General Category > Oddball
Elegent Scroll Frame Skeleton Clock
bent:
Nice to hear you got the lathe turning again!
But - are you sure those are scrolly circles? They look more like circley scrolls to me... ::)
:cheers: :popcorn:
Kim:
--- Quote from: bent on March 19, 2025, 05:33:02 PM ---Nice to hear you got the lathe turning again!
But - are you sure those are scrolly circles? They look more like circley scrolls to me... ::)
:cheers: :popcorn:
--- End quote ---
Hmm... good point. I'll have to ponder that one! :Lol:
Kim
Kim:
Next up are the frame horizontal support columns, or as John Wilding calls them, the Pillars. What confuses me with the pillar terminology, is that in my mind, pillars hold things up vertically. But these hold the frame plates apart horizontally. But maybe it’s a clockmaker’s term. Who knows?
Regardless, I started work on the Bottom Pillars, which as the name implies, go along the bottom of the frame. There are two of these bottom pillars, and then four center pillars that will go higher on the frames. They will go in the center of each of those scrolly-circles (or circley-scrolls, if you prefer) on the frame plates.
I started with 3/4" round 303 stainless steel rod. I first cut a 1/4" nubbin, 5/32” long, which will fit into one of the 1/4" holes in the frames. Then I drilled and tapped for a 6-32 screw. I widened the end of the screw hole with a center drill to support the end of the workpiece for additional turning. I did all this with only 3/4"or so of the stock sticking out of the collet.
I then pulled a little over 3” of stock out of the collet and supported the work with a live center. With this setup, I used a modified parting tool to cut the basic shape of the pillar. Then swapped to a narrow round end tool to cut a ~4.5otaper on one end of the pillar. John called for only 2.5o , but a bit more taper looked nice to me. So I did that, being the rebel that I am.
Next, I cut the pillar off the parent stock using the band saw. Then put the part back in the 3/4” collet the opposite way and made the matching 1/4" nub on the opposite end, complete with threads and ready to be supported by the center. I also under cut the flat ends of the pillars just a bit. This will guarantee that the pillars support the frames on their outer diameters and prevent wobble.
Then I swapped the 3/4" collet for a 1/4" collet and held one of the nubbins in that and the other end with the live center, and proceeded to cut the same taper on the opposite side.
For the final decorative touches, I used a 1/16” radius form tool (used in some previous project) to make a nice bead on the center part of the column.
And used a 1/16” radius end mill to round off the outside edges of each end. The mill only cuts on one side so I had to flip the part around to do the opposite end.
And with a little sandpaper cleanup, it looks pretty nice!
I plan to polish them up more, but I think I’ll wait till closer to being done to do that. The opportunity for ding them up while making the rest of the parts seem pretty high, so it just makes sense to wait a bit for the final finishing step :)
One more of these bottom pillars to go!
Kim
crueby:
Nice work on the first pillar! And I've seen that term in a bunch of the clockmaker books, so it must be a common term in that world. Though, they also call the decorative vertical ones either pillars or columns. Go figure! Not like engine makers (or most industries) use the same term for different things... :slap:
Dave Otto:
That turned out real nice Kim!
Dave
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