Finally back to work...

As I get older, I find that doing blacksmithing during the summer months in Florida is just not enjoyable anymore.  Today was an unusual day in that due to some early morning storms, the weather was a bit more bearable so I got back to work on the clock.  As we move into the autumn months, hopefully I will get back to work.

So today I started with working on the finials for the post.  I had actually attempted these a few months ago but I made them a bit too skinny which meant that I did not have enough mass to attach them to the posts of the frame corners.  For today, I remade one of the finials and I had much better luck.

First the finial.  This shows the bottom of the finial in the mold that I made.  The mold supports the shaped of the finial so that I can punch a square hole in the bottom of the finial as is shown in the photo.

And here is the top side of the finial next to the mold to show how the mold matches the finial.

Next I indent the very top of the post .  This gives the finial something to hang on to when it is hammered onto the post.

I put the finial on the post and hammer the sides as well as use a ball pein to shape the bottom some.

Finally, a comparison of the new post to what is currently on my previous clock attempt.  They are a pretty close match.  Once I clean up the new one and finish it, it should look noticeably better

Finial posts cut

A note before I go into the work today.  Currently I am working at a slower pace.  There are several reasons for it.  The primary reason is just that it has been 5 years since I consistently did blacksmithing.  As a result, I am not as in good of shape for it as I need to be.  The primary issue is my hammer arm.  I am still building up the endurance.  However, the moment my arm feels weak at all, I stop.  An arm that is tired can cause a bad hammer blow that can lose hours of work.

Anyway, excuses aside I feel that things will begin to accelerate now.  I am feeling good.  Things are looking good.  I am sure I will have some setbacks but that is part of working on this project.  I hope to get the corners done next weekend.  Once those are done, the rest of the frame is rather easy to put together and things will really start moving then.

So today, I worked on cutting the posts that the corner finials will sit on.  It really was not anything special, it just involved cutting some metal and shaping up the pieces just a bit.  Right now, the lengths are not the same.  That is not an issue because they have not been cut yet.  So nothing terribly exciting but here are the work pictures.

In the top photo are three of the corner pieces.  The top piece is after being cut, the middle is in the process of being cut (using a chisel) while the bottom one is just marked for cutting.

Finials all cut...

I managed to get a little bit of forge time after work today.  I pretty much just finished cutting the finials.  The photo shows all 4 as well as the bolster plate used for punching the holes.  The look a little rough right now.  From my previous experience they start looking nicer as I punch the hole and especially once I do the file work.

I also cut and formed a punch for use on the finials.  I have that annealing right now.  Since the punch was cut from an old car coil spring, I like to anneal it to help get any stress out of the metal.

Not that much otherwise but I am making progress.

Good weekend

So today I started remaking the actual finials for the corner posts of the clock.  Yesterday I made the bolster plate but that really was not used today.  The importance of the bolster will come in to play a bit later.  But anyway, the start of today was very similar to yesterday's work up to a point.

I started with scoring a line around a bar of 2.5 cm (1 inch) bar stock.

Using different fullering tools, I put a curve shape around the bar.

In this photo, I have cut off one end of the bar.  I will actually get two finials out of this.

Using a hacksaw, I cut at the thinnest point, that frees one finial.

I then hot cut the remaining finial from the bar.  These are the two finials as well as the bolster plate that will help me make the hole in the finials.  As a reminder even though I am in the US, I will be attempting to make all comments and photos using metric to give it a more world wide relevance.  So in this photo, that is a metric carpenters square for scale.

That was it for tonight.  I was actually in the mood to make the other two finials but daylight was fading so those will have to wait.  After I make the other two, I will use a square punch and the bolster to create a mounting hole in the finial but that will also have to wait.

Working on corner finials

Today I returned to the finials for the corner posts.  I tried to do this a bit last week but results were not good so I gave myself the week to think about how I was working.  I want this effort to be better than the first attempt so I am looking for better results and I think I have it.

First off, what I am working on is a finial design that sits on top of each corner post.  It is just a few centimeters across with a a curved taper tip.  This part is significant to me because when I made the first clock, it was a part that really made me feel like I was going down the correct path for learning to make the clock.  This is today's work...

I started by marking square stock that is about 1 inch or 2.54 centimeters square.  I drew a line around the stock and then lightly scored it with a hacksaw.  Note:  The end of the bar has kind of a mouth or split in it.  This is from a previous project and I am removing that end of the bar because it had some hammer work from that project.  That is why the starting point for this line is not closer to the end.

Next, I heated the piece and used a normal chisel to expand the line just a bit.

After that, I used a fullering tool to begin to make the indent curved.

And another fullering tool expanded the curved area even more.

The end piece is cut off leaving the shape of the finial.

A comparison of the piece today to one that is on my first attempt at the clock.

Finally today, I hammered this piece that I so carefully created into a block of hot steel.  The reason that I am doing this is that I want to create a mold or bolster for actually creating the finials.  I forgot to take a picture of the piece and I will do that tomorrow.  Rather than try to explain it any more, I will hold off that discussion until I can actually show the process.

Corners are punched with good results

 I was working from home today so once 5:00 hit, I went outside to see what I could get done and I'm happy I did.  Today I worked on punching the holes on the top of the posts.  These are the mortises for the frame construction.

This photo shows before I started with the holes marked out.  Notice that the area marked is smaller than what the hole will actually be.  This is just to help me start the punch.  Since the punch has a bit of a taper, it opens up the hole some.  After that, the I use a drift to open the hole further to its final size.

I was really happy with the results.  When I actually stack the posts, the holes line up perfectly.  I know that my first attempt at the clock was not this close to matching.  Part of the reason I decided to start from scratch was so I could go back and correct some of my previous faulty work.  I know nothing is perfect but since this is a mechanical contraption, I need to be as close as possible.

This photo shows the result of today's work.  It took about 90 minutes to mark and punch all 4 holes.  I will do a bit of cleanup with a file but nothing major.  Also, the lengths (at the top) are not perfectly matched.  That is because there will be some cutting work up there before I am done.

Some progress

No pictures today but I did work on the corners for just a bit.  The bottom holes are all punched out.  I will try to get to the top holes some time this week.  So, getting things going again.  Hopefully I can keep it going.

Back to work...

Wow...  It really has been 4 months since I've updated this.  With my mother's passing, things were disrupted and it took me longer than I expected to get back into the mood to do hobby stuff.

Anyone, today I actually worked on the clock.  When I last did work, I was working on the corner posts.  I had messed up on one of the pieces and had to remake it.  So today in addition to other work on the forge, I got to work on the clock for a bit.  I finished up some filing and straightening on the piece and it is caught up now with the other three pieces.

I am going to set a goal for myself that tomorrow I at the very least should get all of the holes punched on the posts.  If I can do that, I will feel like I've made real progress.

Here is a picture of the 4 pieces.  The one of the left is the one I worked on today.  Notice a bit of surface rust on the pieces.  It is there to remind me that I've been away too long.

No progress

Due to the passing of my mother, I have not gotten much done in the past month.  I hope to get back to this project within the next week.