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building a wooden clock.

Clock 41 – Starter Clock – inches – for the first time builder

It has been quite a while since the last clock designed in inches was released, so with this in mind the current clock design will correct that omission. Clock 41 uses the original Gravity Escapement used on clock 20 in a more compact form with the simple construction techniques developed for the original Starter clock designed for beginners. It has a simplified gear train using only 6 gears instead of the 10 used in the original and so provided the ideal clock for the first time builder working in inches. The Gravity Escapement is one of the most accurate escapements in use for wooden clocks as it cuts down most of the areas of friction found in the clocks and makes for the most interesting mechanism to watch at work. For winding the clock a pull cord is used to lift the weight back up using a gravity ratchet system. The E-Book that accompanies this clock is in PDF format will guide you through the build of this clock and also provide details of how you can design your clock. The bulk of the E-Book concentrates on looking at the details of how a clock works, its different components and details on how to design them, the gear train is looked at in more detail so that you can understand how gears are used to accommodate the requirements of different Escapement and Pendulum types. The book can be viewed in Acrobat or Foxit with the viewing mode set to ‘Page Level’ or ‘Fit Page’ then step your way through the bock using the Arrow keys. So if you work in inches and are looking to build a clock for the first time this could be the one for you.

Detail Drawings, the IGS and STP files that can be used with your CNC machine and the E-Book can be downloaded here for $32. You also get the unrestricted version of the PDF files that can be printed at full size and finally the STL files if you need them for 3D printing.

Drawings for this clock in PDF format can be downloaded here. These free files are low resolution and not to scale and only a sample of the full set that comes in the paid for version. Clicking here will download the PDF file directly to your browser, may take a few moments so please be patient.

A sample from the E-Book, the actual E-Book contains 90 pages of text and illustrations giving insight to the design and prototyping a new wooden clock as well as instructions for making the included clock.

A sample from the DXF file – the file is purposely low resolution, with no vector data. The actual files purchased above are included on one large sheet so that they may be directly loaded into your CAM program.

To print only a single item of the drawing to scale using Adobe Acrobat Reader, do the following:

Go to Edit, then click on Take a snapshot, move the cursor to the top left of the item you want to print and hold down the left mouse button whilst you drag a box around the item. The inside of the box turns blue and you can now go to File and then click on Print. This brings up the print dialogue, make sure Selected graphic is selected and that the Page scaling is set to None and the click on OK. As long as your printer is connected you will have printed the item at size. Do this for each item you want to cut out.