February: Mark Frank will be giving an update on the astronomical skeleton clock he is having built on commission in Australia. This project was conceived in late 2003. Preliminary and mockup work began in 2006 with full scale fabrication started in 2007. The last update was given in February 2008. At that time only a part of the time train was completed. Now that train is complete and functioning. A major design change was made in March and will be shown. Work is now underway on the celestial train. This train alone will drive nearly 20 complications. A total of 4 trains, containing nearly 300 wheels, and an estimated 8000 to 9000 parts was slated for completion in later 2011. This movement does not try to be the most complicated made in the last couple of centuries, although it is probably in the top 20 or so in that category. What we strive for is maximal total visual impact on the viewer in terms of movement, scale and complication. The quality and artistic style of all of the fabricated parts are taken to an extreme in every facet of this creation."I've posted a few videos on the astronomical clock project which shows the progress of the movement through December 2009. These will be the last videos taken before the wheel train was removed from the temporary plastic plates and are now being installed into the fabricated brass pillar frame. This process should be complete in January or February.
The link is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/fgtyc#p/u/3/-_8EYQxmAIQ .
The next installments of the astronomical skeleton clock are ready.
In December we begin the upper frame construction.
An additional addendum page for December contains several streaming videos that show long clips of the project to date. These will be the last time one will see the mechanism between the Plexiglas test bed plates which allow maximum view of the movement. After this we begin the laborious transfer of the parts to the actual metal frame assembly.
In January we begin transfer of the parts to the new frame and begin design of the state-of-wind indicators for each train.