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Continuing from page one are samples of the initial design concept drawings in chronological order (these beginning in May of 2004 through April 2005). At this point I got into a rut, where I had an idea for a frame design and tried to make the components and dials fit that shape. This was roughly in the form of an 'A' frame taken from a design I was already familiar with; that of my Dent Exhibition clock but doubled to a twin configuration. Again the flies are at either end, now there are four; two for the strike and two for what was now the dual remontoire based upon an idea from a Cook & Sons tower clock located in the Royal Palace Courts of Justice, London England (Britain's supreme court). Notice also the addition of the tellurium. This is positioned horizontally above what was at the time to be a celestial sphere (later to be replaced with a planisphere). The rest of the drawing shows me casting about for the proper positioning of the remaining dials. The second drawing shows a more accurate diagram of the 'A' frame. At this point, the bells as well as the remontoire are being positioned near where they would finally reside. The addition of Fasoldt type flies are introduced for the strike trains in roughly the position they would be placed.
The first drawing below depicts the initial crystallization of the dial design and layouts. The basic shape and positions are as they would be in the final design. (The exception is the tellurium and planisphere which were later switched. The reasoning behind this was that the planisphere has a star plate which must be completely solid and thus obscure what is behind it. The center of the clock will have less to hide than the sides so the planisphere was moved there.) Also the concept of an orrery is introduced into the area which had been occupied by the tellurium. The escape wheel is still positioned behind the movement. Notice the separation of the functions as 'terrestrial' on the left and 'celestial' on the right. The second picture shows the first real attempt at a scale drawing to see exactly how the individual components will interact in proportion to each other. The design of the dial positions, and functionality to be incorporated becomes more refined. At this point I also abandoned the idea of envisioning a frame and went strictly with the dial / pendulum layouts and left the frame to be determined later. The scale was started with the orrery. I had a good idea of what the gearing would look like since we were copying it from an existing clock and knew that a 10" diameter would be ideal. The rest of the components were sized from this. The 23" width remains close to the final size.
Now I began to explore how the movement would be mounted. The issue I had to deal with was the need to have the movement at a comfortable height to view, and have enough drop to run for eight days. I wanted the movement to be able to stand independently of whatever cabinet would eventually encase it. The problem I encountered was that the whole looked too top heavy and gave the overall impression of a bar stool. The second drawing gave a pleasant view, but no room for weights or drop!
I liked the shortened design so much that I toyed with the idea of abandoning weights in favor of springs. However, there would be a great difficulty in finding springs strong enough to drive the movement. In the end, the weight that will be needed to drive the time train will be well over 130 lb. The alternative would have been to dramatically shrink the over all size from 23" wide to 12" or so. While this is a matter of personal preference, I think that a dramatic reduction in size would have negated some of the intricacies that are more apparent at a larger scale. The second drawing shows another attempt at the bar stool problem with the weights dropping into the base. This issue would later be cleverly addressed by the fabricator but would also require me to allow the case to act as a support for the movement.
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