Featuring the work of

John B. Shadle

Certified Master Clockmaker



All clock movements
and cases on this page
were designed and built
by me with tools which
are homemade, for the
most part.

Photos by Katharine Wheels-Ekelin, John Shadle, and Tom Downey.

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My first clock, made in 1994. It has a deadbeat escapement and maintaining power. The tools I used to make this clock were all handmade.

This movement was built in 1995 in fulfillment of the AWI's Master Clockmaker exam requirements. It is a weight-driven movement with maintaining power and it has an outside, jeweled Brocot escapement.

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An 8-day skeleton clock. It has a "ladder" movement and a Brocot escapement. This little clock won a red ribbon (2nd place) in the NAWCC Crafts Contest in Houston, 1999.
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This clock won a prize in the NAWCC's Crafts Contest in association with the national convention in Portland, Oregon in 1998. It is a skeleton clock with wooden (cherry) plates, but metal gears. It has a silk thread pendulum suspension and a Brocot escapement.

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A rack-and-snail bell strike. It has a deadbeat escapement with Vienna-style pallets, a Brocot gallows pendulum suspension,and an innovative eccentric one-legged crutch mechanism. This movement won a white ribbon (3rd place) in the 1999 NAWCC Crafts Contest in Houston, TX in June of 1999.

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A clock finished in May, 2000. It is double "big wheel" skeleton clock. One big wheel drives the time train, the other drives the strike train. Both are powered by the same mainspring, a 175-inch-long spring for 31-day clocks. It won a red ribbon (2nd place) in the Philadelphia 2000 Crafts Contest which is held as a part of the National Convention of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.


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The eighth clock built -- a skeleton clock with an unusual crown wheel dead-beat escapement. It is powered by a large mainwheel. This clock is built in full view on my "Online Clock Buiding" website, which includes hundreds of photos, a complete day-by-day description of its construction, and plans. It was shown as an exhibit in the Crafts Contest, a part of the 2001 NAWCC convention in New Orleans.

Link to Online clock building


This is my ninth clock, a miniature version of the Online Clockbuilding project.
This clock won an orange ribbon (Honorable Mention) at the NAWCC Crafts Contest in New Orleans, July 2001

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The escapment for my tenth clock. This clock has a balance wheel which is suspended by a torsion spring. Unlike a torsion pendulum clock, it runs in bearings, which makes it possible to drive it with a chronometer escapement. This escapement was a challenge to build!

This clock won a blue ribbon (First Place) in the NAWCC Crafts Contest in New Orleans, July 2001.

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My eleventh clock, a unique torsion pendulum regulator. Its torsion pendulum is a glass disk, with suspension springs above and below the disk for stability. It has a unique remontoire, of a sort never seen before on the earth, as far as I know. This clock won first place in its class, and was voted the "People's Choice" at the national convention of the NAWCC in Charlotte, NC in 1993.


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Here's another torsion pendulum clock. This one has a chronometer escapement, and is driven by a tiny weight. This clock also won first place in its class, as well as the "People's Choice" award at the NAWCC National convention in Fort Lauderdale in 2005. This clock was built online, and you can watch the entire process.


Click to see this clock built.


My 13th clock, a break from the norm. This one is an electronic clock, began as a project in a digital electronics class at West Nebraska Community College. It takes its time signal from the 60-Hertz power mains, which seems to be pretty accurate, although it does vary by a second or two from real time. It's a 24-hour clock, which I'll set to Universal Time to use in my ham radio shack to log contacts. I may add a crystal-controlled time pulse if the power mains pulse proves too inaccuate, or if noise on the power line causes disruptions.


Page initiated 03/22/99