Bike Clock Tutorial

This week, the theme at the CSI Project is Fabric, so I am posting up some previous projects in order to potentially get some more traffic here. Plus, I want to share the projects and ideas I have because I feel like I'm just being greedy taking everybody else's ideas and making them into projects without contributing some of my own.

Last Christmas, we had a gift exchange at work and I drew somebody who loves bikes. Since we had a nonprofit bike shop in Portland, getting used parts was easy. Additionally, I was always curious if I had the ability to make a clock and as it turns out...I can!

While there are only after pictures, you can imagine what a pile of fabric, a scrap piece of cardboard/matte board, clock parts and a bike gear look like sitting in a pile.

To create this clock, I picked some fabric that was fairly heavy in order to make the cardboard backing even stronger. After sorting through the pile of fabric that I had acquired from secondhand stores, I came across this heavy bright blue piece which seemed perfect. To make the backing, I cut the cardboard down so it was just smaller than the outer edges of the bike gear. I wanted to ensure that after the fabric went onto the cardboard, you could not see the edges peeking out from behind the teeth. Then, I attached the fabric to the cardboard with some Gorilla Glue Super Glue only around the edges so the uglier parts were covered up with the gear.



To get the clock parts through, I used a utility knife to puncture a bit of a hole in the center of the fabric. After that, I used a drill bit to CAREFULLY drill through the cardboard backing. From there, I stuck the back of the clock in, but didn't put the hands on quite yet.

Meanwhile, in order to tell what time it actually was, I took a Dremel and ground down the edges of the gear equidistant as it happened to have exactly the correct number of teeth! While the teeth are not numbered 1-12, the clock works however you want to mount it. I could have numbered it, but that would have taken away from the simplicity of the piece. At this point, I got my husband to help me Gorilla Glue down the gear in exactly the right place and we both sat and held it for a while to ensure a good stick. Within the next few hours, we just popped the hands on the front of the clock and then placed a battery in and VOILA!



The great thing about this clock is that I used nearly ALL reused or repurposed materials with the exception of the actual clock parts.

Jessie

Currently Listening to "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat and Tears