Da Vinci's Clock (Academy)

[B4en]

Another in the Da Vinci range from Academy - I note that Italeri also produce these kits. Of course Da Vinci didn't invent mechanical clocks - they had been around since the late 1200s - but he did design a number of tweaks and improvements for the devices around in his time. Some of these are presumably included in this model - I think the splitting of the mechanism to run two dials and the escapement. Mechanical clocks were really not that accurate until pendulum clocks were developed, and amusingly enough used to be corrected using sundials.

Like the rest of this range the kit goes together easily and without glue - just follow the instructions. I gave the clock faces a spray with some rattle can gold and picked out the raised details in gunmetal, but that was it for painting. There are two gear options for turning the clock hands: a 4:1 (very fast) or 60:1 ratio. I chose the 60:1 gear. In theory this should allow the small face to show seconds and the large hand to rotate once per hour, showing minutes. It also means the roman numerals on the large clock face are wrong - the simplest solution is to multiply each numeral on by five. (I might make an overlay for it at some point to show the munutes instead, but for now am happy enough the way it is.) The teardrop shaped 'counterweight' hanging from a roller on the right as you face it, does nothing at all - except aesthetically I suppose.

The kit does not include any weights to power the mechanism. I tried coins in the receptacle provided but could not get enough weight to have it run reliably. Assuming friction to be the problem I loosened up a few of the tight joins and smoothed off all the pegs on the escapement wheel, rubbing a pencil lead over them for some slippery graphite and doing the same for the inside of the wheel the weight is suspended over. It worked! The thing still runs a bit fast - with the lightest weight that will work mine still counts about 62 seconds to a (properly timed) minute, but hey, not bad for a plastic toy. On the freestanding base it ticks away for about 5 minutes before the weight hits the tabletop. I tried the wall mounting allowing the weight string to fully extend and found it ran for nearly 20 minutes.

Now I'm off to time an egg.

[JohnRatzenberger]

62 seconds isn't bad, can you not just take a knife/file to the weight and chip off a tad to improve accuracy ?

[Clashcityrocker]

A very interesting thing to have on the desk. Use it as your Blitzbau timepiece

Nigel

[B4en]

62 seconds isn't bad, can you not just take a knife/file to the weight and chip off a tad to improve accuracy ?

I could, but I'll likely invest in some digital scales and just fool around with more different coins at some point. It's not that important as with the running time it's more of an egg timer than a clock really. (Yes, I really did use it for that, and got a perfectly fine boiled egg - result!)

A very interesting thing to have on the desk. Use it as your Blitzbau timepiece

Lol, with the wall mounting I could maybe assemble the DV flying machine before it runs down! I must say for something that took a couple of hours to build and paint it attracts a lot more attention from visitors than models I have spent weeks on. (*Sigh*)