Electrifying a Clock

Did I make this clock? No, of course I didn’t make this clock. My husband is the one who makes clocks. Cuts shiny brass gears and all that. Me, I can buy a $10 battery clock kit and jam it in though! And so can you for that matter. It’s fun! I have a clock project in the next One Yard Wonders book. It is fabulous. Really, you are either going to love it or hate it when you see it, it might not be good, it might not be wonderful, but I don’t think you will be able to deny its fabulousness. Woo!

But this clock. This clock has been one of those stone-around-the-neck projects for so long, and now it works!

Here’s all the new guts. Electrifying is a bit of a misnomer, because really it was already electric. Really really old electric with a cloth cord and full of lots of gears. I’m pretty sure it worked by relying on the wall power to be 60 Hz. I was scared to plug it in. I thought, hey, I can probably fix this, but then it will catch on fire one night and burn the house down. So it just sat there, looking at me with it’s burl veneer and it’s awesome deco numbers, until I saw these make-your-own clock kits and the, uh, gears turned. Right.

I could have just jammed it in and used the hands that came with the kit, but I really liked the original hands, they, you know, go with the clock. So I filed them down, and then filed them some more and some more, until finally they more or less fit on the new clock shaft. Filing metal is slooow. And then I begged my husband and he took apart the second hand that came with the kit (it had a special little pin) and set it into the original clock second hand with his magic little clock repair tools. Thanks dear! Then I did some ugly things with shims on the inside that you will thankfully never see! And it works! And now I don’t have to throw it away! Yay! (And I know where the ! key is!!!) Look at my clock again! It is pretty!

You can also see in the background that we have every issue of Make Magazine ever published so far. They are awesome. Maker Faire, which we went to last weekend is also awesome, and you should totally go if you live in the SF Bay Area, or anywhere else that they have them. Rebecca got to shoot fire balls. Real ones. Boomph! Except you shouldn’t go because then it will be even more crazily crowded than it is now, and I want it all to myself! Maybe next year will be the year we finally get it together and exhibit? A girl can dream.