Mechanical Clock

This was a blast to put together. Instructions were clear and all parts were there. It looks cool and its pretty durable. My only advice is fill the weight before you put the bottom on it.

I have to agree with everything said by the “24 year old guy” who gave the first review. I am “an old guy” who decided to try his hand at clock kit building after a long hiatus and I really enjoyed assembling the clock. For the price, it’s an excellent way to get involved in both kit assembly and clockworks. I am giving the clock kit 5 stars because 1) no part was missing; 2) the directions are thorough and 3) the clock worked despite my best efforts to ruin it. In assembling the clock, pay very close attention to the layout of each item. I didn’t and had to reassemble some parts, thankfully without harming them. Although all of the gears and axels are important, it is my opinion that the interaction between the minute wheel and the idler wheel is the most critical. Moreover, the minute wheel axel has to hold the most weight – minute wheel and counterweight – so it is the one that needs to be most secure in the baseplate. This kit is an entertaining and relatively inexpensive way to be introduced or reintroduced to wooden clock kits.

SKILL LEVEL: 3/5, Intermediate SUMMARY: This is not a clock kit for the beginning builder. Building a simpler clock like the Abong Crossingham would be a better introduction to building wood gear clocks. This clock requires a modest amount of tools including a small razor saw, a hobby knife, glue and several sheets of sandpaper. Additionally, you must have a fair amount of patience and the ability to pay attention to small details. PROS: 1. Simple to assemble. 2. Very nice printed instruction manual. 3. Large gear teeth that are easy to sand. 4. Error tolerant design. 5. Keeps accurate time once adjusted! CONS: 1. Wooden axles that, by the nature of the material, are not very accurately sized. 2. Requires lots and lots of sanding of the gears and cogs to allow them to fit with as little friction as possible. 3. Hardening of the gears and axles needed to reduce friction. 4. Need to acquire tools if you don't have them already. 5. Need to acquire material for the drive weight. 6. The rewinding mechanism is awkward. BUILD TIPS: 1. I used a good hobby quality cyanoacrylate (superglue) adhesive in thin and medium viscosity with a fine applicator tip throughout the build to avoid waiting for a wood glue to set. If you haven't used CA glue before, practice on some scrap bits to judge how long it takes to set. 2. I hardened all the gear teeth with a drop of thin CA and then sanded each tooth until almost all the brown resin from the laser cutting process was removed. I did this before I started assembling the gear sets. This takes a fair amount of time. Hardening the teeth reduces friction and will reduce wear on the teeth. 3. I hardened each axle hole in each gear with CA and then sanded it smooth with a bit of rolled up sandpaper. I used very fine 400 grit paper. 4. I hardened each axle with CA, sanded it smooth, and then waxed the contact areas with candle wax. I did not use graphite anywhere for lubrication . 5. I used the wooden washers to locate the gears on the axles but did not glue them in place until AFTER the clock had been fully assembled. This allowed the gears to be slid on the axle shafts to allow proper clearance between gears. Only after I was satisfied with the gear spacing did I glue the washers in place on the axles to fix the gear positions. Make sure all gears spin as freely as possible and don't wobble. Also check to ensure there us no interference between contacting gear teeth. A little clearance is ok. 6. I triple checked to make sure all axles were perpendicular to the baseplate, parallel to each other and firmly glued in place. 7. I used pins to hold the top brace in place instead of gluing it to the axles. This allowed me to disassemble the clock to make adjustments. I made the pins from a paper clip. (See photos.) 8. Take care to reduce friction wherever possible. I was able to get my clock running as soon as I hung the drive weight filled with 4 pounds of lead. With some fine tuning, my clock will tick reliably with just 1.75 pounds of weight and run for six hours for every 10 inches of drop. 9. I used a carbon fiber rod for the pendulum because I didn't like the multi-piece rod in the kit and happened to have one on hand that I stole from a kite.. 10. Overall, it took me about 40 hours to build this clock - 20 hours were on sanding alone, 10 hours on assembly and 10 hours tuning, remaking some parts and finishing with three types of wood stain. RATING: Four Stars. Overall it was a fun and satisfying build. I took off one star because if they had laser cut the gears slightly smaller, or spaced the axles out slightly farther apart, then you wouldn't have to do as much sanding of the gears to reduce the interference fit between gears. Also, the method of re-winding the clock could be improved.

