Ben Clark

… another guest post by Greg (aka uncle Greg)

June 23rd

Painting was done with a couple rattle-cans. Black was used for the edge and inner ring. Hunter green for the bulk of it. The green paint was redundant as the flocking glue is hunter green as is the flocking. The edge and inner ring was painted by hand after the initial paint dried. There just wasn’t a good way to mask the circle – at least not that I know of.

A scrap piece of MDF was used to see how the flocking would work. It was hoped that the flocking would tighten the holes just enough to hold the poker chips by friction alone. The test worked OK. So we proceeded.

During the week on a couple early mornings in the garage I applied the flocking adhesive and then the flocking to the inner circle and the outer donut. This was truly a flocking mess. And the amount of surface area, including all the nooks and crannies, along with working time of the adhesive made the work a bit nerve-racking. Coverage is an issue. Thankfully I had plenty of flocking and wasn’t worried about running out.

After curing for a couple days the excess flocking was nocked and brushed off revealing the finished surface. It turned out well.

July 6

After a two week break Ben and I were ready to put this puppy to bed… well… actually, on the wall where a clock like this belongs. So we jumped into assembling the pieces.

We installed the clockwork and hands.

Then we placed the poker chips trying to use only two from any one location. However, we didn’t have quite enough to do that, so we tripled-up on minutes 47-58, knowing we’d replace them later.

We cut pieces of tin slightly smaller than a playing card. Ben glued up hands with the tin card hidden behind the middle card.

Cards at the quarter hour marks were popped into their recesses and the hands laid.

We stood the clock up inserted a ‘C’ battery and signed our creation.

The other half of the French cleat was attached to the wall and we lifted the clock into place. And just as the clock popped against the wall the “looser than we’d like” chips jumped from their homes and crashed onto the floor. DOH!

A simple fix with a hot glue gun and we had all those chips back in place and the clock back in its place of honor. Although that ‘C’ battery I had was dead. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?

July 7th

A fresh battery has us up and running. However the black clock hands make it hard to tell the time without a lot of light on the clock. We discussed red like the hearts and diamonds of the poker cards, or even yellow to make them pop.

We also talked about placing yellow chips every 5 minutes. So 5, 10, 20, 25… to make it easier to read. We’ll do that when we get a few more yellow chips.

July 8th

Sunday, a friend suggested silver for the clock hands. Another can of paint, a quick spray job, and even faster drying in the Texas sun proved it to be the perfect solution.

So, you might ask, are we done? Yes and no. The clock is up and running, but we are waiting on poker chips from Walt and another friend which will give us chips from over 25 places. And we’ll continue to remove doubles and replace with chips until we have 48 different dealers represented.

Here’s a list of the Harley Dealers represented…

… another guest post by Greg (aka uncle Greg)

June 9th

On the second Saturday in June Ben and I started the millwork … IN THE TEXAS HEAT!

We set up our work area in the driveway on a couple pair of sawhorses with plywood tops. The first step was to install the router’s circle template hub which would be our source of truth for much of the millwork.

Once the hub was locked in, the clock face was cut from the 40″ square MDF blank to a final diameter of 38″. An 1/8″ straight bit and several passes – increasing the depth each – time made rather quick work of it.

We’re using my 2-1/4 horse power Bosch plunge router for the bulk of the work. Insert a big Tim the Toolman grunt here.

We also cut the inner ring with a 1″ bowl cutting bit. It definitely adds some interest to the face. Again the circle guide makes this a breeze. (Although the divot was the one “oops” I made.)

At that point our progress came to a screeching halt when I realized that the Forstner bit’s 3/8″ shank (the bit creates a flat bottom hole) was not going to fit the Bosch’s 1/4″ or 1/2″ collet. Argh! So off to three stores we went in the rare chance that they might have the collet we need. Sadly they didn’t and more sadly the clerks didn’t even know what a collet was (the collet holds the bit tight).

Oh well… Amazon to the rescue. Ordered and it was on it’s way for next weekend.

June 16th

With the collet in hand and a test hole made we set up again and started cutting the poker chip holes.

Something to note… Forstner bits, like most drill bits, are designed for much lower speeds than router speeds. In this case the minimum router speed is 8,000 RPM vs. 600 RPM used on the drill press. You’ll notice the smoke in a pic or two as the bit heats up as well as the blacked edges of the holes as a result of the much higher speed. Could we have used the drill press? Yes. But it would have been much more difficult and resulted in less accuracy in placement. By using the router with the circle guide the placement of the chips on the circle was guaranteed. We simply had to focus on the distance between chips. One dimension rather than two.

48 flat-bottomed holes and a very hot bit later, we had a place for every chip! It was starting to come together. We added an ogee profile to the outer edge using my trusty 20+ year old Porter-Cable trim router. (There’s a real satisfaction of using a tool purchased before my able helper Ben was born.)

An additional 4 flat-bottomed holes were cut for the neodymium magnets used to hold the poker hands in place on the “table”.

Ben through-drilled the centers of each chip recess to allow for pushing the chips out from the back of the clock with a small drill bit or Allen key.

The next step required making a simple jig. We glued up a few pieces of MDF with an opening just slightly larger than a playing card. Using the Porter-Cable with a pattern-cutting (top-bearing) bit, recesses were made for the quarter hour positions about 1/8″ deep.

We flipped the clock face and made a recess for the clock movement as the movement’s shaft was 3/4″ – the same thickness of the MDF.

How does one hang such a large and heavy piece? Good question. I choose a French cleat. It’s a strong, simple, and reliable system.

With the millwork done we installed the magnets and used epoxy to fill in the gap and level out the clock face.

Let’s put this thing together…

 

… another guest post by Greg (aka uncle Greg)

So after collecting poker chips from 19 different dealers with the help of my dad (Jacksonville, FL), my sisters, Julie and Amy (Salem and Bend, OR) and even more (from Jennifer Tucker) on the way, we could now start the clock in earnest.

I created a mockup in Adobe Illustrator at full scale. Based on a few calculations we knew the clock was going to be BIG – using one chip for each minute. Like so many things the clockwork was found online. It was the biggest option they offered.

Ben and I talked about several different ideas for the clock. He came up with using playing cards for the quarter hours and not using the Harley #1 logo. He also came up withe the played hands on the final build.

June 3rd

We all know there’s nothing better than to actually do the layout on paper which Ben and I did on Sunday, June 3, 2018. And that marked the start of the build.

During that week I picked up MDF (medium-density fibreboard) cut down to 40″ x 40″ from Lowe’s. It was the max size that fits in my newish Jeep Cherokee. #MissMyYukon

A printout of the clock was done at full size on 16 sheets of paper and the intention was to tape the sheets together and simply transfer the drawing to the MDF. Reality is often different than the vision and it was quickly apparent that lining up 16 sheets of paper accurately would introduce too much error.

June 9th

So using the printout as a guide – much like the box top of a puzzle – we laid out the clock by hand using a couple compasses, straight edges, and tape measures.

The outer diameter measures 38″ and the chips are on a 32″ diameter circle.

Now for the millwork…