WOODEN.CITY Steampunk Wooden Clock Kit - 3D Puzzles for Adults - Hobbies for Men Model Kits

The media could not be loaded. OVERALL RATING:Five stars.This is a high quality, well thought out and well engineered model. With so many gears, the builder needs to do their part, exercise patience and take their time to make sure each gear is near perfect. This is not an error tolerant design. Building other simpler clocks first will help to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to tackle this one successfully. Or, you could spend 4-5 hours assembling this clock and be happy with enjoying the 3D puzzle and hanging a cool wall decoration.SKILL LEVEL:5/5 for the horologist3/5 for the puzzle mavenPROS:1. Extremely well engineered and thought out clock kit.2. Terrific conversation piece.3. When built correctly, adjusted and broken in, accurate to about five minutes a day. (As accurate as can be expected for a wood clock.)4. Easily set hour and minute hands.5. Accurately laser cut pieces.6. Included instruction sheet with assembly illustrations.7. Simple to use rewind mechanism.8. Clever pendulum bob adjustment to adjust the speed of the clock.9. Some spare parts are included.10. Only basic building tools are needed.CONS:1. This is the big one. There are six driven gears to the escapement and three to the hour marker which results in a lot of mechanism drag in addition to the gearing leverage. The axles are also made from wood which also contributes to drag. In order for the clock to work, a lot of attention must be spent on reducing drag. Reducing drag to make the clock functional will take most of the effort to build the clock.2. The wood has a distinctive odor that I find unpleasant.3. The support structure is fragile and requires careful building in order to prevent breaking any pieces.4. Some of the pieces (such as the axle retainers) are very small. A set of forceps or tweezers and a small rubber hammer are useful for setting the small pieces.5. Some of the pieces, especially the smaller ones, are difficult to remove from their boards.6. Some of the illustrations on the instruction sheet are very small – especially the final assembly diagrams. I needed a magnifying glass to view some of the details.7. Need to acquire your own weight for the drive mechanism.8. The design of the pendulum arm creates some weak points and will require pre-emptive reinforcement with CA.BUILD NOTES:• The gears are cut so that there is a small amount of clearance between engaging gear teeth. This reduces the amount of sanding needed to clearance the gears to prevent binding.• Laser cutting leaves a rough surface that needs to be sanded smooth. Before sanding, I like to harden each tooth with a drop of thin cyanoacrylate (CA) glue. This fills in the natural pores in the wood and hardens the wood. When sanded smooth, the surface can be made much smoother than the raw wood and the increased hardness will reduce friction and wear.• I treated each gear like a mini model and tried to perfect each gear set before moving on to the next one.• When assembling the clock, I first check two adjacent gears to make sure that they are running true and engaged correctly with little drag by spinning the pair to make sure they don’t bind. I do this with each gear pairing it with the next one to make sure they spin freely and are properly positioned (not wobbling) for engagement. Slide the gears on their axles to make sure that all the gears engage properly. Once all the gears are in proper alignment, level so it doesn't wobble and does not rub its adjacent gears, I glue each gear to its axle with a drop of CA glue to keep them positioned correctly.• I wax the ends of each axle and place them in their locating holes and spin it several times to burnish the wax in. I repeat this procedure 3-4 times for each axle.• I also harden the pallets with CA, sand them smooth with extra fine sandpaper and apply a coat of wax.• To further try to reduce drag, I chamfer the sides of the teeth of every large gear to reduce the contact area with the smaller gear. This is probably not necessary but every little bit helps.• Several other reviews mention that their clock doesn’t run or runs for only a few seconds and then stops. This is due to one of several reasons: too much drag from friction from improperly engaging gears, not waxing the gears and axles (especially the high leverage gears and escapement that are farthest away from the drive gear), or improper timing of the pallets.• When setting up the clock for the first time, the pallets must disengage the escapement wheel equally on the left and right. (See photos.) If the pendulum shaft is warped (mine was) then one side will disengage further than the other side and the clock will stall. The traditional way of addressing this is to tilt the clock slightly until the pallets disengage equally. The rotating assembly on the right side rear mounting hole allows you to do this by rotating the knob to raise or lower the right side of the clock.• If you look at the bottom of the left base, there is a pointer that helps to align the clock vertically. A vertical line drawn from the left mounting hole should line up with this indicator.• As mentioned by another reviewer, one of the boards has two locating holes marked on it for locating the mounting screws. (These are the holes near parts number 97 and 102.) Level the board to the mounting location on the wall and mark the mounting holes to ensure the clock is level.• As mentioned earlier, my pendulum shaft was warped. When I tried to straighten it, I broke the shaft at one of the bends. It was then that I noticed that the plywood had delaminated. I glued it back with CA and then reinforced the other bends with a drop or two of CA to help with inter-laminar adhesion at these weak points.• Break-in weight on my clock was 2 pounds (900 grams).When hanging the drive weight, the pendulum automatically started swinging and then stopped after a few seconds. I noticed the assymmetrical disengagement of the pallets, made the appropriate adjustment and the clock has been running ever since. As the clock breaks in, I hope to be able to reduce this weight. After a couple of days of running, my clock gains a minute every six hours with the bob at its lowest position. I may have to add some weight to slow it down. Contrary to the disclaimer included with the kit, this clock will keep good time.• Taking my time over four days, it took me 20 hours to build the gear set and 10 hours to assemble and adjust.

This is a great conceptual demonstration of how an escapement mechanism works.It does take some care and attention to detail to make it run smoothly.

This clock is very difficult to put together. I have put a few of Wooden City's puzzles together and this is by far the most difficult.

I liked the way this looks and it was fun to assemble, however the clock doesn't function (spin). I understand it's not an accurate time keeping piece but it would be alot cooler if the gears at least turned. When I pull on string hard enough the gears do turn and there all free but it will not keep turning.

I purchased this for a client in a group home.He loved it, kept his mind active.He got it together is on his wall works very well.Best but, will purchase more.

Have made other models from Wooden city (windmill). Tight fit, but it did come together. This unit does not. Broke two shafts and multiple pieces. Have tried wax, lubricant. Even filing down pieces..but pieces are just not made to spec, and I am breaking just pieces at every step. Will return for another kit (see if the this one was just a “bad” unit), and will update my findings.

Simple to construct if detailed instructions are followed. Great looking, unique design

This is a gift that I bought for a birthday in October.

I have a great deal of patience but this wasn’t worth the effort. The finished clock looks stupid and it isn’t even a reliable timepiece even if you remember to wind it every 12 hours. Waste of good money and my time.