Tide Clock

thingiverse

My wife and I take regular walks to the beach, never knowing what we'll find when we arrive: low tide, high tide or something in between? Each has its unique character. Low tide, for example, reveals a shipwreck's remnants. As we embark on our walk, I want to know. That's why I was looking for a tide clock. How I Designed This My search for a tide clock led me to a simple clock mechanism that can be calibrated to any tide cycle. Sold! The creator is Nick Sayor of Geppetto Electronics who sells Crazy Clocks on Tindie (https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/crazy-clock/). I bought one for tides, perhaps the least "crazy" of his selection, with the expectation that I'd create a suitable housing around it. The result is this project. Custom Section Laser Cut This project consists of two sheets of acrylic (mirror and blue). The first cut of the mirror acrylic features an etch of two wave patterns, the hole for the clock mechanism, and the outer circle of 5.5". The second cut removes the middle of the blue acrylic with the two 3-wave patterns, top and bottom, and the outer circle of 6". Final prep before assembly included painting: 1) the clock's "tide hand" red and 2) the etched wave pattern blue. Paying close attention to centering and orientation, the mirror acrylic is mounted behind the blue acrylic and secured with hot glue around the perimeter. After hardening, the clock mechanism can be inserted and secured, and the tide hand is mounted. I chose a mirrored surface as my back layer, etched waves, and painted the etch blue.