And now for something completely different

Mrs Linc - "When are you going to stop messing around with bikes and sort out something nice to brighten up the living room?"

I'm not sure this is quite what she had in mind or that it counts as stopping messing around with bikes but I'm quite pleased with it nevertheless.

So, I present the crank clock

The numbers round the chain show the hour at the top of the chain while the black hand on the jockey wheel shows the minutes. Top sprocket rotates once per hour fixed to the hour spindle of a cheap clock mechanism.

Vintage Stronglight crankset, 12t sprockets, 12t jockey wheel, 144 link chain, set of bearings installed in the crank spindle hole and a high torque quartz clock mechanism at the back.

this is bloody brilliant!

Fantastic! Instructions pls!

So cool, I want to make one.

Amazing

Genius. How does mrs. Linc like it?

Very good. What does the chain loop around at the bottom, just a loose sprocket or is it connected to the wall?

Fantastic! Instructions pls!

Ok, it's pretty simple. Not much other than what you can see. I'll write up a quick 'how to' when I've got a minute

awesome, thanks! I've some Starfish cranks with small cracks in them that I'd love to do this with :)

Genius. How does mrs. Linc like it?

The jury's still out. Initial comments:
'It's quite big, can't you make the chain smaller'
'It looks a bit industrial'
'That better not get oil on the wall' (Fortunately I did get new chains and degrease them rather than my first thought which was to use a couple of old ones that I've got in the spares box!)
'How do you actually tell the time off it'
'Wouldn't it be easier with hands'

I'm hoping it's a grower.........

Very good. What does the chain loop around at the bottom, just a loose sprocket or is it connected to the wall?

Yes, just a loose sprocket. Without it the chain hangs and looks quite pointy at the bottom. The loose sprocket just spins with the chain and makes it look nicer.

Mrs Linc is the most fortunate of women.

'Wouldn't it be easier with hands'

1 Attachment

It can be done with whole bikes, albeit on a slightly larger scale than the average living room will accommodate.

The sprockets are all chained together to provide the correct gear reductions for accurate timekeeping!
It incorporates 12 bikes. 5 bikes to get a 1 to 1/60 reduction ratio (seconds to minutes), another 5 bikes to reduce the minutes to hours, and then two bikes to reduce hours to 12 hours.

Source

Amazing

How are the numbers attached to the chain?