Me thinks you misconstrued the 'point'. Wood being a non-stable material will not react kindly to tight tolerances. Granted more precise fabrication of a wooden gear CAN be done today, but the 'design' MUST allow for the variability of the wood and include a 'sloppy fit'. This 'sloppiness' can be minimized by accurate fabrication.paulrussell wrote:I take very strong issue with this. Perhaps as a matter of terminology, but none-the-less I disagree.
If your argument is that redesigning a wooden clock to metal clock standards and dimensioning is detrimental, then I will agree.
However, tolerances and extreme precision are not detrimental to correctly designed wooden clock gears. How in the world could making something less in adherence to its design possibly be an asset?
A CNC cut wooden clock gear IS superior to most hand cut gears when the gears are properly designed.
The clock wheels you display in your post appear to be from, or are very similar to, the medieval "Verge and Foliot escapement" design clock. I saw many of these on display during a recent trip to Germany, and they were the origins of my interest in wooden clocks. The accuracy of these clocks was so poor, that they had only a single hour hand. The medieval woodworker had a different system than the woodworker of today. Today, we cut many parts in advance, to high degrees of accuracy and precision, and then expect them to all fit together as designed. The medieval woodworker, not having our abilities of consistent repeatability, had to make part 1, and then build part 2 to fit part 1, and so on and so on.
The modern wooden clock with a long pendulum, is a very accurate timepiece. The roughly hewn teeth shown above would have no place in their construction.
Take a look at the state-of-the art wooden clocks here: http://lisaboyer.com/Claytonsite/Claytonsite1.htm and see how many roughly hewn gear teeth are in evidence.
The 'accuracy' of a clock is a function of its period dependent mechanism, not the gearing that follows it.