BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.

Subject: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 06:48 PM

While the boys are at it on another thread to do with Bush, I thought this question would be not only timely (get it?) but also pertinent.

If your watch packs it in and your electricity fails and the batteries go dead, would you know how to tell what time it is using a sundial? This question has been on my mind for months now. Really needed to ask.

I know most people would rather argue about Dubya and the Iraq War, but not me. I figure there is at least one other Mudcatter out there who would have this question running around his/her brain, so in anticipation of that I have started THIS thread.

Me? No!

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 07:00 PM

I used to know.. I'd have to check my old Boy Scout manual to remind myself...

If my watch packs it in, and all the electricity goes dead, I probably don't CARE what time it is!

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: gnu
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 07:08 PM

I can tell the time to within a few minutes on the sun, without a sundial. Unfortunately, "We're here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time, the sun can't shine every day." Oops, old Canuck tune. On a cloudy day, I can estimate time within an hour.

As for telling time by a sundial... ain't that what they are for?

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 07:23 PM

They are both fine.
I have a pocket one that is a copy of one found on the Mary Rose, and a larger brass one.
British Sundial Society
For more info

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 07:55 PM

British - Sun

Isn't that a contradiction in terms ?

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 08:00 PM

At the Toowoomba State Primary School in town, they have a nice brass plae sundial mounted on a nice stone column - reversed 180 degrees out of phase.....

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Emma B
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 08:07 PM

How do you change them to BST?

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 08:27 PM

Turn 15 degrees to the right if you're facing north.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Joybell
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 09:36 PM

Quite happy! Thank you for asking, brucie. We have ours so that it can be turned to allow for daylight saving. Only problem is that possums tend to knock it over in the night. I can hear our favourite one snoring in the wall as I speak. Don't mean to cause a drift.
Yes, ours is just fine. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: gnu
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 09:36 PM

Of course, you can always just hit the 'OnStar' button and General Motors will deliver new batteries... if you drive a standard.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 11:44 PM

Thank you all. I was really curious. Now I am more curious. About grandfather clocks.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: John O'L
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 12:46 AM

Mine stopped years ago. Just like granddad.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 01:16 AM

All to do with height/size.
Longcase/Tallcase.
Often misnamed "English" Longcase clocks.
Early ones in good condition are very valuable.
One of the reasons that clocks stop on the death of their owners is that over the years the owner gets into the habit of winding them the same way every time, when a different person chages the routine it sets up stresses that can cause the clock to malfunction and stop.

Clocks used to be stopped in a house where there was a death until after the funeral so this could also cause problems when trying to restart them.
The solution is to have the clock serviced by a good Horologist.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 03:40 AM

Limpit and I stood on a sundial yesterday (big one, just outside Tower Hill Station on the Underground) and it was dead right. We got there at 10.00am and that's what the sundial showed. We then had a long discussion about why the numbers weren't consecutive or around the whole circle.

Oh, and when I say big... the gnomon is 10ft tall.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 04:08 AM

A bird of ill gnomon.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 06:18 AM

Though I don't have a clock that chimes, I will always associate those types of clocks with my grandfather.

My grandfather had a clock that chimed the hour. He died when I was 12 years old and that clock found a new home with my mother, my siblings and me.

Years later, at some point, that clock stopped chimming, and then it stopped telling time. But because it was a fond reminder of my grandfather, my mother didn't throw it away.

I'm told that my grandfather's clock is still packed away along with other treasured momentos from my mother's past.

Part of that past is mine-and to this day I treasure it.


Azizi

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 07:22 AM

The room I'm sitting in now has 2 chiming clocks and one cuckoo clock, there is a clock in the porch that plays bird calls on the hour, we have a long case clock in the hall that strikes every quarter of an hour, we have another striking clock on the upstairs landing. Along with those we probably have another 20 clocks around the house, and that's not counting the ones on VCRs radios and CD/DVD players. Luckily all the clocks don't strike at once unless someone has had a 'regulating' session, I don't know when I last heard the news headlines!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 08:08 AM

Well, right now it's spring. The weather and plants tell me that. It is also morning because it's getting lighter outside and my internal clock (I keep it in my stomach) got me up at dawn. Do I need more?

