Figuring out the top-plates was a little more tricky than I thought. I needed to plane some more off the lumber to make for a precise fit on the hood. Also needed to true-up the lumber. Finally, I needed to come up with the correct bevel to allow the plates to engage with themselves as they were applied around the rabbeted curve. Those tasks took a few hours. But the top-plates are now glued-on to the hood top. Tomorrow I will turn the hood over and add some more glue to the top-plates and perform some general hood reinforcements. I will also likely add the hood glides to the waist. You will then see how that works. Then, on to the moulding which will be yet another challenge. My hope is to get the moulding completed by Wednesday. That's my hard-stop date before I start applying an oil finish to the clock case. I have another project that will take up the entire month of February, so the hood door and, if necessary the moulding, will be completed in March. Click on photos below to enlarge. And thanks for stopping by!
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Today I finish-sanded the arches, test-fitted the hood once again, made up a step-by-step game plan for assembling the hood, and proceeded to glue-up and clamp the hood. My wife was a big help in making sure I sequenced everything according to plan. So YAYYY!! The clock hood is glued-up. Later this evening, I will remove the back clamps that held the back arch to the hood sides, and put the backplate back on. Tomorrow, I will add some glued reinforcements to the hood just to be sure it stays-put. I also plan to build the many top-plates to the hood top. I'm looking forward to that and it should be fun. Following that, I hope to get to the moulding over the weekend. Click on photos below to enlarge. Enjoy!
I had hoped to get to the hood glue-up today but did not. It turns out that, while sanding and performing test fittings, I decided that I needed to remedy a few gaps and uneven wood. So that's what I did. I then sanded all of the hood and dial mask pieces and performed several test fits. I came up with a sequence as to how I am going to glue-up the hood and place it to dry on the case. Since the clock works are immediately below and behind this activity, I will need to be awfully careful. The glue-up is planned for tomorrow after we run a few errands. See slideshow below. Another very cold day in the workshop [48 degrees] but I did make progress. I had one set-back when I was sanding the glued-togther arch pieces and I had a glue fail and had to re-glue it. I started the day unclamping the backplate, sanding it, and putting it back on the case. Came out great. I then spent much time sanding the large arch resulting from arch pieces #1-4. Got the top sanded down but the inside curve was time-consuming and I eventually had the glue fail. I should be able to continue sanding it tomorrow. To sand the inside curve of the arch, I made a makeshift hand-powered drum sander [see pic below]. Since I had to stop working on the arch, I shifted to the dial mask and got that glued-up. For tomorrow, I'm hoping to finish all sanding and glue-up the hood pieces [after first sliding in the mask which I do not plan to glue to the hood]. Later this week, I will tackle the hood top-plates and, perhaps, the shaped moulding. Click on photos to enlarge. Enjoy!
I added the 2 wings to the top of the back-plate. Should be dry by tomorrow. Then, I will sand it and put it back on the case. I also performed some tweaks on arches #1-4 and glued them together. Tomorrow I will sand them thoroughly and likely glue-up the entire hood including the mask. Please see pics below from today. Click to enlarge.
I completed 4 tasks today on various areas of the hood. Made what I call hood glides to restrain the hood from an inadvertent topple. I'll show you how this works in a later stage. Rounded-off the inside dial mask edges to give it a more polished look. Cut the curve in the back-plate. It now sits in the back arch. And, I trimmed the back arch to accommodate the back-plate wings. Tomorrow I will add the back-plate wings to allow the back-plate to follow the contour of the hood. Then you will understand this step. Fortunately, I believe I already have the planed 1/2" stock to make this happen. I will need to once again take the back-plate off of the back so I can then biscuit, glue and clamp-up the wings to the back-plate. I will likely also sand all of the hood pieces so that they are ready for glue-up [None of the hood/mask pieces are currently glued]. The hood assembly will definitely be tricky and I'm thinking that I will need to glue it all together at one time. Definitely starting to look like a grandfather clock! Click on photos below to enlarge. Enjoy! While not yet glued-up, the mask pieces are all cut and ready to be assembled. Actually, none of the hood is glued together yet as I need to make everything fit correctly first. Today I finished the top arch piece on the mask. Quite a challenge as the 1/4" stock becomes 1/8" when the plan is to lap-joint them - which it was. Please enjoy the pics below. Click to enlarge.
I spent several hours in my freezing cold workshop today working on the dial mask top. I figured this would be tricky and it was. I needed to make little tweaks here and there, and I hope in the end it looks good. It needs to fit perfectly under the hood arches. I only got as far as making the top-most dial mask arch. This was because I needed to do a lot of testing before I committed my walnut pieces to the cutters. Tomorrow I hope to make the bottom cut and also the lap-joints to this top piece and the 2 stiles. Enjoy today's photos below. Click to enlarge.
All fine tall-case clocks have a dial mask that surrounds and joins the dial to the case. Today I worked on building 3 of the 4 pieces that will comprise my dial mask. I finally got to add lap-joint to the various other joints that hold the clock case together. It wasn't necessary but it was fun and a challenge as well. I've read that there are few joints as strong as a lap-joint. The surrounding wood will give way before the joint does. I only managed to get 3 of the pieces made-up. The 4th, the more difficult arch piece, will be a bigger challenge. I hope to get that done tomorrow. Please enjoy the slideshow from today below. BTW, my clock is still tick-tocking away! Very cold in the workshop today but I did manage to create the 1st version of the dial mask template. I used poster stock. I want to have the mask overlap the dial by only 1/8 of an inch so tolerances are a little tight. I hope to put a 1/4" round-over on the inner edge. I found myself once more needing my hand-made beam compass. Tomorrow, I expect to move forward with making the mask. Please see photos below. Click to enlarge. Enjoy!
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AuthorI hope that you enjoy keeping up with my clock's progress! Archives
June 2016
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