Model T wheel clock
Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 5:35 pm
Last year when I was restoring our 1911 touring car, I discovered that one of the rear wheel spokes had a widthwise crack. My guess is that it had been there a long time and caused by one of those wheel puller designs that grab on to the spokes for leverage... The wood on the wheel was in otherwise good shape, so I carefully took the wheel apart to save the wood parts for a later project. The wheel went off to Stutzman's and they did their usual fine work on rebuilding it.
The past month I finally got around to putting the wheel back together to make a clock. I picked up a hub plate at Chickasha just for this purpose, and made an aluminum disk to go behind it through which the battery operated clock motor shaft passes through. I needed to open the wood hub hole diameter some in order to make room for the 2 1/8" square clock motor. I should've cut each of the spokes a bit short at their ends instead of waiting to make a bigger hole after assembling it.
Here are the before and after pictures. While I am happy with how it turned out, my wife doesn't appreciate my sense of beauty and doesn't want to replace the clock over the living room fireplace with it. So it goes on the wall in the basement or in the garage,where I mounted the radiator from our 1915 that I restored.
If any of you are needing to have your wheels rebuilt in the future, save the wood and make a clock!
The past month I finally got around to putting the wheel back together to make a clock. I picked up a hub plate at Chickasha just for this purpose, and made an aluminum disk to go behind it through which the battery operated clock motor shaft passes through. I needed to open the wood hub hole diameter some in order to make room for the 2 1/8" square clock motor. I should've cut each of the spokes a bit short at their ends instead of waiting to make a bigger hole after assembling it.
Here are the before and after pictures. While I am happy with how it turned out, my wife doesn't appreciate my sense of beauty and doesn't want to replace the clock over the living room fireplace with it. So it goes on the wall in the basement or in the garage,where I mounted the radiator from our 1915 that I restored.
If any of you are needing to have your wheels rebuilt in the future, save the wood and make a clock!