Here is a challange

[Don Baer]

I was contacted by an elderly gentleman who has a clock that has been in the family for generations. He gave it to a clockmaker to fix an in the process of fixing it a piece was lost.



Here is a picture of the clock.




The piece that is missing is the sunburst thing at the top. All he can tell me is that it is 3 1/2" across and 1/2" thick at the sun burst. What I plan on doing is to turn a piece like it out of walnut cut it in half on the skroll saw and cut the rays in the sun burst the same way. Now heres my delema. I can firgure out how to scale the demension for the rest of the piece, such as the small relief under the rays or knob on the front. I started something in sketchup but I am drawing a blank.

any ideas ?

 

[tod evans]

don, take what pictures you can get to the shop and cut it out.....no sketchup required......believe me if it looks good to your eye the customer will love it! tod

 

[Dave Richards]

I think I'd agree with Tod.

Oh go pick your jaw up off the floor.

I think you could figure out the needed dimensions reasonably well with a divider and the pictures. If you knnowpiece is 3 1/2" across then the height would be 1 3/4" you ought to be able to work out the radius at the base of the rays rather easily. Work using the vertical heights so you don't has so much distortion from the angle at which the photos were made. With two images you should be able to double check.

Now if you really want to draw the sunburst using SWU, I could show you how I'd do it but I think you'd be done making the piece before too long.

 

[Bruce Page]

After you come up with a size that you like, cut it out on some cardboard and test fit it to the clock.

 

[Don Baer]

Well I did it, here's a thread that shows the end result.
http://familywoodworking.org/public_html/forums/showthread.php?t=1129