Fabrication of dial work, compilation of work March 2012 through August 2012 - June 2013, part 2                        

This section continues with the dial work for the astronomical skeleton clock. The next dial we tackled was the tellurian dial. This also involved artwork as well as polychrome applications. It is regarded as the second if not equally difficult dial to make as the planisphere. We based our design directly off one of the dials from Antide Janvier's chef-d'œuvre (masterpiece), astronomical clock. That clock is one of the, if not the, important timepieces in horology. In May 2011 I made a copy of a dial from that clock. The dial is shown below.

We decided to use the artwork from this dial for out tellurian dial. 

In March of 2012 Buchanan began the tellurian dial design work. At first we took the entire design; except we did change the outer numerical rim to match what we planned for the rest of the dial work. However, I did not like the circled roman numerals. The next photo shows these circles removed with whiteout.

Next we removed the roman numerals altogether. I liked the cleaner look this achieved, but still wanted something in their place. In the next photo Buchanan gives me several alternatives. He photocopied various decorative designs, like a fleur de lis, spade design, French curve and diamond cluster. These were cut out and then pasted between the zodiacal signs in place of the original roman numerals.

In the end I chose the simplest design, the diamond clusters. The pasted-on diamond design is next permanently drawn in.

This is a close up of the final design given to the dial makers.

By June the artwork is complete and is now mounted to the plastic curved backing and installed into the clock to check for fit and appearance. Afterward it was packed and shipped to the enamellers. It should be noted that the actual dial bezels will be a machined design, rather than plain as in this mockup.

The tellurian dial completed in August 2012 is shown above. The dial painters did an exemplarity job. I think the this will make a good addition to the clock.