It’s been a while (too long really) since I blogged about the clock. In that time, I’ve spent much time building, but not much time blogging. So here’s Clock number 2, which I built over the summer of 2015:

A guy called Ben van de Waal has a Youtube channel full of LEGO escapement mechanisms. It appears he just does the escapement mechanisms, not the whole clock.

This clock uses one of Ben’s escapement mechanisms. I chose the mechanism that uses the 40-tooth gears, on the basis that it would give the least rotational motion, and thus the least travel of the string … which would result in a longer running time. That was the theory. This is what it looks like. In the working clock, this is all buried inside the frame. In practice, this mechanism is very difficult to adjust correctly. The blue bar with the pink “cheese” wedges on must be adjusted vertically on the axle by a tiny fraction of a millimetre – which is almost impossible to do in LEGO. The lesson I learned with this clock is that the teeth of LEGO gears are not the right shape for an escapement mechanism.

Nevertheless, the clock works, and it runs for about five minutes.

I also discovered a guy called KEvronista on Youtube and he has made some stunning clocks in LEGO too. Stand with me in awe at the amazing clock mechanisms he has made.