so here's what to do when no CNC is available, you do it by hand. this is a replica from a Tuscany magazine, it was small in the pic in mag (about 1" square on the page) but i had some other objects to scale from, turns out it is a 4ft x 4ft clock. frame is 6061 AL angle mitered and welded, backboard is birch ply (trying to be lightweight). numbers are from 1/8" steel plate cut by hand using my plasma cutter (using templates from printed paper, sharpie on steel, and a straight edge, some freehand in there too), every # is one piece. the #'s are cut on the radius top and bottom where they sit. they are rusted using salt water and air exposure. #'s have shallow 1/8" bores on backside where pins are epoxied in, those pins hold the #'s to the board with epoxy. the backboard face is textured with drywall mud, then a faux finish applied, and then the weathered look by chipping/scratching using screwdriver, etc. the board face was stained a brown before the mud, this way you could expose white or brown depending on how deep you go. the diamonds and star are sheet metal and rusted the same way. the minute dots are accurate in location (used a degree'ing wheel and string to mark every minute) and then a wooden dowel with a pin in its end is used to make each dot, basically rolling the dowel between hands to dig into the finish some, etc. two eyelets at the top are for hanging the clock, the eyelets join to threaded rod which reach all the way to the bottom of the clock supporting the weight from top and bottom rails, i think its right around 30lbs. the whole clock face is then coated with a clear satin finish to seal it. the tricky part is actual clock mechanism. the magazine showed clock with large hands, i believe it was a working clock, it had what looked like a door in it's face, either for battery pack or possibly where the plug might be. my clock is battery only, so here i am testing how this "C" powered high-torq quartz made-in-taiwan mechanism can turn a relatively heavy but balanced hand, and thus far it seems to be turning just fine. my test hand is 6061 flat 0.141" thich x 18" long, i balanced it. the real hands will be of sheet steel. this clock took me about two weeks to get to the clock mechanism, and its been two years of me working on the mechanism and hands part. instead of signing the face we decided to tag it with "Senza Fretta", which it not only applicable to "time", but surely reflects the work in progress, etc.....
can anyone put a price tag on this one-of-kind item?
the digi pic makes it look very yellow, but in person its has a tad more orange to it, like burnt sienna.
http://s13.postimg.org/eaoqr3ebb/DSC00059.jpg
