merlins band clock

Has anybody engraved or etched own bands and dials for merlins band clock

Andrew mcleish.

I have not engraved the bands for that clock, but have done some other dials, including dials like lathe feedscrew dials, which are orientated the same way, and I am familiar with the Merlin clock project. What's your specific question?

I have also dome some etching, although if I was making the bands I would engrave them by choice, as I think this gives a crisper finish to the sides and corners.

I would not make the bands the way that process is described in the book (page 50) but would either make the band from a strip and turn it, or, for preference, turn the band out of tube. I'm not sure if there is a convenient size of tube, but that would be the easiest way. Without removing the tube from the chuck, I would transfer the chuck to the CNC mill. Sorry if that's not your cup of tea, but it is the easiest way for me. That allows the engraving to follow the surface of the band, round the bend, so to speak. I have engraved plain flat dials mounted on a faceplate in the chuck, using a vee tool, but even if the bands remained in the chuck on the lathe, the problem would be the diagonal movements. Not impossible, I think, but very tricky to co-ordinate.

I believe a conventional manual engraving machine can engrave around a band, without much trouble, but I have no direct experience of that.

Marcus

Thanks marcus for the reply.

It is the engraving of the arabic numerals i want to sort out.

I do not have cnc etc.I think i have worked out a way to do the roman numerals on the band on the myford.

Andrew

Ok. If the workpiece is flat, and mounted on a faceplate, you could use a vee tool attached to the vertical slide, but swivel the slide for the angled strokes. You could also use a spindle and an engraving tool (or something like a Dremel or Proxxon drill as the spindle).

For curved arabic figures, I wonder if you could use the same principle as a taper turning attachment, where both the cross-slide and vertical slide are freed from their feedscrews, and follow the guidance of a template, rather like an engraving machine (but turned through 90 degrees so that the template is vertical to match the vertical face of the faceplate. That would require a pointer attached to the vertical slide, aligned with the tool or spindle.

I tend to think an engraving machine (commercial or home-made) would be more efficient. That has the additional benefit that the template can be larger than the engraved numeral, so errors are reduced.

If the bands are already formed, I'm not sure I can see an easy way to do this in the lathe for the arabic numerals.

This is an interesting problem!

Marcus

Andrew,

This doesn't help in the slightest, I'm afraid ... but I have to ask:

What possessed you to start building that clock, if you didn't already have the skills or equipment to engrave the bands ?

... It's a delightful piece, but the bands are fundamental to the design.

A commercial engraver should have no problem doing them ... at a price

MichaelG.

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Edit: See Fig. 23 towards the bottom of this page.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 18/03/2016 08:12:34

Photo etching?

Neil

Michael G.

I would think that alot of model engineers clock makers etc develope their skills and equipement as they go

There is always more than one way to skin a cat hopefully!!

Thanks for the reply andrew.

Neil.

I think you are right photo etching seems to be the way to go and i am researching this at the moment.

Thanks andrew.

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Andrew,

That's why I included the edit ... hopefully some inspiration

MichaelG.