In reading over the archives of the various Halloween e-mail lists, people often ask "how can you make a clock run backwards?" For Halloween 2003, David decided that the best spooky clock is made from scratch.

[David rebuilt this project in 2005. Please see Spooky Clock 2.]

• Internal Mechanism
• Outer Case

Internal Mechanism

David started by rooting through Dennis's collection of junky old motors until he found one that he liked.

This is a shaded-pole AC motor.

It came with a brake mechanism that stops the motor when the power goes off. This was removed because it made some noise and wasn't necessary for our purposes.

The motor operates two hands for the clock.

The shaft of the motor drives two pulleys of different sizes, each of which connects via a belt to a pulley that actually drives the hands.

One hand will be attached to the rotating hollow sleeve (blue flag).

The other hand will be attached to the rotating rod that goes down the center of the sleeve (white flag).

Outer Case

Here's the face of the clock. It is made from two sheets of translucent plastic normally used for ceiling lights.

In operation, the face of the clock is back-lit by strands of purple Christmas lights.

One hand of the clock is a snake, the other is a spider at the end of a web strand.

In consideration of future moving and storage, the case was constructed as two halves, each 2'x4'.

At all steps in construction, attention was paid to keeping the thing light weight. The sides are merely framed and covered by black plastic.

The two halves are brought together and fastened.

This piece sits in the middle of the clock face. It provides a clean hole where the shaft comes through to mount the hands and also helps hold the halves of the face together..

The piece was made from a rubber grommet and two clear plastic disks that are sometimes used to protect bulk blank CD-ROMs.

See David's spooky clock in action (~1 meg).

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are welcome.
. . . . . .