Clock frame

Now that I have all the gears of the train cut, I have an idea of how to arrange them.  I could be fancy, but I'm going for simplicity.  For the moment, I'm planning to stack the gears vertically as shown in the diagram below.

Since the elevation plan I drew before calls for three plates, I cut them...

...freehand using a sabre saw.  I used a blade with small symmetric teeth and no orbital to minimize tear out.

The three plates are supported on four corners by notched blocks.

Once cut, I clamped the blocks (and the plates) and sanded them to the same size.

The next step is to cut the notches into the middle plate to match the blocks.  This has to be done carefully to ensure proper alignment of the front and middle plates.  I did this using the scroll saw to get a rough notch in the middle plate, and then carefully filed until each block fit.

Then using the depthing tool with each pair of gears, I marked the wheel centers.

Finally, I tested the fit of all three plates.