My Clock Build Project Thread

[rwdenney]

Millions of ancient clocks still work well with old-fashioned involute gears with square bottoms and pointed teeth.

The rise of epicycloidal gears came with watches rather than clocks. With such small powering springs, they needed to be as efficient as possible, and the cycloidal gears are a bit more efficient than involute gears.

Rick "having the tooling in hand is a good enough reason to justify any design " Denney

 

[Dabbler]

about MAPP gas - thanks for the update - really cool!

MAPP substitutes are sold here as MAPP gas, much like buy a fridge or Kleenex. I never new things got changed, and in use the 'yellow bottle' is what we are referring to for the purpose of heat treating. The substituttes seem to work well enough and the extra hydrogen doesn't seem to be a problem.

I use my oxyacetylene for small parts as it is a LOT cheaper than warming up the big oven.

 

[devils4ever]

So, is Map-Pro okay to use for heat treating? It's about $14 at the local Home Depot compared to about $6 for propane.

Can I use my existing touch that I use for the propane tank or do I need a special one for Map-Pro?

 

[rwdenney]

So, is Map-Pro okay to use for heat treating? It's about $14 at the local Home Depot compared to about $6 for propane.

Can I use my existing touch that I use for the propane tank or do I need a special one for Map-Pro?

You really only need to harden the pallets themselves, not the whole pallet fork. That’s just the angled tips of the pallet fork. On French clocks of old and on watches, the pallets would be jeweled.

On old American clocks with formed-plate verges, only the tips are hardened—easy to see from the color change.

Rick “blued” Denney

 

[devils4ever]

I finished the hub to attach to the escape wheel. As always, the simplest seeming thing takes hours. Just to drill the holes took well over an hour to make sure everything would align.

Tapping a 2-56 thread.


Drilling the three holes that mate with the escape wheel.


Finished hub.


Hub mounted to escape wheel.

 

[rwm]

Very interesting about MAPP and MAP-Pro. I did not know that. In fact I recently bought a can of MAP-Pro and I feel I have been scammed. Is this an unfair and deceptive trade practice?

 

[Dabbler]

Very interesting about MAPP and MAP-Pro. I did not know that. In fact I recently bought a can of MAP-Pro and I feel I have been scammed. Is this an unfair and deceptive trade practice?

I don't know. As long as it gets to the right heat,

 

[rwm]

It doesn't.

 

[devils4ever]

It ticks! It tocks! I'm not sure how to post a short videos here, but I have a test fixture with the escapement ticking and tocking. I have the escapement mounted upside down for now so the pendulum could swing freely without a crutch. Also, it's mounted directly to the arbor rather than using a spring suspension.

It's not the prettiest, but it works. I wanted to ensure that I could get this clock to run. Now, I'm fairly confident in that, I'm ready to proceed with the gears and the rest of the clock.

Here's some pics. Please let me know how to add a video here.

 

[devils4ever]

Ok, I guess you can just drag and drop the video here. I hope this works.

View attachment 20230107_115302.mp4




View attachment 20230107_115315.mp4