My Garage Shop

Hello All,

I’m new around here and have been really busy setting up my shop where I plan to focus on buying old, worn, art deco style clocks from the ’20’s and ’30’s, and rebuild both movements and cases as required.  I repaired furniture when I was first starting out, and with my new interest in Horology I figured it would be a great hobby to keep me engaged and approximately sober in my golden years.  It hasn’t kicked in yet exactly….  Anyway, with the shop nearly done and several project clocks under my belt, I’m looking forward to picking your brains, especially about deadbeat escapements which seem to come to my shop to die at an alarming rate.

I’ve been really lucky buying used tools and have acquired a pretty good kit for a beginner, thanks to a really nice guy in Pendleton who nearly gave me his collection.  Anyway, I’ve decided I want to learn to make my own wheels, like the 26-tooth deadbeat wheel from an H.A.C. that came to me pretty mangled and which is now truly, most sincerely, dead.  This has happened before, so I’m setting up my lathe with a homemade milling attachment built from the parts I got with the lathe.  I took a picture so you can get an idea of what I’m attempting.  My lathe came with a cross feed and TWO extra headstocks, so I plan to attach one of them to a cheap, but adequate, vertical slide I got on Ebay.  I’ve decided to do the indexing with a stepper motor and synchronous belt instead of a traditional indexing plate since I have that stuff already for a CNC mill project.  Anyway, If anyone has any suggestions about how to attach the headstock to the vertical slide that doesn’t cost a fortune, I could use some advice.  I want to make it by hand, if possible.

Anyway, when I finally get around to introducing myself, it seems I get wordy.  Nice to meet you all.

Gordon