The wood was a relatively flat slice so all I needed to do was sand it smooth and finish. I worked it with the orbital sander and some elbow grease from 120grit through to 1500grit. At 1500 grit I rubbed it with some sanding sealer to raise the grain and repeated the sanding process a few times to get a silky smooth finish.
Being quite a thick (the wood not me) I bought a mechanism with a 24 mm drive shaft from Carbatec. I used a suitable sized Forstner bit to drill a recess for the mechanism to fit in, and a smaller hole for the shaft to fit through and sanded the inside.
I gave the clock a few coats of Danish Oil to bring out the colour and shine plus it helps protect the wood. The next step was to build the clock face. I took a while to think about how this was best done. I didn't want the numbers looking crocked or in the wrong place, how to get it round and spaced correctly? My wife as always is the real brains of the operation and came up with a simple suggestion only seconds before I had the same thought. Why not create a cardboard template to fit over the shaft. To do this (wish I had taken photos!) I cut a circle of card just smaller than the diameter of the face I wanted. I used a protractor to mark out 30 degree lines of bearing for the numbers and made a hole to fit over the clock shaft. Putting that on the face I decided where twelve wood be and taped the template into place. From there it was easy to stick the numbers to the clock face.
I used 20mm Gold numbers and straight gold hands that screw onto the shaft. Although the mechanisms come with numbers and hands you select, I had chosen poorly at the time so these additional ones came from timberbits, my favourite on line pen store (and also clocks and many other wonderful things!). I think the clock turned out fantastic and I can't wait to hang it, now I just need to wait for the new house to put it in!
What sort of clocks do you like?
There aren't enough cuckoo clocks around. Love your clock.
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