A Bunch of Clocks

I am now in the gluing stage of the clock project and I thought I would send you a few progress pictures. I took your advice on doing the finish work for the inside of the clocks before the glue up. I also used jigs to drill out the bulk of the wood for the clock works and then for routing the remainder of the wood that was left. I used a 50 percent solution of Shellac as a sanding sealer and then three coats of lacquer on the inside. I will be using the same sanding sealer and five coats for the outside. My goal is to finish up gluing this week. I can only glue after work and I only have enough small clamps to glue four clocks at a time. My goal is to finish all the gluing by Friday night then start cutting the splines and final sanding on Saturday and then starting the final spraying on Sunday. I will be sending you pictures when they are finished.

Three weeks later……..
Well, it seems that I underestimated the time it would take to make 19 clocks! Just making, sanding/fitting, gluing and trimming all the spines (152) took me about 8 hours not counting the 4 hours waiting for the glue to dry. Sanding each clock between each coat of Lacquer added an hour to each layer I applied. Overall it was a good experience in doing production type work. I did lose one clock in the process. I didn’t have enough parallel clamps to clamp more than 2 clocks at a time, so I tried to use some cheap bar clamps hoping to be able to glue up at least 4 at a time. On one clock it took too long to get the joints lined up, the glue started to set. I tried taking it apart and fixing it but my attempts just made things worse and the holes for the dowels were getting too off center. It was taking too much time away from finishing the other clocks, so I just moved on.

Anyway here is the final picture. I tried a few different shots but couldn’t get a real good one. The wood combinations that were used were Wenge and Maple, Zebra and Peruvian Walnut, Purple Heart and Peruvian Walnut, Purpleheart and Maple, Walnut and Oak, Mahogany and Maple, Bubinga and Lacewood, CA Walnut and Lacewood, Peruvian Walnut and Oak, CA Walnut and Oak.