Having made the Big Cog Clock I just wanted to make another one but in a different style. A Cast Iron Clock! I’ve recently seen a lot of steampunk items – it’s a fascinating art form / genre of expression and this helped inspire me with this piece of work.
The body of the clock is made with a good quality MDF with 2 18mm pieces bonded together – the aim to make a 600mm diameter beast. The whole thing was machined on the Workbee in two stages. A roughing pass to clear the bulk of the materials to within a mm or so of the finished profile and then a finishing pass to give the quality of finish I wanted.
OK, this plan didn’t quite work as I had planned, there were no tool marks on the final piece but the vertical surfaces were too smooth – cast iron is rarely smooth – it tends to have a rough texture from the casting sand etc. Simple, a light sanding opened up the texture of the MDF.
But how do I get MDF to rust? Used an artisan paint system to paint the wood, causes a reaction – i.e. rusts the material and then seals it. It’s not quite as a simple as it seems. The way you apply the base coats and the reactive solution influences the patina of the rust. This means that I could make several clocks wit the same design but the coating process will results in each having a subtly different appearance.
This is a test run, looked great but the final finishing process didn’t go as expected and now I have a much darker version and lots of the wonderful rust detail has been lost.
I learnt my lesson as the images from the finished Cast Iron Clock shows! I’ve been quite please with the reaction of people that have a had an almost double take as they lifted the great mass of the Cast Iron Clock with ease.
So what’s next?
The clock is on Etsy so it may have been sold by the time you read this.
Here’s the link just in case: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1194707410/cast-iron-clock?click_key=2ce4d160734fb9b430ad708114da4e6ec41fbf1b%3A1194707410&click_sum=096fe799&ref=shop_home_feat_3&frs=1
I’m also working on some designs based on differing diameters and styles but with the same teeth arrangement so the various clocks could be engaged with each other. So the main big clock would be the time at home and the other clocks could be the time of a country where a loved one lives for example.
