Eric Freitas' Incessant Ramblings

PENCIL TO PRINT

Things have been going well recently thanks to an e-mail five months ago from artist Art Donovan. He invited me to exhibit my work at a steampunk show in the Hamptons, and since then, has done immeasurable amounts of promoting and networking on my behalf. One of the many opportunities he gave me, was an appearance in the November 2008 issue of the prestigious Robb Report. This article features all of the artists that participated in the Hamptons show, including my clocks, and the gorgeous steampunk lights of Art Donovan. In this short blog posting, rather than excessively gloat, I'd like to say THANK YOU! Thanks to Erika Heet from the Robb Report for writing the article, and including us in the magazine. Most of all, I'd like to thank Art and Leslie Donovan for all of the positive blog comments, a great job curating the show, and for getting my work printed for the first time!

MINUTE CLICK

This little mechanism allows the hands to be adjusted, without slipping when they're not supposed to. Normally this is done with some kind of friction fitting, but the small click ratchet gives it a nicer feel when you're moving the hand. This is a lot of work just for effect, but it's worth it. There's 60 teeth on the ratchet, so it clicks into place on each minute of the hour. The minute hand will be mounted to the outside sleeve of the mechanism, which is part of the lantern pinion. The piece in the center gets permanently fixed to the center arbor of the clock with a setscrew.

CHAIN-50%

54 hours invested so far, and I'm half way there. That of course puts me at 100 plus hours for the chain alone; what can I say, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. This is ten six inch segments that will eventually be attached end to end. I'm not sure, but the next post may be of something other than a finished chain. I could wrap it up, but I'm anxious to make the weight so I can start testing the clock, and make sure it ticks healthy for extended periods of time.

FIRST LINKS

And so it begins. For weeks to come, I will become a chain making garage hermit, as this is without question the biggest task for this clock. If you look at the first and last link on this segment of chain, you'll notice that they're the same. This six inch piece repeats 20 times.

1080 separate pieces will be machined to create this 10 foot chain. Lucky for me, most of the tools I use for this procedure are quiet enough that I can hear my music. I'm going to need it to break the monotony.

If you're interested in some pictures showing the process, I've included plenty of photos. I'll see everyone in a month or so!

Here's a good breakdown of the pieces that go into this. The links are cut from sheet, and have evenly spaced holes drilled in them. The barbell shapes that hold the links together consist of a pin, with two caps pressed on either end.

The first step is to drill evenly indexed holes in a piece of sheet using the mill. As you can see, I'm using a solid drill bit again. These are great for drilling sheet, because it doesn't want to grab and pull up on sheet the way twist drills do. I've also used straight fluted drill bits, and they work great for sheet as well.

After the holes are drilled, the design is aligned with the holes, and glued. Like most of the clock, the shapes are cut out with a piercing (jewelers) saw. These will later be shaped with a rotary tool, and the surface treated to match the rest of the clock.

This photo shows a little tool that's made from a piece of scrap. It's used to extend a measured amount of material from the chuck, so that I can repeat the same cut for the pins and caps.

After each cut, I bevel the corner of each piece with a file while the lathe is turning. This not only looks nicer, it helps to guide the pin into the cap so it goes in nice and straight.

After the caps are all cut off, they need to be drilled, and then reamed to a very exact I.D.. These need to be a very tight press fit on the pins, and reamers come in a dizzying variety of sizes.

After each pin is cut to length, a slotting saw is used to add the decorative screw head. This is non-functional except for one or two, which will actually be threaded so that the chain can be taken apart.

Once all of the pieces are finished, they're permanently pressed together with an arbor press. This one can provide up to two tons of force if needed, but most importantly, it drives the pieces together very straight.

Here's a close up of the pin, the press, and the rust that I really need to clean off of the surface before I do any more.

After one cap is on, the pin is threaded through the holes, and the second cap is pressed on to make a permanent link.

All of that for six inches!

Can anyone say "carpal tunnel"?

KEEPING BUSY

A lot has been made since I posted the gears and frame a couple weeks ago. Most noticeable is the decorative piece of frame that's been added to the lower left side. With this piece the shape of the clock seen in the drawing is starting to emerge. Also complete, is the pendulum, hanger, escape pallets, and arbor for the great wheel. The whole train is set now. If I hang the clock on the wall, I can swing the pendulum, gently push on the first wheel of the train, and keep the clock ticking!

