Ever since coming to Taiwan I have been looking for a specific kind of wall clock. You would think that in Asia finding a wall clock with the Chinese characters for numbers would be everywhere. Sadly this was not the fact. I looked everyplace imaginable, from clock stores, to night markets, I even searched the internet, but no luck. So instead of giving up I decided to make my own, and that’s what I did.

The first thing I had to do was to find a good, cheap, and customizable wall clock. I found what I was looking for at Ikea of all places.

This clock fit all of my requirements and now the hard part was in the design.

To design my clock was no easy task. The first thing I had to do was disassemble the whole clock to get the correct measurements. After all of that was done, I fired up Illustrator and got down to work. I first had to create the perfect circle to fit the clock which was easy, but creating the hour and minute tabs was where I got in trouble. They had to be perfect all around and I won’t bore you with the details, but it took me a while to figure it. Once that was done I had to add the Chinese Characters and line them up perfectly. Here is the final design.

The character in the middle of the clock is my Chinese last name which is pronounced as “hey” which means the color black. I made a version that was black background and white tabs and numbers, but I think it looks better this way. Check out the final product.

As generous as I am, if anyone requests it, I will make a personalized design for you and send you the picture to print. Just tell me the character or imagine you want in the middle and if you want to keep the Chinese numbers or something else. You can send your request here : Clock Request

I like doing this kind of hack and will be thinking of new ones to do in the future.

Due to requests, here is how to disassemble and assemble the clock and change it into the new one.

Step 1: Locate the back of your clock, remove the battery and find the plastic tabs that hold the front clear cover on. The red arrows on the picture below show you where they are located.

Using a small screwdriver or something small push out all 3 tabs towards the front of the clock. Keep it even so the front cover doesn’t crack.

Step 2: Remove front clear cover completely and set aside.

Next you must carefully pull the hour/minute/second hand off of the small metal bar with holds it. REMEMBER the correct order these come off as, because when it’s time to assemble everything, it needs to be perfect.

WARNING: When pulling off the hands, go slow and be careful. The hands are attached by a small metal rod and if the rod is pulled out, you might not be able to push it back in correctly without disassembling the gear box. You don’t want this to happen, because when you open the gear box the gears fall out and good luck putting them back in the correct order. This happened to me and it took me hours to get it back to working order.

Step 3: Now that the cover and hands of the clock are removed, carefully pull off the paper background of the clock face. They use double sided tape to hold it on, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to do. SAVE this clock face, you will need it later.

Step 4: With everything removed it is now time to reassemble. Remember the original clock face that you saved? Put that over the paper you printed the new face on and make it is the same size. On the bottom of the original clock face there is a small paper tab that helps you align it back into the clock, make sure your new face has that tab as it makes things a lot easier when it’s time to align everything.

Now put the original face back into the clock, but this time put it in backwards so the digits on the face, face the back of the clock.

The reason for this is because if you print out the new face on a home printer, like I did, then the paper you used will most likely not be as thick as the original. You don’t want light shining on your face and making the face look cheap. To secure it I would suggest using a couple pieces of Scotch/cellophane tape to the inside plastic to hold the paper in place.

With the original secured into place either use the double sided tape that was originally on it, or new Scotch/cellophane tape and place your new face onto it making sure it lines up perfectly. The paper tab on the bottom of the original and new face should help align everything.

Step 5: Find your clock hands, and in the correct order put them back onto the clock. Now put back on the clear cover, insert your battery, set to correct time and your finished!

Want me to design you a free face? Send your detailed request here: Clock Request

Additional questions and comments can go below in the comment section.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under General, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.