Tom Igoe

Birthday Clock

Tom Igoe and Ben Light

a photo of a clock in a wooden case

Made as a birthday gift, this clock was a test of making custom hands and a custom clock face using CNC tools. The hands and face were were designed to be cut on a tabletop CNC mill from Othermill (now Bantam Tools). The face was powder-coated on a brass plate and etched by a laser cutter. The case came from a discarded electrical meter.

a photo of custom-designed clock hands

I tried a number of differernt clock hand designs during this project, shown in the image at left. In the final clock, however, I used off-the-shelf hands. Though I was happy with the brass used to mill the hands, as it was slightly thicker than the off-the-shelf models, the finish didn’t meet what I wanted. Click the image to see detail.

The face, however, was very successful. The combination of powder coat and laser etch, Ben’s idea, worked beautifully. Click the clock photo to see detail on the face.