Pretty soon, I can start making the chain, which brings up another interesting part that I just completed

This is a shot from behind the clock, with the back plate removed. The cylindrical shape in the lower right is where the pinion from the center wheel goes. The barrels teeth will mesh with the pinion through the cutout on the side.

Like this. Normally, the arbor of the center wheel would go straight to the back plate, but with this clock, the chain wouldn't clear the arbor. This is a fairly common solution to such problems.

Here's a picture of the pendulum, completed except for the contouring, and the time-regulating weight. This adjustable weight will slide along the steel rod that runs along the front of the pendulum. The higher the weight is, the faster the clock will tick. The top half of the pendulum is shaped this way to dodge the inner workings of the clock that it swings through.

Like this. Sorry, it's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but the pendulum goes between these gears, and around the pinions and arbors. The felt black thing at the bottom right is a temporary clamp that I made to hold the pendulum still during construction, and later, during shipping.

This is a close up of the escape pallets, located at the top of the pendulum. The silver points on this piece are of hardened and polished steel. As the pendulum swings back and forth, this rocks back and forth, interrupting the ratchet shaped escape wheel in perfectly timed intervals.

NO.6 PROGRESS

Over the last nine or ten months, I've taken a break from the marathon creation of mechanical clocks, and enjoyed the more instant gratification of the motorized pieces. These have been a great way to explore some visual ideas, and give people a slice of my world for a tenth of the cost. It's also been awhile since I've heard a new clock tick for the first time, and No.6 has been sparsely visited since I began working on it. It's time to get lost in the shop again, and this next onslaught of creation will be all about the gears.

On the left is a photo of the main clock train for No.6. The spike toothed wheel in the foreground is a sixty tooth escape wheel, just finished today. Over the last week, I've completed a handful of parts for this clock: The pillars and screws that hold the plates together, the great wheel, the collets for the gears, and the sprocket for the chain. Unfortunately, I was a bit too lost in the process to take the pictures that I normally include. I've taken photos of the finished parts, and I'll try to explain how they're made a little. The main purpose of the blog is for you to see the progress, and get a glimpse of all the pieces that go into what I make.

Before any of the pillars and screws were made, the three plates were secured together on the mill, and all of the holes were drilled and reamed at the same time. The holes for the pillars can be just about anywhere, as long as they create a rigid frame, and don't get in the way of any of the gears. The spacing of the holes for the gear train are arrived at with the use of a home made gear depthing tool. The plans for making this device are given in W.R.Smiths clockmaking book "How to make an eight day skeleton wall clock".

Also included in this second picture, is the great wheel, and its attached sprocket, which will mesh with the chain. This sprocket is made almost like the lantern pinions. The flanges are turned oversized, and the piece is indexed for the drilling of eight holes. Then the flanges are turned down, and the holes become eight evenly spaced notches. In addition, a bevel is added to the inside of each flange to help guide the chain into the center of the sprocket. You'll get to see more of how everything fits together when I begin the daunting task of making chain links by hand.

The pillars are a very simple task on the lathe, involving turning a 1/4 inch spigot on both ends, then drilling and tapping a 6-32 hole on each end. These cylinders will most likely be dressed up a bit before the clock is finished.

Making the screws is also a relatively simple job for the lathe. The O.D. of the threaded portion needs to be turned, then a handheld die is used to cut the threads. When this is done by hand, it's difficult to get the threads centered with the screw head. To correct each screw, I re-chuck the piece by the threads very gently, and taking thin cuts, I turn the head true. The small Sherline lathe works great for this sort of thing, because it uses very high rpm's, and the light duty chuck gives you enough 'feel' so the threads don't get crushed. I'm not sure if this is the 'pro' way to make screws at home, but I'm not going to argue with the results.

LANTERN PINIONS

After about a month and a half of making quartz clocks, and a show in NY, it's time to get back to work on the mechanical clock.

