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My first attempt at making hands.


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This is something I've been putting off as it seemed like such a daunting task. I needed to make some hands for a design I had been working on, but without access to a lathe, staking set, or infact a lot of the tools I figured I would need, I didn't think It would be possible.

I had a go anyway and this is how they turned out. Lots of work left to do (like actually trying to make the round bits round, polishing, plating etc), but here they are.

PS please ignore the dial. Its an experiment in engraving a design I'm working on, but ill talk about that in a separate thread.

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Thanks Hector. I made them out of a sheet of 0.7mm brass I had. Although I had some 0.5mm stainless steel I thought it may be too hard to grip the cannon pinion and the hour wheel. I knew I didn’t have the correct equipment to fit brass tubes to stainless steel hands, so I figured if I just made the entire hand out of brass that may work instead. 
If I had made the hands out of stainless, do you think they would have fitted ok without the brass tubes? 
I assumed that the soft brass was necessary to ‘grip’ the cannon pinion/ hour wheel without damaging them. 
I feel the stainless would have made superior hands that took a better polish, and wouldn’t need plating. 

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Thanks for the video, very interesting. I only used a hand drill and a set of needle files for the hour and minute hands, so this would be quite a big step forward. I think I’ll try to make another set from stainless steel and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted. 

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