"Ten Hour Clock" The Metric Clock

An old mechanical clock that I modified to display Decimal Time- 10 hours in one day, 100 minutes in an hour.
I rebuilt the gears in this clock so the minute and hour hands would have a 10:1 ratio, rather than 12:1. I did this on my jewelers lathe. I am not a clockmaker so it was a lot of hard work learning to do this.

Visit my friends at www.CandHsurplus.com for electrical and mechanical devices, and yes- they have a quite a collection of gears.

The time lapse portion was captured with a web cam on August 2,3,4. The clock was placed so you could see daylight and night time through the (North facing) window. Seeing daybreak and nightfall, in addition to the two small monitor clocks shows you that the metric clock really has 10 hours in a day, not 20 and not 24. This is a real, functional mechanical type metric clock.

I like to see all the countries where people see this video. If you like my clock, please leave a message- any language!

For more information go to:
Twitter.com/clapperbells

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Metric Clock
• Time Lapse clock
• Rodney Greene
• decimal time
• temps décimal
• tempo decimale
• dezimal zeit
• metrieke klok
• antique clock

[cjdavis18]

This may seem like an odd question. Could you not simply make the clock run 2X slower (thereby completing 1 revolution in a day (24 or 10 metric hours)) and modifying the face? I notice you have no 100th hand, so would this not create the same effect?

[clapperbells]

@cjdavis18 Normally the hour hand makes two revolutions per day. If we make the clock run 2X slower as you suggest, the hour hand would make one revolution per day, put a 10 hour face on it and we have a metric clock (with respect to the hour hand) I like your idea, especially since primitive clocks didn't have minute hands. So, with your clock the hour hand makes one revolution per day, but how many revolutions does the minute hand make per day? Thank you for your comment!

[cjdavis18]

@clapperbells That's the problem! I get it now. So you really do have to re-gear the clock....is this a straight forward process?

[clapperbells]

@cjdavis18 It would be a straight forward process for a professional clockmaker- who can calculate gear ratios and build gears the size of my fingernail. My experience is with full size mills and lathes so learning to make gears using the tiny lathe shown in the end of the video was really difficult for me.

[NeonZebra]

I would love to see a write up on what you had to do to modify an existing 12 (24?) hour mechanism to accomplish this. An entry on Instructables would be equally awesome!

[clapperbells]

@NeonZebra Thank you for your comment, I'm glad you saw my clock! There were two main issues involved: re-gear the hour and minute hand to have a 10:1 ratio, not 12:1. Then re-gear the clock so it would run slower by a factor of 2.4. That was the hardest part of this project, making the minute hand do 10 revolutions per day, not 24.

[Drostie]

@sephirothsoul999 You might be interested in my analog version at drostie [dot] org [forward slash] time , where you can view the Javascript code. But I make a couple of choices which clapperbells does not -- namely, I shift the day to start at around 6:00 am local time ("around" because time zones are chosen to be multiples of +50). Also I need to write in the leap second that's going to happen this June, because I haven't yet defined the relevant time zones.

[clapperbells]

@ImperiumAmericanum For years I looked for a mechanical decimal clock, with no success. When I bought the miniature lathe I realized I could make my own decimal clock. Since these clocks were used 220 years ago in France, I assume they would exist in French museums. And that Nienaber Bunde watch is awesome! Thank you for your comment.

[ImperiumAmericanum]

How would one obtain a true decimal clock/watch? The only ones I know of are either not truly decimal (20 hour day), simply a 10 hour dial printed on a regular clock (cafepress) or is this one designer watch (Nienaber Bunde) in the realm of $4000.

[clapperbells]

@n64wilbert

Awesome! I'm glad you saw my video!