Building a Grasshopper Escapement Skeleton Clock

[It's Time]

Will
You have made it look too easy, beautiful build. Can not wait to see it alive, tick-tock.
Good luck
Nelson

[SteveFitzwater]

Very interesting lil project William, I will be up your way in March for a couple days, I am going to try and work in a visit, if I can get it worked in, I will give you a warning call first..

[willofiam]

Nelson...thanks for the uplifting comment....really...I think I make it as difficult as possible
Steve, would be nice to see yah, hope everything is well with you and yours.

[jim1228]

William,
Outstanding job on the clock build. I will be putting in my request for mine.
Jim

[willofiam]

That sounds good Jim, it will cost you double

O.K. now we move on to making the fusee barrel. A 2 1/4"diameter chunk of C360 will do. First drilling and reaming a hole to the proper size for a good fit to O-1 tool steel the proper diameter, face off and drill centers. Using red high strength thread locker notice the machinist clamp on the arbor. This was a nice aid for pre-measureing and using as a stop while quickly slipping it all together. Too much time spent finding the right spot and you can end up with it locked in the wrong area so being able to work quickly with this thread locking stuff is critical.

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[willofiam]

Setting up in the lathe it is best to be able to do all these next operations without taking it out of the lathe. I used a collet chuck instead of going between centers or using a 4 jaw. This collet chuck I use is really accurate and with a tail-stock center for good support everything works nice and runs true.

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Putting the curve in the fusee barrel. The trick here is figuring out the radius and setting up for that. Once the radius is figured I was able to use the center of my compound post for the measurement. By setting a square to the barrel and moving the cross slide out to a predetermine measurement, be very careful not to change or bump the handle on the cross slide. Now we have a accurately measured radius that can be cut by swinging the compound on its axis. This ends up being more of a arch than a proper fusee curve. In the future of the build we will take torque measurements and adjust this arch to the actual mainsprings power being used at each rotation of the fusee barrel.

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Setting up the tool post I had moved it close to the center of the compound mounting surface. By pulling the cutting tool up to the surface of the barrel and moving the saddle to the left until the apex of the cutter is on the edge of the barrel all we need to do is feed into the work until a arch is made all the way from one end of the barrel to the other. Really the tool post can be set anywhere on there, the idea being that at the apex of the swing of the cutter lining up with the edge of the brass blank, if you havent moved from the original measurement you will get the arch you want. For measurements of diameter of the fusee I am not remembering that the book had any in there so all I did was make sure the larger end was the right size to fit the larger boss on great wheel we just made.

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Now here is a goofy idea. While turning the compound by hand I was noticing the swinging action to be jerky and a bit difficult. By adding this wood clamp to the compound it gave me alot more leverage and I was able to stabilize the swinging action for a smoother and cleaner cut.

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[willofiam]

And WHALLA, a curved piece of brass....now what???

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Well...we need to cut the groove into this brass arch at 12 threads per inch. The trick here is to feed into the work piece while traveling from the right to the left of it. I suppose there are many ways to go about this BUT...I had a idea here we go again...I had a spring loaded retractable cutter head from a old New Hermes Gravograph. It had just enough travel to cut down to the smaller diameter. By calculating out the size of the nose of the cutter and allowing for a raised shoulder so the cable would not slip out at 12 threads per inch (the book did not have this cutter size) I ground out a piece of HSS round stock. Made a brass collar with a set screw to fit the cutter and ground away one side of it. This collar acted as a depth stop. I hope it will help when I make the final curve adjustments.

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[willofiam]

With the threading dial, a very slow speed, a light touch and set up a stop on the right hand side of the saddle so each return to the right was at the same spot. Simply watch the threading dial, engage the leadscrew at the proper time and push in on the cutter all at the same time....SIMPLE...RIGHT??? I was so excited I forgot to take pictures

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[willofiam]

Over at the smaller lathe and milling machine the arbor was taken down to proper sizes, winding square with 2 degree taper milled. Final work on the grooves was done at a later time using a fine file to a polishing stick with polish. If your using cable the grooves are round, if your using a chain then you would make them flat.

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[willofiam]

Here I am crossing out the great wheel. I had decided to cross out the wheels with a bit of a different designed crossing. In the next post or 2 I will show how I used the pantograph for crossing out the wheels with the design I came up with. Marking out, drilling plenty of holes to make it easier on the scroll saw, and filing with the die filer. Alot of hand filing after most material was removed.

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[willofiam]

And here we are with it pretty much finished. Ratchet wheel mounted, slip washer made and mounted, it appears it might work. Besides final polishing and adjustments to the fusee curve we can move on to the next exciting part.

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[willofiam]

I had a little trouble figuring out the dimensions for a template to use on the pantograph. The issue was when I reduced down to my smallest wheel crossing I was milling away the spokes, or they became way too thin. So I thought I would first make a actual wheel by hand at the smallest size I wanted. I then laid it in the printer, scanned it to the computer and increased the size to fit a sheet of paper and make my template at that increased size ratio. That worked well and now I can do any size reduction I want for any sized wheel and it will turn out properly.

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[willofiam]

Here is a You-tube video I did on crossing out the wheels for this clock. Have fun
If you have not been to http://learntimeonline.com/ ....check it out. More good information about clock and watch repair.

[Bob Tascione]

WOW!! Great job on that fusee William!
Thanks for the beautiful pics. and explanation.
Looking forward to seeing more.
Bob

[willofiam]

Hey Bob, thank you, I hope all is well with you and yours. The clock is coming along...slow but sure. I have been extremely busy as of late with customers and cutting a few wheels for some other clock guys around the country. Putting the pedal to the metal so to speak catching up on my backlog...many long hours every day of the week...so I can have some time to focus on finishing this build. My stomach turns every time I walk by it...wanting to get at it. I find that I am more productive (and happy) when I can concentrate my attention to several days of just building the clock instead of a couple of hours here and there. Cant wait to get it done, I have so many of my own ideas for the next one. Thank you for your support. William

[brianw]

I'm very impressed with everything you have done so far William. This is very inspiring for me. Keep up the good work.

[willofiam]

Thank you Brian, you always have good things to say, I greatly appreciate that. Have a wonderful day.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Excellent William. I enjoy watching you progress on this. Outstanding work.

[willofiam]

Hey Bernie, always good to hear from you, I appreciate your comments. Hope all is well and have a great day. William

[It's Time]

William
I am so sorry I missed most of your build but I can still say how good it looks. You are doing a real nice job. Love how you made your fusee, very creative and final results was superb. I will be following now a little bit more often.
Looking Great, keep up the fine work.
Nelson