Creating a half scale working Grandfather Clock

So I thought I would try my hand at creating a half scale working, yes I said working Grandfather Clock! This project has been a great challenge. I started by looking for clock kits as my thought was that I could do some modifications to make it 1/2 inch scale. In my hunt I came across the House of Miniatures Grandmother Clock. This clock is less than half the size of a 1 inch scale clock so its perfect.

House of Miniatures Grandmother Clock

The next step was to find a small working clock that I could take apart. I found a cheap one that I didn't mind disassembling. I had to be very careful removing the hands as they were extremely fragile. I wasn't sure at this point if I was even going to be able to get it back together.

Disassembled Working Clock

All the parts and pieces

I then had to drill a small hole through the face of the metal piece of the clock. I replaced the original clock face with the face that came with the House of Miniatures kit. The clock hands were the next challenge. I wanted to use the clock hands that came with the kit but the holes in the hands are slightly different sizes than then original ones. My solution for this was trim the holes off of the kit hands and then glue these ones to the original hands. This worked well but was a bit tricky.

New clock face that came with the kit

Assembled new working face!

Next I started to glue some of the pieces of the kit together. Being careful to follow the steps in the kit.

Assembled pieces

Next I started the staining process. I started by carefully sanding the pieces as smooth as possible. Then I did a coat of stain. Once it was completely dry I lightly sanded again and did another coat of stain.

First coat of stain

Now that that is drying I have started to put some of the interior hardware pieces together. The kit includes a pendulum that has to be assembled and 2 chains with weights that also have to be assembled. This is as far as I have gotten for today. I am patiently waiting for the finial coat of stain to dry so that I can assemble the clock. Final pictures to come soon!

Interior clock pieces (non working decorative only)