In keeping with the all-wood theme, I thought I'd see if I could make the wood hands as well. To mimic the black hands of the original, I found just enough ebony veneer in my stash to do a 3-ply glue-up. Since the long direction was where I wanted the most strength, the grain of each ply ran the long direction.
I applied Gorilla PU glue to a side of 2 plies and stacked them up. The bit of blue tape will keep the plies from shifting when pressed.
A granite tile platen will ensure the laminated piece will be perfectly flat.
Two hours in the vacuum press.
The little bit of glue that seeped through the grain to the surface will be removed with a few passes through the thickness sander.
I used double-sided tape to hold the sanded piece to some plywood that will be clamped on the CNC bed. The slightly angled mounting was intentional because one of the hour hands will land close to the top edge. I wanted just a little more buffer there.
I made two of each hand in case I needed an extra. I made both hour and minute hands a bit beefier than the original, just for a little more strength.
Releasing the parts from the tape required slow application of a thin putty knife under the pieces.
All were freed without mishap.
First time check to see if the parts fit the clock mechanism I bought. I just needed a couple passes with a riffler for the hour hand hole to get a good press fit. The post for the minute hand was threaded and there was just enough threads protruding for the cap to fasten the "thick" wood hand.
The original hands had orange and grey markers on the hands, and I happened to have some dyed veneers those colors. These pieces got glued on with a little TB3. The gray seems a little drab, but who am I to argue with George Nelson? I can always swap-in a different hand later, if I want to.
Thanks, Ken. Most of the original clocks I've seen online don't have second hands. I bought a clock mechanism that just had hour and minute movement. My spare hour and minute hands can be used on another clock.
