Free

This is one of my favorite clocks because it’s big, weird, beautiful, and silent.

The long part across the top (my brother-in-law says “it looks like a rifle”) is part of the compound pendulum - with a 5-second period.

I joke that this pendulum “is only 9 inches long… but it’s 50 inches wide.” The slow pendulum allowed a “one-wheel” going train.

The chain loop on the mainshaft is for winding. The weight (4-lb.) only drops 14 inches (for a 30-hour run) - I originally designed it to go over a mantle.

The escape is integral to the pendulum. The single-pivot grasshopper has unequal length legs to compensate for the different rotational inertia in each direction (caused by the small “poise adjustment” weight hanging to the left). With the grasshopper escape, that giant pendulum is constantly moving, and it’s so cool because it’s so s-l-o-w. Free

One of Clayton Boyer’s first Hawaiian clocks really impressed me with its ‘free form’.And then I discovered Jim Borden’s work…This is my homage to them.