Clock progress

  Finally got to work on the clock today.  The clock has fared pretty well after 6 months in garage and barely being touched.  Sometimes the humidity in Florida can be hard on the steel but it only had a bit of surface rust.

  At the beginning of the year, I had been working on the main gear on the going train (time keeping side of the clock.)  After thinking about it, I have decide to shift to make another area of the clock first.  The reason is that it will affect the placement of the main gear on its arbor.  So the part I decided to work on was the verge and foliot.  The verge and foliot is that name of the part of the clock responsible for actually regulating the running of the clock.  It is the medieval version of the pendulum.  Essentially it is a "T" shaped piece of metal that has weights placed on the ends of the arms of the "T".  This assembly rotates back and forth giving the clock its ticking.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verge_and_foliot

  This mechanism hangs from an arm that in turn is attached to the frame.  So today, I started on this arm assembly.  I started by taking a 1" piece of stock.  The bottom of the piece was reduced to about 3/4" by 1/4" tenon to fit into the clock frame.  The top is about 5/8" square.  In the middle is a flared section.  This flared section rests against the clock frame and serves to make sure the arm doesn't wobble.  This flared section presented the biggest challenge.  After I formed the top and bottom, I used punches not as punches but to help spread the metal.  This gave me enough metal to switch to a ball pein to increase the width.

  This is a picture from the Cassiobury clock.  The circled area is what I was working on today.



  If you look carefully, the arm goes across the top of clock, then up and back again.  It is the assembly that the verge and foliot are hanging from.

  This is the picture of the piece I was working on.



  The piece is still rough and I will be making a slit in the lower portion that will allow it to be held in place with a pin.  There is still some shaping to do.  It may not look like much but getting that flare in the center was a $^#@!.  The rest of the arm assembly should be easy.

  Also as a final note, my verge and foliot assembly will not be an exact match to the Cassiobury.  I am basing the assembly on the Dover clock which is the only clock from this maker which still has its original assembly.  The assembly on the Cassiobury is a replacement and probably was made without access to the original.

Getting back in the groove

  Spent some time on the forge today and I have no real plans for the weekend.  I am looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.

  I worked on the kitchen accesory again today (I promise pictures soon...).  However, tomorrow I think I will work on the clock.  I have been idle on that too long...

Researching...

  Well, I have to say the break from the blacksmithing is definitely over.  I'm finding myself anxious to get on the forge.  Probably more than I have in some time.  However, summer in Florida means lots of rain and lighting and it has made it difficult to get out.  I should be able to get a fair amount in this weekend.

  This week I did find a potential bit of major information.  There is a medieval book called "The Almanus Manuscript" which was written in the 15th century and contains over 30 sketches by a clock maker of some of the clocks he worked on.  It is very rare to find documents of this nature.  What surprises me is that in all of my searches over the past few years I never stumbled across this book.  So yesterday I ordered it from Amazon and hopefully should get it soon.

  On another note on the clock, I hope to get back to it within the next few days.

3 little firends

So today I was minding my own business working on the forge when I hear a rustling noise behind me.  I turn and see 3 fully grown armadillos about 2 feet from me.  It startled me a bit having wild animals that close.  After gettting a little distance I started to attempt to scare them away.  The problem is that armadillos are as dumb as a box of rocks, have basically no sight and they don't hear very well.  But after a few nudges with some metal stock, I got them to move on.

Otherwise, I was able to make a lot of good progress.  Unfortunately, lightning chased me inside.  The idea of holding a piece of metal with lightning hitting around me did not seem like a good idea.

Fire in the forge...

  Well, today was the first day I've had the forge fired up in months.  I won't go into the reasons for all the delays but it felt good to be working again.

  Anyway, to get me back into the groove I started working on a medieval kitchen accessory.  Essentially it gives a place where pots, pans, utensils can be hanged.  It looks somewhat like a chandelier with hooks hanging from it.  I will try to post work pictures soon and if things go well, I hope to be posting on a regular basis again.

Long Hiatus

Okay, work has been busy, life's been busy, haven't had much time to do blacksmithing, blah, blah blah...

Well, one of the major holdups to working on the forge is out of the way.  I was finally able to finish the new Kingdom thrones for Trimaris (SCA).  Here are some pictures of the new thrones.

 

This is a picture without the cushions just after I delivered them.  Several people helped me with them and I am glad that they are done.  It seems that everyone is happy with them.

Also, a major probject for work has been postponed.  Between that and getting the thrones done, I should have some time to finally get back to the clock.

A good day out...

  Today, the local blacksmithing group was meeting at a gentleman's shop over on the Gulf Coast.  Before I go any further, a bit of history on the area.

  The town I went to is Tarpon Springs, Florida.  This area was mostly populated by Greek immigrants around 1900.  The brought much of their culture with them as well as one of their occupations, sponge diving.  Sponge harvesting is still one of the big businesses in the area.

  The gentleman's shop we went to makes traditional sponge diving helmets.  These are the large helmets often associated with underwater salvage or other heavy work.  For examples, visit this site.  http://www.divingheritage.com/lerioskern.htm  This is the shop that we went to.

  He gave a great presentation.  Very friendly individual and very open the sharing his knowledge.  And his shop was full of many great antique tools.

  As the day was winding down, he was talking about dredging part of the ocean out next to his shop.  Part of the dredging brought up a large amount of rusty metal bars.  When I finally got a closer look, I had a surprise.  It was real wrought iron and a lot of it.  Some of asked if he would mind if we took it.  He had no problem and I ended up with the lion's share of it.  I probably have about 50' of 1 1/2" by 1/2" wrought iron.  A few spots are heavily rusted but since it is wrought iron it will be easy to fold it back on itself and weld it together to thicken it back up...

  Anyway, a few good day.  Lot of neat things and some free wrought iron.

  On another note, over the past few weeks I have been thinking about the problems I have been having in making any real progress on the clock over the past few months.  I think the real problem is that I have been working on the clock at demos.  I tend to rush things and mess them up.  So, for the foreseeable future, I am only going to work on the clock at home when no one is watching.