A tower clock. Made from scratch.
John Wilding’s tower clock
From the first frame to the final tick. Follow the making of a mechanical tower clock in the home workshop.
CHRIS RAYNERD / MAKER & RADIO AMATEUR
Clocks, radio and hands-on engineering.
Made in a small workshop in the North West of England,
with plenty learned along the way.
01 / THE PROJECT BENCH
From a piece of brass to a working clock.
From an idea to something you can use.
John Wilding’s tower clock
From the first frame to the final tick. Follow the making of a mechanical tower clock in the home workshop.
Building a precision regulator
Exploring precision timekeeping through Bernard Tekippe’s regulator clock, one component at a time.
Cowells 90ME & 90CW lathes
Cowells lathe videos from my workshop: the 90ME and 90CW, accessories, lever feed, clock wheel cutting, an electronic divider and a flip-over tool rest.
FROM THE RADIO BENCH
Ham Pilot
Live HF reports, DX spots, propagation and a shack clock on a compact ESP32 touchscreen.
JTDX / WSJT-X AutoResume
A Windows helper for resuming CQ calling during supervised FT8 operation.
02 / ON THE CHANNEL
Clockmaking
Brass wheels, hand-blued hands and a glass case: see the finished clock, then follow the complete build from its first components.
Building Wildings Tower ClockClockmaking
Bringing the movement and wooden cabinet together at home, with the dial and hands still to make.
Tekippe Regulator Clock BuildWorkshop & machines
A closer look at the Cowells feed options, including fitting the lever feed and comparing it with the leadscrew.
Cowells Lathe – Lever Feed vs LeadScrewTry a different title, subject or series.
03 / THE PERSON BEHIND THE PROJECTS
I’m a hobby engineer and radio amateur in the North West of England. My workshop is small. The list of things I’d like to build is rather less so.
Clockmaking started with a Unimat 3 lathe on a student’s desk. These days, the projects range from mechanical clocks to radio tools and electronics. This is where I share the builds, the experiments and what I learn along the way.
Always happy to talk projects