I purchased to hang in my office at work. My boyfriend assembled the clock for me, so the following comments are based watching him assemble the clock. The clock can be assembled within a couple of hours. Although he made the assembly look easy, this clock requires a great deal of mechanical inclination to assemble and be expected to work. 1) You must be able to precisely follow the instructions provided. Do not deviate from the guide. ‘Creative’ assembly would be a very bad idea. Hence, why he assembled for me. 2) You must be patient and meticulously careful with the delicate, intricate parts. 3) Pay close attention to the string on the weight. Make sure it is on its rollie-thingy guide before winding. Otherwise, your extremely patient teenage daughter will have to spend about two hours with various cosmetic and medical tweezers and tools untangling the string from the fragile sprockets. :D The clock works great and I would purchase this item again. Additionally, my boyfriend found assembling the clock to be rather relaxing and expressed an interested in finding similar product to assemble.

First and foremost, this kit takes time patience to complete. All in all, it took about 60 hours to complete it to the running state that you see in the photos and video. Yes, the kit will run and it will keep time if you take the time to assemble it well. If you are planning on just a few hours to assemble this clock you may want to avoid this kit and the frustration. The outside of the box says the difficulty is at an "Expert Level", but if they fixed some of the problems this kit its really more of an intermediate level of difficulty, please read on. Issues abound in Abong Clock, first and foremost, all the dowels are much smaller that the laser cut holes they go into. The larger and longer dowels are also to small for the holes laser cut in the base board for the clock. The larger dowels for the gear shafts are shorter than needed so you will need to make adjustments to the clock to accommodate for this issue. To help remedy this, I made screw on brass caps to hold the outer framework on to the clock (the two arches). The brass caps also made it possible to easily remove the outer framework and remove the gears in the future. This also helped hide the fact that the gear shafts are to shorter than required. I used as little glue as possible and zero wood glue as this tends warp the wood with its water content. I used only 15 minute Epoxy and Super Thin Cyanoacrylate (super glue), to assemble the clock. I also had to make a new hub for the escapement gear as it would not run true with the wood hub parts provided (oversized holes in the parts, equals, lots of wobble). Other shafts needed to have adaptors and bushings made so they would run true on the shafts and reduce the slop between the gears. Overall the laser cutting is of good quality on the larger items in this kit but as stated before, the small holes were way oversized for the shafts (dowels) provided. I used a drop of the very thin super glue to harden the ends of all the gear teeth. Applying a drop in each tooth and letting is soak in and harden overnight worked very well. The gears are cut out of thin plywood and are very, very brittle and chip easily. This is a huge problem with the escapement gear as the teeth are very fine and need to keep there specific shapes. Once the escapement gear teeth are well hardened they can be smoothed up so they engage and disengage smoothly. If this is not done the pendulum will pick up a vibration and loose the most of the power from the dropping weight. I also needed extra mass on the pendulum and made a 3" brass pendulum weight with a 8-32 thread, to replace the way to light screw, the screw does not provide the needed weight to keep the clock going and on time. Once done the clock MUST be hung so that the Hour and Minute hands are dead plum and level. If they are not, the clock will slowly lose momentum and stop running. This is due to the angle of the escapement lever engaging the escapement gear. So with enough time and effort this is a nice clock, that runs well, keeps okay time and makes a wonderful "Tic Toc" sound. I wish the makers of this kit would open up one of there clock kits and look at the obvious problems that they are shipping out the door, maybe, just maybe they would fix the kit. If the manufacturer would fix these problems, this would be a fantastic little kit clock that would work well when you follow the provided instructions. And by the way, the provided instructions are okay, better than most. But there is ZERO about trouble shooting this clock if you have any issues. This is where the problem with the clock being out of plum and level at the Hour and Minute hands is so very important. Thanks for reading my little review, I hope this helps anyone that buy this kit.

If your goal is to have an an easy to assemble highly accurate clock kit than this is not what you want. If your goal is to learn about how mechanical clocks work and how to troubleshoot one, this is exactly what you want. This kit requires some patience and some problem solving but is rewarding in the end. Reading and following the directions will leave you with a visually attractive, functional clock. The directions are well written and directly address most, if not all, of the issues that other reviewers have had. Mine initially ran about 20 minutes slow per day, but with some tuning (this did require cutting the pendulum to adjust its length) I've gotten it to under a minute of error per day. I had fun building this kit and I am glad I purchased it.

