Pendulum Clock

Journal entries imported from the previous iteration of wisrd.org

PENDULUM CLOCK

The purpose of the Pendulum Clock: It demonstrates an understanding of physics and woodworking, as well as providing a nice aesthetic to the WISRD Wall. This project made the front page of the Wildwood magazine last year.

Project Members: Jacob, (Gabe)

Review of Past Work (9/18/17):

Hello everyone, it’s Jacob. If you’ve been wondering what exactly happened to the clock, I ended up giving up on it. The ticker didn’t work when we set the clock up on the wall, so I had to mess with it for a while and even tried to cut a new ticker. None of it really worked. Remy quit about two or so months before I did, and honestly I don’t blame him since there wasn’t much to do. So when I started WISRD this year, I thought I was going to put it all behind me and get started on some different work. Everything was going really smoothly. I started posting on my personal journal regularly, finished a private project for the Chemistry teacher, and have been focusing on cleaning up the twitter. But recently, Joe asked me if I would be opposed to working on the clock again and if I could do it properly on my own if he ordered a new one. Well… I couldn’t say no. So here I am, starting all over. While I don’t have Remy’s help this time, I do have the pleasure of working with a WISRD freshman, Gabe. Gabe is a very smart and hard worker who listens diligently to any advice I might have for him in the woodworking aspect. While his main project lies in the Speed of Light Reenactment, he has a while before he can collect any data. So out of respect for him, I have him down as an honorary member. But I really think I can finish the clock this year, with this new knowledge and greater experience. From now on you’ll see proper postings and a far more organized clock project. Enjoy.

-Jacob

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Post 2 (10/5/17): Now that we’re all done sanding, we attempted to stain the wood with the “classic oak” stain mentioned in the last post. However, the stain did absolutely nothing to rid the green hue from the pieces and was a waste of time. The plan now is to order a new stain online or buy one at the shop. The problem might have been that the pieces were too light or the stain was mostly made for protection of the wood or a polished finish. -Jacob

Post 1 (10/2/17): Despite recently restarting the pendulum clock project, we are making good progress. We have finished sanding every single small, large and everything in between piece. Some of the pieces have a weird green hue so we’ve decided to stain the pieces with “classic oak” stain because we could not remove the weird coloration by sanding. -Gabe

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Post 4 (10/2/17): Since we’ve recently restarted the pendulum clock project, we are making good progress. We have finished sanding every single small, large and everything in between piece. Some of the pieces have a weird green hue so we’ve decided to wood stain the pieces with “classic oak” stain because we could not remove the weird coloration by sanding.

Post 3 (3/14/17):

I worked on the clock this evening. I went to the webpage and noticed that the clock was hung differently than what we had it. That made sense as I tried to work with the pendulum action. I think that I have it hung in a way that makes sense. The PE in the weight needs to be transferred to driving the pendulum back and forth. (Joe)

Post 2:

We have finished sanding! Now the construction starts. We begin by glueing idlers onto the gears. This process may seem simple, but actually each gear takes a lot of effort and time. We have to do this process for about seven gears.

Post 1:

Throughout the first week of building, we had to sand, and sand, and sand, and sand a little more. Did I mention we had to sand? Sanding every piece of the clock was crucial in order to make sure the gears were smooth and easily turned.