Gluing numbers to a cuckoo clock dial using a 3D printed template
Channel: Bradford Needham
Date: 2019-03-19

I bought an old, beat up cuckoo clock on eBay a little while ago. Its face was missing most of its numbers, so I designed a 3D printable template to help me glue new numbers in place.

The template is a 12-sided polygon with a line down the center of each side, and a post in the center. The idea is that each side of the polygon gives you a baseline to press a number against, and the line down the center gives you a vertical line to visually left-right center each number. The post fits snugly in the center hole of the dial so the template doesn't slip left-to-right.

This dial is 70 mm in diameter, which is one common cuckoo dial size. I bought replacement 11 mm tall Roman numerals from Timesavers: https://timesavers.com/i-8947370-11mm-plastic-cuckoo-numeral-set.html

My blog post describing the whole process, including how to buy Roman numerals, is at https://bluepapertech.com/3d-printing/replacing-the-numbers-on-a-cuckoo-clock-dial/

I've put the 3D printable .STL and editable FreeCAD file for a 70 mm dial template on Cults3D: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/tool/cuckoo-clock-numeral-gluing-guide