Snail and Dragon Clocks

This is three cool clocks I made myself!

Some people collect stamps, some cups and others shoes, but I collect clocks. I have quite a lot everywhere in my apartment, and even though the ticking noises are sometimes driving my boyfriend insane, I don't see why I shouldn't get even more!
So I decided to make my own. The process was really fun to do, and I might make even more.

They are also great as gifts, I gave my sister and father one each as birthday presents, and made the blue snail for myself. Nothing is better than homemade gifts!

What you need:

• A clockwork (you can buy them in loads of online hobby shops, and they are not very expensive)
• A piece of MDF wood. Mine was 6mm thin (plywood can also do, but MDF gives it a nicer look. I added a picture of the sticker on the wood)
• Paint and paintbrushes (I used acrylic paint)
• A marquetry saw (I'm not sure if this is the right word for the saw, but it has to be very precise. I added a picture of the saw in the package)
• A drill to make the hole for the clockwork
• Sandpaper
• Optional: Something to put on the back, so you can hang it up :)
• Optional: Silk clay and glue or or sticker numbers (you can also paint them, or not use them at all)
• Maybe a workbench and something to attach the wood to it

I drew the snail with a pencil onto the wood, so I knew where to saw.

Saw
Make sure that the MDF wood is secured before you start sawing, and also make sure to try out the saw on some other piece of wood before you start! It takes a couple of tries to get used to!

Drill
I drilled a hole for the clockwork. Make sure to measure how big the clockwork is, and choose your drills size to make it fit nicely. And also make sure to think about where you drill! I drilled the whole so that it would eventually become the end point of my snails shell, and not in the center of the piece.

Sandpaper
Before you start painting, make sure that your clock is nice and smooth. I used regular sandpaper.

Paint
I used acrylic paint to paint my clocks*. I painted over two times to make sure that it wasn't see through, and they turned out really nice!
By the way, make sure to paint on the side of the wood as well. It makes it look more professional and nice :)
And DON'T paint inside of your drilled hole! I accidentally put paint inside one of my hole, and I had to scrape it out afterwards to make the clockwork fit!

*A nice tiny detail to add (which I didn't do, because I thought of it afterwards) would be to paint the clockworks hands while you are already painting. It would be nice to use some of the same colors as on the clock. For example would it be nice to have green hands on my green and orange snail, and maybe white or green hands on my blue snail.

Clockwork
This part is really very individual, relatively to which clockwork you have. Mine was pretty easy to put together, and it even came with a guide.

If you want a cheap clockwork, you can always buy a cheap clock, and just take out the clockwork.

Balance

Because I didn't place the clockwork in the middle of the snail, the clock wont hang straight if I use the original hanger from the clockwork.

What I did, was to find out where the balance center was, and I then glued on a piece of wood, in which I had hammered a round nail into.
It was very hard to get the nail into the wood, so if you find a better solution, let me know :)

Make sure to remove the hands before you do this, so they don't break :)

If you want to, you can paint on the numbers, glue some on or use stickers.

I made mine from silk clay, which is really easy to work with. I used some nice colors, which matched the colors on my clocks.

When then dried, I simply glued them on.

Put it up!
Now you are done! All you need it to put in some batteries and hang it up! I hope you liked it, and if you decide to make one of your own, please share! I would love to see them!

If you have any questions feel free to ask me about it! I would love to help :)

A tiny nice detail, is that I made two of these for my father and sister, which is why I wrote a little note for them on the back :)