# Ideas: Clock Face (for external mounting on house)



## sakko303 (Sep 6, 2012)

I've got a slight feeling maybe my thoughts on clock tower faces are off... I think they are kind of creepy and would love one on my house to insinuate some age.. you know, so it doesn't look like a starter home built in 2008. What do you think? I think rocking a really gothic looking backlit clock face on the house would be pretty cool. Nice and high centered on a wall where the roof arches up?

A google image search on "clock face" returns lots of really groovy designs:



















There are alternatives to getting it to work as well, instead of having a working clock, you could have it stuck at just before midnight, or doctor the face to show a 13, or something like that.

New to the prop building scene, I am wondering where some of you vets would start? What kind of material would you use? The end product would do well to be rather light, as hanging stuff off of a house with siding or stucco could cause damage if something went wrong.

The sheeting used on some industrial and commercial ceiling lights is what I'd imagine one could use, but all of them are so custom cut, and small... I don't know the type of plastic used or how one could score a large piece for prop building. Diffusing light across its entire surface may be difficult too

For framing, I think there may be some merit in taking apart larger Christmas wreaths, they have a wire cage underbody that may be suitable for mounting things to. Hopefully the face of the clock (that is the piece of plastic (?) that is backlit) would be flat, in which case I would maybe use stickers made with those machines you can make car stickers out of. But, I don't know how big they can get.

Obviously the whole thing would be outdoors, so you'd need an enclosure for the electronics and most of the materials including the car style stickers (are those vinyl?) is compatible with outdoors.

Creatively speaking there are probably many ways to age the thing or make it look unkempt and without maintenance...

I am entertaining any and all ideas on how one might get started on such a thing. Materials, mounting, effects, or any other such suggestions.


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## silentskream (Sep 20, 2012)

have you ever seen a cross stitching round?
that's what i'm envisioning, except way bigger.. some sort of round frame with a piece of fabric stretched over it, then you can backlight it (from behind the fabric) and put whatever electronics you need behind the fabric too. and just paint your design on the front.
although i think i'd just make static arms, or poseable,instead of electronics/mechanics 
it would be neat to have it like a countdown of the last 12 days before halloween, so that halloween is midnight.

as far as how to make the round frame i'm talking about, you can get a bunch of those superthin wood slats (stirring?) and attach them together in a circle. or you could just make an armature out of cardboard or maybe an armature out of wire? hmm.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

You can get the metal frames/rings for wreaths of all sizes at places like Michaels.
I think you may get more drastic lighting by using an out door flood light and lighting the clock face from behind. You could do "twinkle" lights/mini tree lights strung in a circle behind the clock face for more subtle lighting.
You can either have the face printed or cut in vinyl by a sign shop, or, draw out the design on the panel yourself and paint it by hand.
Depending upon the space you have to hang (and to store it) I'd be tempted to make a square or rectangular box with a plywood face board with a hole cut out in the size of the clock face, then mount the diffusion panel on the back side of the plywood face. This lets you have a more secure and stable setup for the panel/clock face, and an easier piece to build and store. You can paint or dress up the box to look like access panels, or vent the area below the clock so that you can put speakers or a boombox inside to let the bells chime for the hour. If you already have hooks on your eaves to hang Christmas lights, you might consider using them to support your "clock" rather than drilling holes into the side of your house.


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## sakko303 (Sep 6, 2012)

TOLLING BELLS!!! YES! This very awesome idea had escaped me, thank you thank you... I am definitely excited about integrating some audio at some point, so I am keeping this in mind...

So the sign shop is a good recommendation too. And silentskreem mentioned some materials I am not familiar with so I will check those terms out for usage or links to other things that may work.

The siding of the house is that construction vinyl, I had about a 6-7 lb. lit wreath up there for Christmas supported by those super sticky plastic hooks you can get from Target and Walmart. It worked for one year but the next, it came crashing down and may not light again (we'll see in a couple months)... I will definitely need a more solid mounting structure... going to brainstorm that one, maybe I will post some pics and get your guys help 

The box and plywood face idea sounds interesting, but made me think of something else. I've been trying to think of some automagically round construction material that is like a lamp cover that I could use to shine the backlight on... it doesn't have to be round! It can be a square sheet of plastic ANYTHING that I can cut nice and round or frame in the plywood with the hole. I've been trying to think of the perfect material, but if I open my mind I can broaden my options too.

silentskreem also gave me another idea.. the static arms. up until now I was considering making the clock hands be part of the vinyl sticker solution, but I think it would look way better if they were physical arms on the structure itself. Nice and gothic and pointy and dangerous looking...

Thanks you two for brainstorming! If I start this bad boy for next year (budget pending) I'll be sure to start early and post pics.

I do have access to some stepper motors and microcontroller stuff, so mechanizing the clock would be a possibility, though a complicated one. I am going to focus on the looks before the brains or I'll never get off the ground. As they say in the car scene, "all show and no go".


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

There's all kinds of great materials out there, in the sign industry, products like "Alumalite" (think of an aluminum version of plywood, with a plastic core and aluminum faces), "Coroplast" (think corrugated cardboard only made of plastic), fiberglass sheeting, ABS, Styrene, etc.

Having fixed hands on your clock means you only have to have the bells toll for that hour.
One of the benefits of the plywood box is that the plywood itself masks the surrounding clock shape so you don't need to cut your clock face in a circle. This also makes it easy to make sure your clock face is properly aligned too. If you use 2x4s to make the frame or sides for the box, you can use door skins (think 1/8" plywood) for the front face of the box. This keeps your box fairly light, easy to cut, and fairly inexpensive too. Door skins or plywood are both opaque enough that any lights you use to backlight the clock face wouldn't show through anyplace BUT the clock face.


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## TNBrad (Sep 10, 2007)

A video screen or projector could be great
















Spooky videos :: haunted clock demo video by TNBrad - Photobucket


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