A very simple clock, to be sure. I have decided that I want to build a simple pendulum clock with seconds, minutes and hours. After reading some books and taking apart some clocks I think I have a pretty good understanding of the mechanism. The weight and pendulum I can make myself, but I need to get:
An escapement and escapement gear
Various other gears in certain sizes and ratios (obviously my design will depend on what sizes are easily available so I can figure out the gear-train components. (I would like to avoid doing ratios of 60:1 ))
Axles, and
Hollow axles that can fit inside each other for the hands.
I figure there must be some company out there that makes parts for amateur clockmakers, but I must be googling for the wrong terms, because I haven’t found anything useful.
I’ve looked at Klockit before, but I think they only sell quartz movements and complete mechanical movements, which is not exactly what I want. I want to design and build the mechanism from scratch, where “scratch” means someone else machined the gears for me. It’s really just for a proof-of-concept, and will probably only consist of a dozen gears at most. (It won’t even have clutches to allow for winding or setting, for example.)
One thing I’ve been looking at is Meccano, especially after noticing that someone made a difference engine with it, but I can’t seem to find out if those are available in the US.
I agree with ftg that thrift stores will likely be the cheapest.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to say- I love you guys. Hmm, I think I’ll start a MPSIMS thread on some kind of Doper machine contest.
Now, I must click more links and order more catalogues under the name Cyrus Gerluch. (If you guessed that name is based on Disney’s Gyro Gearloose, give yourself five points.)
))
