Custom Clock Tutorial: Master Woodworking Basics

It's about time for us to make a clock. This is the shelf clock that we're gonna make. Give you some overall details here. What we're gonna do is veneer the face of this. And the way that it stands up, is it's got these little wedges glued to the back. That gives it something to lean on so it doesn't tip over. Really cool aspect of this is the veneering and up here at the 12:00 position we're gonna glue in a tiny little piece of brass to really highlight that 12:00 position. So here's how we get started. We need a backer board, we need some veneer. Now if you don't have any veneer and you just wanna use the board, that's okay, but the veneer sure adds a nice detail. We're going for a clock face that's seven inches by seven inches. At this stage of the game, your backer board and your veneer piece should be slightly larger than that. Conventional yellow glue is fine for the veneer work that we're doing here. Working over a piece of melamine on my bench so if I get some squeeze out, it goes on the melamine and not onto my work bench. Now on the roll to getting ready, in addition to the backer board and the veneer you're gonna need a caul. And that caul needs to be about as big as your backer board. Cause here's whats gonna happen with the glue spread, the veneer goes on on top of the veneer don't forget this step, wax paper. We're about to put a wooden caul on here without the wax paper, the glue might bleed through from the veneer to the caul and we'd end up with that glue to the face of the veneer. That'd be very bad. Now that we have a veneer and wax paper sandwich thought the easiest way to do this is stand it up. Little bit of clamp pressure. And what that caul is doing is its distributing the clamp pressure over the entire veneer face, so it pushes it nice and flat against our backer board. And see how I'm reaching away in with the clamps here. I am, wanna get that clamp pressure toward the center of the caul. And up here this is gonna just snap for me. All right, now, that glues gonna dry. But thankfully, we have this. This happened yesterday, cauls already off. The wax paper comes off, oh my gosh look at that cool walnut burl. Remember I told you that your blank and your veneer shouldn't be too large. So what you wanna do at this point, is go to a table saw and a miter saw and cut this to our final seven by seven. The beauty of doing it this way, is that with those steps, you're gonna automatically get the veneer and the backer board exactly the same size cause you're cutting them at the same time. This is a lot easier then having the backer board already seven by seven and then having to trim the veneer. So I'm gonna head for table saw and miter saw. Get this down to seven by seven, and then we'll have a look at the next step. All right I'm gonna catch up on some work that happened while you were gone. I cut the face of the clock to seven by seven. Then, using a router, I ran a chamfer bit around the outside. Not a must do step, but what I like about this is it creates a line of contrast between the dark veneer and the lighter cherry that's behind the veneer. That's a quarter inch chamfer that I ran on there. I drilled a hole and that's based on the mechanism that I have. These quarts clock mechanisms are available all over the place. When you get it make sure the stub on here is long enough to come all the way through, or three quarter inch material, drill a hole centered that that's gonna fit through. Now what we're ready to do is locate 12:00. I'm centered in this direction. Half inch down from the edge and the way we're gonna call out 12:00 is use brazing rod. And you can get this at hardware stores or welding supply stores. Handy thing to have in your shop, its real easy to work with, its great for adding accents like this. Make sure you carefully measure the diameter and do a test tool before you drill a real hole in your clock. And then to make things go together just a little bit easier, look at what I did on the brazing rod here. Before I cut it to the short length I did a little bit of sanding on the end that's gonna help it get started in that hole. And we're gonna wanna do a little bit of glue there. We're gonna use some Cyanoacrylate, CA glue. And the reason that we're using CA glue here is because we have a wood and non wood junction. And conventional wood glue wouldn't do anything for us there. The CA glue will get a grip on that brazing rod and get a grip on the wood. Just a drop in the hole will be enough. We're gonna let that just sit until it dries then we'll come back and talk about working with that some more. Lets talk about these kick stands that go on the back. These are they and here's what we've got going. What I did is I plane these down to 5/8th inch. Remember our backer board is three quarter. You can leave these at three quarter but making them a little thinner, makes them a little more delicate looking. Dimensionally then, its two and a quarter across the bottom. Four inches overall length. Three quarters across the top and then we're cut across the bottom there at ten degree angle. That's gonna allow our clock to lean back against that surface. Now, when we put those on they're located on these lines and the way you do that is I put the mechanism in, temporarily. And we want our kickstands to be away from that clock mechanism. So in my case, I measured in two inches, made a line. And that's where these are gonna go. These can't go on until we've got that brass nub trimmed on the front. So, let that glue dry, come back and deal with that and get our kickstands on and keep moving forward with uh making time on our project here. Lets get rid of that projecting rod and easiest way to do that is with some kind of side cutters or nippers. Get those right down on the surface will get it cut as close as possible. And that's gonna leave a little stubby sticking up. And when we sand this, sand this with the sand paper wrapped on a hard wood block not on a soft sanding pad cause that's just gonna tear through the sand paper if you're on a soft pad. Doesn't take much. And there's no reason, for your clock, if you wanna put a brazing rod pieces at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 or all the o'clocks or 12 and six. If brazing rod is something that you have a hard time coming across, a quarter inch dowel works just fine. Or if you don't wanna do that at all, most people can read these clocks even if you haven't marked out the o'clock positions. Here we go that takes care of the front. Now keep in mind that veneer is pretty thin so don't go nuts sanding that. Now lets come back and deal with our kickstands on the back, this is pretty cool. We're gonna do what's called a rub joint on the back. Cause it really doesn't take much to hold these on. Bead of glue. Rub joint being just like what it sounds which is the piece is gonna get installed and then rubbed into place. So what I do, have to do here is pay attention that pencil line, in the end of my board. So I'm gonna get on the line, rub, settle. And don't touch it. Line, rub let it settle. There we go. And down here at the bottom, I'm making sure we're flushed with the ingrain at the bottom of the clock. And we just let that sit. When that little bit of squeeze out gets rubbery its gonna take about ten minutes to get to that point. Ill slice that off with good sharp drizzle. Meanwhile, once that glue is dry, sand this get a coat of finish on it. Then come back and install your clock mechanism. What a great gift, really easy to make. Fast to make, and with that beautiful veneer on there. Really cool looking. Its time for you to make one in your shop.