by Gin
Jonathan needed a clock for his shop, and that seemed like an ideal Christmas gift, but store-bought clocks just aren’t very special. I made this clock from a simple circle of clear poplar, and then added the dial numbers using padauk inlay.
Earlier this year, he made me a set of Dungeons and Dragons dice with Mayan numerals on the faces of the dice. I like them so much that I decided to return the favor: this clock’s dial numbers are in Mayan as well.
I gave the finished clock two rubs of Walrus Oil wood butter for a finish.
Overall I like the way this project turned out, but I did have one issue. During routing, my CNC’s v-carving was not very uniform – I believe that the bed wasn’t quite leveled, and the Z axis showed just a bit of skew on some of the number lines. Lesson learned! Always be sure your Z axis drive is tensioned well and that your workplane is flat and level. Lucky for me, Jonathan says that the clock actually looks a little more authentic for it. He feels that the numbers look like they were marked with a more ancient instrument, and less like a mathematically-perfect machine produced them. Maybe there’s a second lesson learned in that as well.