Saturday, February 28, 2015

Wooden clock #1 lessons

  1. Make the pinions have more than 6 leaves.  Pinions with a small number of leaves are more difficult to cut, have more friction, and just cause more trouble.  Cutting extra teeth on a larger gear is actually easier
  2. Be a little more careful with computing gear ratios, especially involving the action of the escapement.  Although I got the minute hand wrong, I managed to make a second error in the motion work so the hour hand runs properly
  3. Make the pendulum longer than you'd expect to need -- you can always trim it back
  4. Although it seems unbalanced, consider putting the winding barrel at the top of the mechanism, to give more room for weight drop.
  5. Connecting the anchor without a crutch assembly works, although tolerances are probably improved by using one.
  6. Along those lines, mounting the pendulum in a pivot also seems to work but probably contributes excess friction
  7. Slipit!

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