Accomplished another milestone today with the manufacturing of the final parts of the clock, the hemi-spherical walnut caps that cover the brass collars on the end of the arbors and the collar on the torsional pendulum fork. These caps serve no functional purpose, purely decorative, but I think they give the clock a “tidier” appearance. The hemi-spherical caps are formed from walnut dowel rod, using a conventional router to round the end. For the ¾” diameter caps, I use a 3/8” radius cutter with the router set-up so that as the dowel is rotated the cutter forms the hemi-spherical end to the dowel.
The end of the dowel rod is then cut off and I use the lather to drill the cavity in the dowel for the collar and cut off the hemi-spherical end cap.
Finally, a hole is drilled in the side of the cap to access the collar clamping screw.
Next step is to disassemble the clock and sand all the parts in preparation for finishing the clock with lacquer.