Workshop Clock Challenge -Part 2

Workshop Clock Challenge - Part 2

Finding Components to make the Clock

Once I had decided to make a clock using redundant components & materials which were pre-loved and found by chance, I began searching for them locally. Although the clock made with wire I had seen in a charity shop planted the seed of an idea, I had no clear plan for the one I was going to create. It was completely dependant on the items I discovered and might prove to be similar to the wire one, or very different. That was all part of the challenge and the fun!  Of course, the one thing it needed to do (it goes without saying) being in the very nature of clocks, was to be capable of showing the passage of time. Beyond that, I’d just allow the objects to suggest themselves to me, knowing the design would follow in time (after a good deal of thought about how they could be joined together and constructed into a clock). All I knew was that the main components needed to be of reasonable condition, good quality despite being second-hand and durable in order to make a clock worthy of the many, many hours which would be involved in producing it. Obviously cost was also a consideration.

The first find was a large round stainless steel dish with a supporting ring as a base found on a visit to the Age UK shop in Bromsgrove. If this was turned over with the ring facing upwards it had definite potential as part of the clock. In nearby Droitwich, while browsing the shelves in the Blue Cross shop, there it was!!- a circular wooden frame. Although I didn’t have the dish with me it looked just about the right size to fit over it. The frame was actually the surround for a circular mirror which stood next to it, presumably donated in the hope that the next owner would be able to reassemble it. It seemed as if it was meant to be, I would never have thought of using the frame if the mirror had been complete. Now, the general form of the clock was coming together. This flat, wooden surface would provide a great place for attaching markers for the hours & minutes.

The picture below shows how the design process begins, with some of the core elements arranged as they might be in the finished clock.

The elements which would make this clock particularly unusual were contained in two boxed sets. Each had 6 fondue forks, brand new & unused since their manufacture in the 1970’s judging by the packaging and the materials used to make them (Stainless Steel & Wood). I do love to repurpose things in my work. Fate seemed to have stepped in as, here were just the right number of forks for the project while in a 'lightbulb' moment, I realised how effectively they could be used to indicate the hours. Destiny and a kind donation appeared to have brought us together in the Salvation Army Shop in Bromsgrove.

The wooden handles of the fondue forks would provide a great support for the decorative enamelled copper plaques I was intending to make. One of the major reasons for designing and making the clock was to showcase the craft through a variety of techniques.

I have collected lots of materials over the years that I have been working in crafts, in the hope that one day they would prove useful. These include a variety of stainless steel jewellery findings (some dating back to the 1970’s, just like the forks), bought from a car boot sale a long time ago. The design of some of them was so much ‘of their time’ that they were no longer desirable as jewellery, but I imagined how they could now be adapted to show the minutes in quite a bold, decorative way.

The last part I found was indispensable, and I happened upon it in the British Heart Foundation shop, in Bromsgrove. I had expected to recycle the mechanism from a pre-loved clock, but, none were suitable. Amongst the shop’s ‘Amazon’ donations (the online retailer’s excess stock and returns) was a DIY clock kit which happened to have a battery movement of the right type. Now, with the addition of sundry smaller components and fixings such as bolts and screws (from the same resource in various charity shops), my materials were all gathered together and the project could begin to take shape…