Grandpa’s clocks

All of us of a certain age no doubt remember well the clock rooms in the basement of Grandpa and Grandma’s second Friend home. Grandpa’s interest in clocks continued after they moved to York and eventually was noticed and featured in the Thursday, 29 May 1975, edition of the York News Times. Thanks to Dad for sending the initial scan and original photos and to Eric Eckert, Digital Director at the paper, for sending a digital photo of the complete article, which is both pictured and reproduced below.

Buller Keeps Track of His Time

By Dave Mettenbrink

News-Times Staff Writer

Chris Buller of York is having fun keeping track of his retirement time—by making all-wooden clocks.

The hobby is a natural one for Buller because he’s worked most of his life as a carpenter and, as he said, has always been handy with a jack-knife.

Buller, 69, got the idea for the clocks from some old issues of Popular Science and Work Bench. He said the clocks are so simple to make that almost anyone could make one However, he does admit to having had some problems with calibrating the wheels and cogs to keep perfect time.

After becoming familiar with the wooden clocks and how they function, Buller learned he could make a more accurate time piece by using some hand-made tools.

For example he cut some of the corner joints on a home-made miter guide which he designed for use on a table saw. He got the idea from Popular Science magazine.

The more difficult part of the clock construction is making and calibrating the various size wheels. Buller begins making a wheel by drilling a hole through a piece of wood. That wood then is attached to a drill-press chuck and then cut by a saw blade attached to an electric motor.

Buller said the combination of the two machines offers as near a perfectly round wheel as is possible.

He then calibrates the desired number of cogs on the wheel by using another home-made tool, called an equa-distance jig. He got the idea for that tool from Work Bench magazine.

After marking the cogs he cuts them out with a band saw and a jig saw and then applies the final touches with a belt sander.

Even though Buller spends a lot of time making and calibrating the wheels of the clock, he said the accuracy of the time piece is not the wheels or cogs, but rather the pendulum.

The pendulum is driven by the force created by a specific amount of weight attached to a string in the clock. And he said the speed of the pendulum depends on his length.

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Chris Buller of York shown in various steps of making his wooden clocks. At left he uses a drill press and an electric-powered saw to cut his round wheels. At center [below right], he calibrates the wheels’ cogs on his hand-made equa-distance jig. And at right [bottom right], he installs the final wheel necessary for the clock’s minute and second hands. The clock’s pendulum, including the croquet ball at lower right, is operated by the weights hanging below the clock.

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The stem of the pendulum is simply a dowl [sic]. And the end of one of Buller’s pendulums is a croquet ball.

The first clock Buller attempted is called a two-second swing. He said it was the more difficult of his two clocks thus far because the second-hand wheel had one larger cog which made a revolution once each minute to operate the minute hand.

Buller’s second clock, yet to receive all the finishing touches, is designed more on a principle of wheel size and cog ratios.

All of Buller’s personal attention to his work must be having an effect on his clocks. He said for a few days shortly after each full moon he can expect some problems with his clocks keeping good time.

And he said both of his wooden clocks were erratic and even stopped for a while the day of the recent tornadoes in Omaha. He said the clocks began working again the next morning.

He said he doesn’t know for sure what causes the problem other than possibly some atmospheric condition.

Buller uses mostly birch wood to make his clocks, usually from small pieces glued together.

Making clocks is not Buller’s only wood hobby. He does wood inlaying, has made tumbling block table tops and small chests and made a coffee table from wood scraps.

His handiwork began in Friend when Buller made two houses using the side wallks [sic] from a large chicken hen house.

The tools for such of Buller’s wood working were acquired through a bit of horse trading. A number of years ago Buller accepted a shop full of power tools as a down-payment for a house which he sold. Buller said that proved to be a lucky day for himself.

Those tools are now housed in a room in his basement which he converted into a shop. Although his goal is to someday make a miniature steam engine powered by air, he is satisfied with his wood working and simply asks, “How else would a carpenter retire?”