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Mild Steel as material for gears

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John Haine18/12/2010 17:00:30
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Someone, I think Dick Stephen, has described making pinions from mild steel and case-hardening them
Tony Jeffree18/12/2010 18:21:12
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Posted by Ian S C on 18/12/2010 01:03:18:
As a time keeper, the Salisbury clock was the Rolex of its day, given todays materials, and tools to work them, what would they have built 624yrs ago? There seems tobe nothing new, just the availablity of materials and methods of using them.  Ian S C
 Ian -
 
It may have been the Rolex of its day, but there is plenty new since then other than new materials and methods. Clocks didn't start to get reasonably accurate until the invention f pendulum-based escapements; that wasn't just a case of new materials and methods of using them, it was a step change in knowledge and technology based on that knowledge.
 
The answer to your question " given todays materials, and tools to work them, what would they have built 624yrs ago?" is "not a lot" in reality, because they didn't have the rest of the infrastructure to support using today's materials and tools, and more importantly, to produce more of them. And even if they overcame that problem it still would have required the leap of imagination involved in inventing a pendulum-based escapement before anything really changed.
 
Regards,
Tony
Richard Parsons24/12/2010 00:28:29
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Terry I will agree with you. The built what they could with what they had got.
The Foliot and Verge are subject to so many variables, but they do oscillate and as such they were the first dawning of marking time by counting oscillations. How the heck did they think of that one. They had plenty of examples of pendulums but it took 300 odd years before old Galileo spotted it in a church.   
 
Before that there was the clepsydra (the water clock) and the candle/incense clock. The quantum leap was to count oscillations, which is all that our ‘modern’ clocks do.

Remember the Woodward clock ME circa 2003/4 I knocked something like it which clicked a Veeder counter one notched every revolution.  It told the time in minutes. Fun but useless for catching a train.

Jens Eirik Skogstad24/12/2010 10:13:02
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Hello, have someone forgotten the Antikythera mechanism?   It has the gear wheels, how the ancient engineer did whith the gear wheels of metal are unknown. Do you have a idea how do make gear wheels before our modern days, more than 2000 year since?
Richard Parsons24/12/2010 18:28:58
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The antikythera appears to have been a form of Orrery or Planasphere not a clock. 

The Greeks and the Romans had saws and files. They had dividers and a Mr Euclid to help them. They knew about screws (Mr Archimides) and rivets (old Doggynes).

I believe Heron of Alexandra was employed at the temple of Zeus in the Department of Applied Miracles. He built ‘slot machines’ which dispensed your ‘libation’ if you put a coin in them. He also seems to have built fully automated puppet shows.

To make the gears they would have done it my hand.  There have been several descriptions of how to make a dividing plate in M.E. using lengths of tape with holes in them.

 

Stub Mandrel24/12/2010 19:19:47
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Crikey Richard, I'm not deaf yet!
 
the Antikythera mechanism is amazing and would make a great subject for a constructional series. Any takers?
 
Neil
Richard Parsons25/12/2010 21:39:07
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Hi  Stub Sorry about the noise it has something to do with the interaction of the web-site and MS word.

As to making a model well look here. It is made off Lego.  There is also a detailed write up in Nature and other models including a complete reproduction.

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