Monday, January 9, 2012

In the mail today...

Not exactly but almost.  I had a pleasant surprise when the courier man came in today with a box marked to me.
I ripped through the paper box like a child receiving his Christmas present to reveal the 4 books and 2 DVDs on clockmaking and plan on making a skeleton clock.

Pardon me for the mess in orentation. The pic was ok in photo gallery but not on blogger... Anyway, these are the books I bought from Mr WR Smith, all relating to clockmaking.
This is the clock the book plan is for - The Skeleton Wall Clock. Pic taken from Mr Smith's website at www.wrsmithtelegraphkeys.com/. I sure hope I can make it to the end with this.

I flipped through the books, the information within looks intimidating... but I rememebered what Roger Antrobus, whom I got to know from the Proxtool list, shared.  Like me, he was also from the financial industry with absolutely no shop or engineering experience.  But hey, look at those clocks, ships, and cars he made!  They're beautiful to say the least.  To admire his creations, visit his site at roger-antrobus.magix.net/.

The other 2 parcels reached me later today and they were long overdue (read my post yesterday on the problem I've with VPost.com). I made another call this morning to complain that the parcels have not reached me as promised on Friday before 1pm.  The lady on the line assured me that she would get the courier to delivery it by today and if I haven't receive the goods, I'm to call again to update her.  A couple of hours after I returned to office after late lunch, the courier man came.

These are the items in the 2 parcels - the digital inside caliper, Incra tiny T-Rule, and the Precision Double Square. The battery in the foreground was taken out of the caliper as it was dead on arrival... 
The legs of the caliper don't feel like metal but I believe they're.  The handle and the piece below the reading head is definitely plastic. This piece doesn't feel solid at all.  The minimum opening is 0.5" or 12.7mm.  This is my first time seeing a display being "zero'ed" to 0.5" instead of zero.  Interesting.

The T-Rule is for marking out layout lines on stocks.  This is the 3" version (that's why its called "tiny".  I've its bigger cousin, the Professional T-Rule bought a while ago.  The bigger cousin is 12" in length and has markings for both metric and imperial measurements.

I'm supposed to be continuing my work on the lathe tonight with my wife out for church meeing.  But I'm feeling rather lazy (and a little tired rushing quite a bit to clear some cases today).  Maybe I'll just read the clockmaking books or watch one of the 2 DVDs.

One last thing to share.  Yesterday was our 14th anniversary.  We had our customary wedding on January 8, 1998 (we registered our marriage on July a year before).  I total forgotten about it!!!  This is the first time I let it slipped past me.  So I wrote a short sms to my wife telling her "sorry, forgot to remind you of our anniversary...". She wrote back rather quickly saying "I remembered" with an angry face emoji icon.  Well, I thought I was rather smart with my approach but apparently it didn't work!  Maybe she is punishing me by leaving me home alone... hahahaha... I'm just kidding!

That's all for today.

Be blessed!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not 2008 la,typo I suppose...
- BAPE

Wongster said...

Hey buddy. Thanks for pointing that out. Else I'll be slightly more than half dead... hehehe...

Bape face clock for you? Maybe in a couple of years' time when I learnt the art and skill of making one...

See you tomorrow.

Regards,
Wong

GeneK said...

Wow, Wong you take big bites don't you. Those are some great projects in those books!
I love cutting wheels and pinions for clocks. When I lived in San Diego I did a lot of trade work for the local clock shops. Also one of the shops supplied parts and used movements, and Mike would get request from all over to restore damaged parts and make replacements for missing wheels and things. It was nice to get $60 to $120 or more to make a wheel for a clock.
On the anniversary, we were married the day after my wife's birthday, and two week before Christmas. that piles all the dates in one pile for me.

GeneK

Wongster said...

GeneK,

The books don't look like they're for beginners. Maybe for type like me. I briefly went through them and started on one of the DVDs. Don't quite know how to go about starting. So I decided to start with the book on making the skeleton clock. Will start with the rest as reference as I move along making the clock. Maybe they'll start to make sense to me this way.

I don't think there is any such income source for me here in SG. Beside, my day job keeps me busy most of the time. It'll be quite a while before I can get the skill & knowledge required.

On the anniversary, I should have planned all dates on the same day - boxing day (which is her birthday).

Wong