The Franklin one-handed, three-wheel, clock … although a little weird, it was innovative, and might be a good starter project.

Plans, write-ups, etc. are widely available, but here is a brief introduction:

**LINK**

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-08-02-0060

MichaelG.

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Edit.  __ for the sake of pedantry, I must mention that the seconds hand and the pinions are commonly omitted from the descriptive name.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 09/07/2023 16:06:23

John Wilding is a good route to take. His 8 day wall clock was my introduction and the book is very comprehensive in describing the build as well as lots of wisdom on clockmaking in general. Drawings of depthing tools to make etc.

regards Martin

**LINK**

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780903512206/Weight-driven-8-day-Wall-Clock-Wilding-0903512203/plp

MichaelG.

John Wilding designed a simple clock for beginners which was serialised in either ME or EIM years ago. Advantages are the simple frame as large square clock plates are expensive. Wheels are fairly low count and all the same tooth size. There is a thread on here about the 'Dark Lady' clock which I think is effectively the same design made with blackened plates.

The franklin clock has a 120 tooth wheel. I wouldn't want that to be my first go at wheel cutting.

John Wilding wrote many serialized clock projects for the Horological Journal, back in the 1970s and 80s, most of which were replicated in his books. My first clock was one of a series of three he created for beginners, and it was his 16th Century Clock (see http://www.clockmaking-brass.co.uk/16th_century_clock.htm). It has only one hand, which simplifies the construction considerably. That is a design I would thoroughly recommend.

That design was later modified to make the frames simpler to construct, and the design was published in Model Engineer, Issues 3775 (18-30 April 1986) to 3799 (every second issue in that sequence, so issues 3777, 3779, 3781, 3783, 3785, 3787, 3789, 3791, 3793, 3795, 3797, 3799), and entitled A Weight Driven Brass Alarm Clock. That design incorporates a bell, and a one-at-the-hour passing strike .

If it was me, I might be inclined to the 16th Century design, but using the simpler frames from the Brass Alarm Clock, just because it is simpler without the alarm. There is also the question of the bell. The original source is long gone, but it would be easy enough to get a substitute from clockmaking-brass.co.uk (with whom I have no connection).

Wildings series in HJ was originally entitled An Introduction to Clockmaking with the Unimat 3, and he worked his way through 3 designs: The 16th Century clock, the Castle Clock, and The Scissors Clock.

http://www.clockmaking-brass.co.uk/castle%20clock.html

http://www.clockmaking-brass.co.uk/scissors.html

I like the Castle Clock which I think is aesthetically very pleasing.

Both the 16th Century and the Castle clocks are weight driven. and both are very suitable for the beginner.

The Scissors Clock is spring driven, elegant and fragile looking, but is not a beginner's clock.

I have made several of the much later Wilding projects, and they are all accompanied by copious easily understood building instructions.

The 16th Century Clock still hangs proudly in the lounge.

If you need more specific information, send me a PM.

Marcus

My first clock was John Parslows 15-day skeleton timepiece.  It was a fairly straight forward build with detailed instructions given in a short series of articles in ME starting March 2008.  You should be able to find them in the archives.

Still running well with just a clean and lube after its first ten years of running.

Russell

As a first introduction to making a clock I’ve been working through Richard Simmonds’ book over the last 7 months as well.

I’ve yet to make the pendulum, but otherwise it’s about finished now.   Overall I’ve found it pretty clear to follow and having been in touch with Richard he has been very helpful and friendly.  There are a couple of issues in the drawings but most are fairly obvious when you look at the components and what they mate with.  Unfortunately one of the more serious concerns the outside diameters of a number of wheels in the drawings which are wrong – the table of diameters on page 18 are about right though, so going with those would be best.   Fortunately I noticed the discrepancy before cutting metal, calculated the diameters based on Wild’s book myself and then looked to confirm with Richard Simmonds himself before I made swarf.  Finding the problem later on might have been a bit disheartening.

The only one that has properly caught me out was drilling and tapping the mounting holes for the maintaining springs, where I blindly put them where shown on the drawing (both offset on the same side of the centre line).   It’s my own fault because as I drilled them I thought that seemed odd as I would have expected them offset either side….   I then found the one spring didn’t come close to sitting in the right position  <blush>.  Hey Ho.

This weekend’s job is more polishing of hands before bluing, then do the suspension spring.

I understand Richard is planning to add a page to his website detailing updates and clarifications to the design in due course.

(oh, and as someone with a mint-imperial lathe I can confirm the mental gymnastics with a calculator aren’t too difficult to cope with the metric drawings!  lol).

Ian.