Looks cool when assembled however NOT impressed with the overall quality and cost. Parts arrived crooked, laser cuts not correct and a few small wooden washers arrived broken. After assembled, it runs for a minute or so then stops...too much messing around to get it to perform longer then a few minutes. I called the company for replacement. All they said is the clock WILL work and they will deny a replacement. I've attached some pics of pegs which were supposed to be perpendicular....clearly were not! (this WILL throw off the entire fluid movement of the final product). Most likely the reason the clock doesn't function. I've also attached a pic of a small broken wooden washer. One star was given because it was fun to assemble.

This was a really fun build! However, you have to read the directions and take your time. It took me about 20+ hours from start to finish. You really have to make sure each and every tooth of the gears are sanded well, and graphite applied well to keep the gears from binding. Also when mounting the gears onto the axels, make sure that they spin freely. It takes a lot of trial and error (read: "sanding") to make sure the gears spin well together. Additionally, make sure you carefully read each step when building the gear sets. The pinions must be installed in the correct orientation for them to work right. This means glueing them down correctly. The instructions make this clear in the text (ie: "glue marked side down") so it's essential you read and understand each step exactly. I did note that some of the thicker pinions and spacers cut did seem a bit "off", like the laser didn't cut perfectly perpendicular to the surface of the wood...however this may even be by design (not sure as I'm not a clock maker), because everything works perfectly once it's assembled. A note about the manufacturer's customer service: it's very good! My kit had was missing the pinion for the escape wheel. This appeared to be a mistake when it was packaged as they accidentally gave me a duplicate idler wheel pinion. I emailed their customer service address that was listed on manual and they quickly responded and shipped me the piece I was missing. It did take a few weeks due to snail mail and customs (Canadian company and I'm in the US), however that's not their fault. All in all, an incredibly fun build. I'm already planning on purchasing their other clock kit (David Clock) for my next build.

輸入なので仕方ないけど、説明書が英語です。 商品は、楽しく作ってます。

This is a abong's best clock design

Great product. I gave it away as a gift and they haven't finished building it yet however, one of the pieces was not moulded correctly so the company was called. They were very helpful over the phone and shipped out the new part immediately. 100% would order again.

機械的な完成度はあると思いますが壁に取り付ける方法がわからなくて苦労しています。

I love clocks and this seemed like a really good way to try building my own. For reference I hold three advanced degrees in engineering and am somewhat handy (I can do basic plumbing electrical and home renovations on my own). First off they tell you to sand the parts, but no instruction on the grit of the paper to use. 80grit will likely destroy the clock. I started with 320 grit and then finished with 600 grit for a nice smooth finish. The instructions are well written, but remember to follow them exactly. You are doing a lot of gluing so if you make a mistake it is game over. The counter weight is stated in the instructions to be at least 5lbs. I filled it to the brim with bb shot and it was closer to 4lbs. I was worried about this, but in the end that was ok and I don't think more weight would have changed the outcome. After assembly they give a lot of advice about making sure the gears turn smoothly, but that is where the troubleshooting help ends..and covers only about maybe half of the potential problems you are going to encounter before it runs at all or runs for more than 15mins without quitting. The pendulum in this part is a poor design. There is a lot of energy loss in the gear to pendulum energy transfer. You must make sure that the pendulum sits properly in the pivot. If twists at all you have a problem and need to sand or scrape until it sits flat on the pivot. This is at least as important as the gear train and can be the difference between an oscillator and an under damped system. Next weakness in this design is the Pallets and the escape wheel. These parts MUST be separated by exactly the right distance. Moving them closer by 1/32nd of an inch and the gears will stop, further apart by a 1/32nd of an inch and it will skip teeth. There is no way to adjust this and if escape wheel isn't EXACTLY true you are in trouble. Be careful sanding these two parts. Add to this the face plate may change this distance slightly. I sanded and drilled out the hole in the face plate that attached to the escape wheel till it put zero pressure on it. You may also be lucky and have this work in your favor depending in which way you need to nudge it. Next problem is the face plat itself. The wheels will tend to shift forward or backwards as the clock runs. You need the face plate to prevent this. Problem is the face plate is a SIGNIFICANT source of friction on the wheels if they touch. My solution was a trip to home depot for some 3/16th inch metal washers (smallest surface area I could find) and this seemed to solve this problem. Anyway after all that the clock seems to be running (at least for more than 1 hour at a time) and am currently waiting to see if it can run long enough for the counter weight to experience its full travel. In summary this is a good starter kit and I learned a lot about clocks building it, but if you buy this for a child or a teenager even I don't think there is a high probability they are going to end up with a working clock at the end. Also some design changes would improve the product and greatly increase the likelihood of success.