Machining pinions is my next step toward the completion of No.6. A pinion is really nothing more than a small gear. If the gear that a pinion is meshing with has six times as many teeth, that means the pinion is working six times as hard, and has to endure six times as much wear. Because of this, the leaves ( teeth ) of a pinion must be made of hardened steel. There are two basic types of pinions that can be used, both of which work quite well. The first, referred to as a 'solid style' pinion, is cut from a piece of steel round stock. The setup for this method is almost identical to that used to cut the larger gears. The other type, pictured on the left, is called a lantern pinion. These are made of brass, and have hardened steel pins fixed between the flanges. These pins act as the teeth. I prefer this style of pinion. The hardened steel pins can withstand a lot of wear, and I think the look of them is very interesting.

To see a few pictures of the setup and process,

Here's the basic setup for machining a lantern pinion. The bobbin shape is turned first, based on the diameter needed for the number of pins, and the clearance that the meshing gear teeth will need. Then, the same rig used to cut gears ( seen in the July 3rd entry ) is turned 90�, and a drill is used rather than a clock wheel cutter.

Twelve holes will be drilled, all perfectly spaced by use of an indexing plate mounted to the lathes spindle. The plate isn't in this picture, but it's the same one I used to cut gears in the July 3rd post.

Once all of the holes are drilled, a center hole is drilled so the pinion can be mounted to its arbor. For this, I prefer to use the solid spade drill pictured here. Ordinary twist drills have a tendency to lead off center, leaving you with a wobbly pinion, and excess friction ( which is a huge enemy of clockmaking ). Solid spade drills are very rigid, and naturally find their center quite well. The downside is that without flutes, the chips have no way out, so you have to make a bunch of passes to keep removing the waste. Also, the solid O.D. of the drill causes more friction, and thus heat. A bit of cutting fluid must be applied, or else the drill can bind up, and ruin the work.

After this, the piece is cut from the lathe. The pins are inserted, and everything is filed and finished.

GALLERY UPDATE

This is a short entry to let everyone know I've added larger files to the gallery. Now when you click on the picture to the right of the thumbnails, a higher res version pops up.

Also, the show in the Hamptons went GREAT! One of my mechanicals sold, and the overall experience was nothing but positive. The work will remain hanging for a week, so when it's all wrapped up, I'll post the details.

MOTORS AND GEARS

Whenever new things are attempted, problems inevitably present themselves, making the first of every breed take much longer than the ones that followed. This piece needed to be finished for a gallery opening, which I'm leaving for on the 14th of this month. I'm not sure why I decided to start trying things a few weeks before my first show, but thankfully, everything worked out. This is my seventh quartz piece, but the first to incorporate handmade, working gears with a motor. It's a hybrid clock that brings the best of two worlds.

Enjoy!

The deliciously gnarled gears nestled on the face make up the motion-works of this clock. Motion works are the set of gears and pinions that create the twelve to one ratio needed for a clock's hands. In this case, they are much larger than necessary to showcase the mechanical element that's normally missing from motorized pieces. This technique also allowed me to remove half of the face without the motor showing, since it's not necessary to have it in the center anymore. As always, the graphic elements on the paper face are nicely weathered and worn.

The gear and hand style used for this clock is, for me, the most interesting to date. This piece is going to become a visual reference point for me. I mentioned in the description of No.4 (located in the gallery of this site) that I would return to that technique some day. When that day comes, you can expect the gears to look something like the ones on this piece.

FIRST SHOW

When I first started cutting gears four years ago, I hadn't even heard of the term 'steampunk'. Part of my concept was to create pieces that looked like relics from a fantastic world that never existed. I wanted to see the artisan craft of clockmaking forced well outside its boundaries of tradition, and the visual put before the practical or functional. These concepts happen to have much in common with the world of steampunk; and congruently, so does my work. I make it a point to visually go wherever my sketchbook leads me. In this case, it landed me in a group show, alongside some of the most talented steampunk artists around. I can't think of a better reason to visit New York for the first time!

Pictured on the left is the poster for the show, which is curated by participating artist Art Donovan. I highly recommend taking a look at his incredible work at artdonovan.vox.com

This sketch is of a quartz clock that I will most likely have finished for the show. With this design, I'm going to use gears so I can eliminate more than half the face without the motor showing. If this is successful, this piece will have the best of both worlds. It will incorporate the beautifully strange gears from the mechanical clocks, but will be 100% accurate, and won't need winding.