Pop!

My regular readers will remember that I went to the auction a couple months ago and ended up with an old banjo clock. It runs, surprisingly, but is in terrible condition cosmetically. So, I’ve decided to turn it into a steampunk project, because I like that sort of thing.

One step along the way is to cut the center out of the clock face so that more of the movement is exposed. How exactly do you do that? I first went to Dunklee’s machine shop, but he said he didn’t have the right equipment and sent me to Kenny, shown below. Kenny has a 4-inch punch, which was a little smaller than I hoped for but good enough.

Kenny’s sheet metal shop is next to and behind the Jesus Superman church, and is completely invisible from the street. As it turns out, Kenny was the guy who made our stainless steel backsplash and range hood cover, but we didn’t meet him directly at the time.

Anyway, he set the brass clock face into a press the size of a camping trailer, turned some dials, lowered the cutting head, and pop! 20 tons of pressure created a perfectly round hole exactly where I wanted it. Magic.