The sundial works okay but we keep it at the cottage on a block of stone which is a 2 hour drive away. There're lots of books about woodsmanship and scouting and nature on my shelves should I ever forget how to tell time more specifically.

Ask a bill collector, they always know what time it is.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: tarheel
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 11:51 AM

well brucie, glad that you asked because my sundial really works!
if you or anyone here want to take a look here is a link to get you there and enjoy all the other photos too! my sundial reads(in the photo)10:30 am EDT,but it's reaslly 11:30 am,EDT...as we all know, the sun and the moon do not SPRING forward nor FALL back for the DAYLIGHT savings times...
anyway, if you wanna take a look,go to....

http://groups.msn.com/tarsjournal

(dang ,i cant make a blue linky here)

ENJOY!!

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 12:16 PM

Anyone can build a very simple sundial, but it takes some knowledge of theory to build a very accurate one. I have a book on the subject: "Sundials: Their Theory and Construction" by Albert E Waugh. I have read enough of the book to sort of grasp the theory—at least to understand why building an accurate sundial isn't as simple as it might appear—but I haven't actually built one. I hope to someday.

The complication is mainly due to the fact that the earth's path around the sun is not circular but elliptical and the earth moves faster when it is closer to the sun, making a solar day longer or shorter than an average day depending on the time of year. In brief, a simple sundial that is calibrated for an average day will be off by nearly 17 minutes during part of the year. See this article at Wikipedia called Equation of time.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 12:54 PM

I once made a very simple one.
I arrived on a sandy beach and realised I hadn't got a watch with me, but I knew more or less what time I had arrived, so I stuck a stick in the sand and drew a line along its shadow. It wasn't too sophisticated, but good enough to tell me roughly how long I'd been there, so that I didn't miss the last train home.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 01:08 PM

Tarheel,

Here's the clicky for your site:

Tar's Journal

For some reason I've not been able to figure out, I can't make a blue clicky either. I'm betting this will work, but it will be a red clicky!

BTW, Great photos!

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Azizi
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 01:21 PM

Sorry, I meant to explain how I made that clicky.

[and maybe someone can explain what I'm doing wrong]:

I put the URL Tarheel gave in the address box up top.

I pressed 'go' and got to that site.

I right clicked my mouse and a box came up.

I clicked on properties.

A box appeared on the screen and I clicked on OK.

I then scanned the URL and copied it.

I went back to this thread page and clicked on "Make a link" which appears directly underneath this message box.

A box appeared, and I followed the instructions that are given:
I pasted the URL that I had scanned into that box, selected a name for the link. And then submitted that information. The link characters appeared. I copied them, returned to this page and put them into the message.

That's that. And it usually works. But the links are red instead of blue.

Why??

[Not that's its a big deal. But I'm just askin].

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 01:34 PM

Brucie - you seem to have idle thoughts similar to my own. I often will have a stray thought such as....

What if TEOTWAWKI happens and.. we get a strep throat.. would anybody be able to reverse engineer the formula for penicillin? Should I get a book on how to make it or get a book on how to vaccum-seal a huge packet of it so it lasts for a 20 years?

For those who don't have such worries.. TEOTWAWKI stands for The End Of The World As We Know It and is pronounced.. Tee-oh-twah-kee.


I suppose I think about these things more than I should because I live in Los Angeles and I got stranded up in the Hollywood Hills for 3 days after the Northridge Quake. We had no running water or electricity for a day and a half. Now I keep a camp sove, propane and lots of extra water around just in case. God forbid I shoudn't be able to brew a pot of tea for 24 hours.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 02:27 PM

The book for you is "Lucifer's Hammer". It's a good end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it scenario.

Subject: RE: BS: How's your sundial? Thought I'd ask.
From: number 6
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 03:14 PM

I have a sundial in my back garden. A really unique face on it, picked it up in Quebec City a few years back. Works quite well (roughly within the hour) if it is pointed in the correct direction. Jim Dixon's post explains the setup and how they work. Don't know much about grandfather clocks, but I do have a cuckoo clock and it doesn't work well. But that doesn't really matter since it is a 'cuckoo' clock.

sIx