About me
My
youth was in the Northern part of the Netherlands in the beautiful city Franeker
in the province Fryslan. It was an exiting time with the first sputniks and
astronauts.
At about eight I dismantled the electric clock of my parents, they where not
pleased!
As young boy I was already interested in Astronomy, on dark evenings sitting
behind
my
telescope I made drawings of the Moon craters and the position of the moons
of
Jupiter. I made my first telescope support with meccano and had wild ideas about
building a radar, never worked of course. But my own radio (Philips construction kit for
children) was a great success, said all the time, bleep bleep bleep, must have been
satellites! Later I studied at the Art Academy "Sculpture" and worked as Art Therapist.
But because of a poor health (COPD and Myasthenia Gravis) I had very low energy
and muscle strength. Live is most of the time climbing the Himalayas! Had to stop
active live, also one of the reasons to start this hobby, you can make small parts and
after some years you end up with a working clock! (At least you hope you do)
It took many years being a complete amateur, to learn how to work with a lathe for
making wheels and other parts. In fact I made a start in making wheels from wood
with nails as Eisinga did in his Planetarium. Later I tried to make them by hand in yellow
brass (see photo) Of course I can not work as precise like a real professional, there is
always some play in the wheels, and I have only a limited number of cutters, so I have to
smuggle sometimes a little bit. And I have to keep it as simple as possible because there
is no energy for more complicated works. But I hope this site is a help an encouragement
to start building (astronomical) clocks, for it is a nice hobby. On the Links page you will
find many interesting sites that give information and can help to make a start!
Hope you enjoyed my site, Pieter Merckx
Questions? Drop me a line!
Oeps...time goes too fast!
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