I had a great time building this clock. I recently started studying mechanical clocks and had successfully repaired a 19th century Seth Thomas 44, a modern Howard Miller / Kieninger mantel clock, a 1970s Hermle Sear Roebuck clock, and a 1960s Korean 36-day wall clock.
The manual is spectacular. The discussion on friction and forces translated across the gear train are fascinating. I am an engineer, so I dig that kind of stuff.
I was glad I ordered the hardware kit from Etsy. It saves you a lot of time cutting rods to length and grinding a flat for the minute hand. Bonus it also includes the drill bits to ream the pivot holes in the gears to the correct diameter.
There are so many things to admire in this design. The adjustable stand-offs on the back adjust for imperfect wall surfaces. The wood screws work very well and can be removed and replaced more times than a machine screw. The illustrated color manual is done very well as are Steve's debugging videos.
Here are two very minor things I ran into or missed when reading the manual. Spacer 7a and 7b are not mentioned in the assembly -- only a spacer_7 (which is 7b). The fishing line attaches to a hook on the frame, but that is not mentioned. The winding key storage feature should also get some print as it is another detail that shows careful attention to design.
Took less than 60 hrs of print time on the Bambu X1C. The test cookies included in the design are another great detail that insures you are happy with your build.
https://youtube.com/shorts/h009d_L9RRk?si=BBx6WSkHaMmeB_H0
Just for the record, here is a photo of the second build.
Running strong for a week with 7.75lb weight. Better pendulum amplitude than my first build too. Polylite PETG printed on a Bambu H2D. Translucent Red, Blue (gears), Dark Blue (frame and continents), Pop Blue (oceans) Silver (weight), Black and White.
This clock ran flawlessly for months until I wound it one day. Something in the gear train was not delivering power from the weight. Instead of debugging that clock, I printed a second copy using the new gear profile.
A couple differences between the two builds.
First Copy: PLA+ on a Bambu X1C using the Feb-2024 design. 10lb weight
Second Copy: PETG on a Bambu H2D using the April 2025 design. 7lb 11oz weight.
I used the same colors to the clocks look very similar. It will be interesting to see if the PETG pendulum is as temperature sensitive as the PLA+ pendulum was.
Enjoyed building this clock both times!
Thanks for the great write up. I am also an engineer and enjoy figuring out the best design for the material used to build the clock. Brass clocks have a unique design style. 3D printed clocks have different designs that work better for printing. 3D printed intermediate plates take up a lot of space, so I design everything to fit between the two frame halves. This forces the hour hand gear to be larger than the typical 30:10 and 32:8 gears. And the moon phase dial needed to fit inside the frame. The typical location above the dial would block the escapement, and I realized it would fit perfectly inside the dial. I have not found any traditional clock picture with the same style for the moon phase dial.
Thanks for the feedback regarding updates to add to the manual. I will make the edits and roll them into the next release.