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| Buuilding a Grasshopper |
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| Meldonmech:
Hi Guys It is a while now since I finished my last project, and I was beginning to get itchy feet. I felt like a challenge, the grasshopper escapement has always fascinated me and I started searching the internet for grasshopper clocks. There were many wooden ones, but I wanted a brass one. I eventually found one in the Model Engineer, A Grass Hopper Clock by W. A. Smith which was later published in book form, so I purchased the book. After reading the book several times and digesting the contents, I considered all the items and facilities I would require, and the only thing missing was the main spring. It is a non standard item for English Fusee Clocks and I tried all the usual suppliers without success, then remembered Meadows and Passmore my luck changed they had them in stock. Well bingo game on, decision made. The clock should look like the one below when completed. Cheers David |
| philf:
Hi David, Looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition. Grasshoppers are fascinating to watch. My skeleton clock has been put on the back-burner whilst I get on with jobs on the house. Cheers. Phil. |
| raynerd:
Yes, I look forward to this as well. |
| Meldonmech:
Hi Guys Thanks for you interest. Phil, I understand only to well how you can get bogged down by jobs around the house, as I suffer from the same problem. I have told my wife that I will do one house project, followed by one workshop project from now on. Keeping my fingers crossed. Cheers David |
| Meldonmech:
Hi Guys. Smiths book is American,was published in 1990, and uses imperial units, which is fine by me. He uses American threads and I do not possess the necessary taps and dies so I plumped for the English BA threads. I found a useful table on the internet entitled "BA Thread Substitutes", which details BA, American, and Metric sizes. The clock design specifies rear winding, bearing in mind the weight of the clock, and the delicacy of the escapement, options for modifications to convert to front winding are being considered. It was raining yesterday, so I decided to make a start on the plates. The book includes a full size drawing of the plates so I took a full size photocopy. It suggests that this be glued to the brass plate using 3M Scoth brand Spray Mount. I did did not have any to hand , so I used strong wallpaper paste. When dry I securely clamped down the plate and set about cutting the two separate plates ( the back is different from the front). A Jig Saw was used to complete this task. Cheers David |
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