Mini Clocks

Over the past few weeks I have been working on making mini clocks that are a 1/3 replica of a clock that once hung in my grade school classroom.  The grade school was converted to condominiums a number of years ago and at the time my dad managed to get hold of the clock but never did anything with it.  I found it in his attic when they sold his home.  The original clock was painted pea green and when I stripped the clock I found it was made of oak.  I refinished the original clock that is about 15 inches square and replaced the works with a quartz movement. The original clock remains in our kitchen now.


Last year I built two miniature clocks that my sister has hanging in the rest rooms of her art studio in Lowell.  Visitors spotted the clocks and asked if I would make copies for them.  When I learned she had orders for three of the clocks I decided to make additional clocks since once my tools were setup it would not take much longer to make additional ones.  I had plenty of small pieces of scrap wood and was able to use scraps to build the clocks which helped to keep the total cost of materials to a minimum.


When I started the clocks I built them with the intention of hanging them on a wall.  I later thought they might also go well on a table or shelf so decided to build a base for the clock to sit on.  The base is removable so they can either sit on a table or hang on the wall.  My guess is that they they will most likely sit on a table rather than hang on a wall.


I used several types of finish and wood to make the clocks.  I used quarter sawed oak and Cuban Mahogany.  One of the clocks was finished using an ebony process where the finish was almost black. The clocks shown above are from left to right natural oak, English Oak stained and Cuban mahogany.