Wood Gear Clock Design

[Michael Mathews]

I've been slowly learning and working through Fusion 360 on a Wood Gear Clock design. The drive will be a 6 RPM synchronous 120VAC motor. The image shows the gears without teeth and only the Pitch Diameters because that's effectively where the two gears will touch (or synchronize). This image shows some "spyder" structure that supports gear axels and various levels. I "think" I might be ready to start cutting out gears. For scale the grid squares are 1" x 1".

The design will be that each of the three identified gears: Seconds, Minutes, and Hours, will have numbers engraved on them. There will be a fixed pointer or frame or something where you read the time. So instead of rotating hands, the gears with the numbers will be rotating.

 

[Burly John]

Very cool. I hope you'll keep us updated.

 

[Dovetail]

Very cool design. I did something similar a while ago as a learning experience for a future wooden pendulum clock (that project is still in the future).
The Synchronous motor is definitely the way to go for accuracy. I didn't do this and my "clock" kept awful time. I found I had to mount the gear axles on eccentrics to be able to adjust the backlash, and get smooth meshing.
Not sure how you plan to cut the gears, but this guy has a nice program to generate involute gear tooth profiles: Gear template generator program

Definitely send updates on your progress!

 

[Michael Mathews]

Thanks for the reminder Rich! I'm currently working on translating the gear axis center points to the back panel in Fusion 360. It's NOT been easy let me say. Gives me a new respect for Joe Carr and the work that he does with his clock designs! I'm hoping to start cutting wood...soon! UGH.....

The image shows approximately where I am with the design. I've identified the Seconds gear, Minutes gear, and Hours gear. Oh, and your looking at the Pitch Diameters of the gears, not gears with teeth! Much easier to work this way.