Clock Mechanism

[Paul]

Martin, is it possible that you can get some of your own metal cut to a round shape with a hole in the middle?

Your clock movement for £1.50 and the metal for £1 would make for a much more affordable clock assembly than the hugely over-priced UniSub clock that currently costs £8.34.

not round but metal
any good?

LINKY HERE

[bms]

That's easy to do - piece of metal cut to shape, rounded corners and a hole drilled in the centre. The clock mechanism would obsure any poor drilling (not suggesting you'd not be able to drill a small hole properly!) if you wanted to DIY. A piece of metal cut to 152mm x 203mm with rounded corners is cheap (bigger sizes available), plus clock mechanism and you have a 'budget clock' for about £2 +vat

[JSR]

not round but metal
any good?

LINKY HERE

I'd prefer to buy from a supplier I'm already buying from to save postage. If they sold other items as well as metal, I could do a combined order ... but, oh, they've just stopped doing that haven't they? Pity.

The idea is to get the cost as cheap as possible. BMS currently sell many sizes of metal sheets for less than £1. If he could do round ones (and maybe offset ones, too) with holes in the middle for clock mechanisms, then I would buy a bunch of sheets in for stock. I would probably buy the mechanisms/hands from elsewhere because other suppliers have more variety. The cost would stay low so, unlike the over-priced UniSub ones, we'd be able to sell them to the end customer for under a tenner. The UniSub ones need to be sold for £15-£20, and no one's going to pay that for a bit of metal and cheap clock mechanism which is why I've not bothered with them in the past.

It's just the metal sheets we need. If BMS could source them, maybe we could get larger 29cm ones, too, without too much of a price premium. Large ones look much better on a wall than the diddy 8" ones.

[Paul]

hmmm you make me think how hard it is to make a hole in metal??

[bms]

Getting the circular metal cut is going to be difficult. The other supplier does squares and rectangles as well, but you can buy metal cut to whatever size you want and drill a hole to take the mechanism - that would give you the offset style you're looking for. Someone with a pillar drill would be able to go though a batch of these very easily. Come up with some suggestions of styles (not circles) and where the holes are to go and this is something that can be make up quite readily, or just buy the metal to the size you want with rounded edges and out the hole in yourself.

[Paul]

ok you pusched me in to it boys i am going pay visit to my friendly mechanic workshop so they will give me acces to pillar drill just need to cut this bloody metal sheets i got and round the courners
[COLOR="#ff6633]ps. how big this hole need to be to be perfect for clock mechanism??[/COLOR]

[bms]

Depends on the clock mechanisms. They are different diameters. I think ours are 4mm or 5mm but they come in different sizes.

[Matt Quinn]

ok you pusched me in to it boys i am going pay visit to my friendly mechanic workshop so they will give me acces to pillar drill just need to cut this bloody metal sheets i got and round the courners
[COLOR="#ff6633]ps. how big this hole need to be to be perfect for clock mechanism??[/COLOR]

You can EASILY drill .5mm aluminium ten, twenty, thirty sheets at a time... Pillar drill stands can be bought for ordinary household drills quite easily. A basic one from somewhere like Machine Mart won't be particularly expensive either...

You need...

TWO sheets of plywood about 50mm bigger along each direction than the biggest sheet you want to drill...

FOUR coach bolts (M6 - M8) with 'butterfly' nuts to suit and EIGHT washers...

Some masking tape...

Some offcuts of ply, MDF or ply about the same size as the metal.

1) Pin the two bits of plywood together, drill each corner to take the coach bolts...

2) Draw along the diagonals to find the centre of the wood - drill a hole here too... Take the pins out...

3) Put the bolts through the wood, use the washers to spread the load, secure with the butterfly bolts...

4) Tape your bundle of metal together evening up the edges.... Ensure a piece of tape covers the spot where you want the hole.

5) Working from the BACK of the stack (i.e. back upwards) mark the spot where you want to drill, place an offcut at the bottom of the pile.

6) Slip the stack beween the 'plywood clamp' you have just made - Assemble so that the spot you want to drill falls centrally under the hole in the clamp... Tighten the butterbly nuts to make the whole thing secure.

7) CAREFULLY align the clamp with the metal so that the drill bit will pass through the 'top plate' of the clamp.

8) DRILL the holes!

- We use a similar technique to make control panels out of aluminium.

[Matt Quinn]

Getting the circular metal cut is going to be difficult.

How unfeasible is it to ship stuff about the place? Send a guy coated plates to hack up for you? This chap isn't that near you; but I suspect he could help...

Craig Lincoln
HydraMaster Unit 23 United Downs Ind Park
St.Day
Redruth
Cornwall
TR16 5HY
United Kingdom Phone: 01209 823740
Fax: 01209 821954
Email: craig@lasermaster.co.uk

[bms]

It's not that difficult as we can always cut the sheet to a square for cutting to a circle. I'll give Craig a call and see what this entails. I'm down in Cornwall at the weekend but possibly not that far West.