Member postings for Francis Milsom

Many thanks - just what I've been looking for.

I'm in Kingstone just outside Hereford

@Martin Kyte Thanks martin, I seem to remember from watching the Clickspring videos on the skeleton clock that the feet were replaced for more ornate versions, so your mention of that above has brought that to the fore.

I'm currently reading and re-reading John Wildings' article and making notes not just on his order of building but on the additional tools used along the way to see what I have, what I need, what I can work around and anything I really need to make or buy in.

What I don't have is anything for heating metals for hardening/tempering/bluing components. That's something I will have to start a thread on. For tempering and bluing I wondered if a hot air-paint striper would be okay? I would still need a small burner of sorts to do any hardening with.

@John Haine Thanks John. More food for thought.

@Bazyle Thanks for the link to the dark lady clock thread (great build notes and comments).

I'm just not sure I want to build a clock as practice piece to build another clock. Please don't get me wrong, I'm intending to practice gear cutting, depthing and other processes while making further tooling for my clock build before commiting to the actual build.

What started out above as a request for info on blued pivot steel gauge sizes has pretty much turned my thoughts completely around. Gone now are thoughts of downscaling the clock, but thoughts now turning to changing materials for different aspects of the build are calling for a rethink in my whole approach...

Many thanks for the replies, they are certainly making me think a little harder about the build.

@Circlip I really want to build the clock in brass with a polished finish. I had considered using aliuminium for the frames but if I'm going to put that amount of effort into the build then (for me) brass is the way to go.

@bernard towers thenks I'll give them a call.

@Bizibilder - Making me rethink...

Hi,

I've a lathe (Warco WM240) and a mill (Warco WM14) which I've been using on and off for a couple of years to make small parts for telescopes and some tooling for the machines themselves. However the one thing I really want to start to build is a skeleton clock.

I have John Wildings' A Large Wheel Skeleton Clock bound reprint of the original article and going through the materials list I've come across 'Blued Pivot Steel N° 42 gauge'. I've been searching the web for a size chart for Blued Pivot steel. I can find metric sizes but I have no clue as to how metric sizes relate to the N° 42 gauge size quoted in the article.

My reasoning is because of cost. I simply cannot aford the CZ120 brass at full scale so I'm down sizing to 75% of the original. Still large enough for me to work on and the material resizing brings the price down to a more comfortable level.

Thanks for any help.