The Woodshop Shed

A Clock Build - or How I Made Time Stand Still

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


For the Spring 2019 Swap, I made a box clock. Actually, I made 3 box clocks. One thing led to another and I wound up sending all of them out as part of the swap. I told myself that I would make another one so I had a version for myself.Fast forward to the winter of 2020. Yep, the year of the dumpster fire. I'd been playing around on SketchUp and had worked up most of a design. About the same time, I promised a fellow LJ that I would make a clock for him. I promptly received a box with some chestnut, koa, and butternut pieces which prompted me to decide to make some clocks using just the scrap wood in the shop. So far, so good. Here is the SketchUp model:Things started off reasonably well with the legs; mortise and tenoning work on the Leigh jig. I had plenty of scrap pieces so I made enough front and back rails for 8-10 clocks. I also made 6 sets of legs since I had all kinds of grand ideas for different wood combinations. Spring came along and shop time became less frequent and riding my bike (bicycle) was more fun.I managed to cut the box sides out and get them mitered and cut a groove for the splines.Shop time was starting to slow down.Somewhere in early summer the side panels were finished. Here are the SketchUp details:Again, I had lots of 3/8 in wood so there were plenty of options. I made a dozen or more side panels. Now all of the easy work was complete.Next up were the clock fronts and all of the circle cutting.Circle inserts for the clock hands:Ring insert:By now summer is over and Halloween is rapidly approaching. Time for the clock faces:The frames and boxes were glued up.More time passed. Turkey Day was fast approaching. The boxes and frames were stained and sealed. First coat of Arm-R-Seal was applied to everything.Guess I'd better start working on the pendulums since Thanksgiving is over.And we have arrived at today. This was one of the most challenging builds I've done. Not because the woodworking was difficult. Rather instead it was because of the time that elapsed between the various parts of the project.Here are the final clocks.Cherry box, cherry legs, walnut side panels, with square G&G style plugs and a very slight taper to the legs:Maple box, maple legs, walnut side panels, with G&G plugs and tapered legsChestnut box, cherry legs, chestnut side panelsButternut box, walnut legs, butternut side panelsWalnut box, walnut legs, oak rails and side panelsOak box, oak legs, walnut rails and side panelsThe clock project took most of a year to complete and I did manage to use a fair amount of scrap wood to build these clocks. I also threw away most of the scrap I didn't use. Along the way I bought a new dust collector and a new bandsaw. I also started work on a roubo workbench (which I can get back to now that the clocks are done). I reorganized the shop 10-15 times, and rode nearly 4,000 miles. Quite a project.

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