I made some holiday hands for the clock.

I'm not sure what exactly helped with the friction, possibly just letting it run for a few hours with no pallet like you said. I also sanded the rods and enlarged the holes. I noticed the hour hand gear was pretty tight in the front frame so I sanded that down, although I'm not sure if that does much since the hour hand moves so slow. But I had it running with about 1.7 pounds no pallet, about 5.3 pounds fully assembled, and it's currently running for the past few hours at about 7.2 pounds. For the weight shell, I decided to try using coins since I had about 4 pounds of change. I went to the bank and got $10 more in pennies. I was able to squeeze about two hundred combined quarters and nickels rolled up, one hundred loose dimes, and seven hundred loose pennies into the 3.2 inch weight shell, no extension. My thinking was that pennies and BBs are comparable in price. But also pennies are technically free, since you always still have that money if you need it. And I thought it might be possible to get even more mass into the shell if the pennies were in rolls, since packing density of cylinders is up to 90% as opposed to sphere packing density which is max 70%. I was not able to really arrange the rolls neatly in the shell though, so I put a couple rolls in the bottom, then poured loose pennies on top. Shaking the shell packed the loose coins down a little bit as they spontaneously formed little cylinders. Maybe at some point I'll try to remake the weight shell to be more similar to the pendulum, where it has premade cylindrical slots for pennies, but with thin walls, and the areas left over between the cylinders can be filled with something else, like BBs or sand. It's ticking away. I'll try to tune the speed of the pendulum over the next few days.

I'm not sure what exactly helped with the friction, possibly just letting it run for a few hours with no pallet like you said. I also sanded the rods and enlarged the holes. I noticed the hour hand gear was pretty tight in the front frame so I sanded that down, although I'm not sure if that does much since the hour hand moves so slow. But I had it running with about 1.7 pounds no pallet, about 5.3 pounds fully assembled, and it's currently running for the past few hours at about 7.2 pounds. For the weight shell, I decided to try using coins since I had about 4 pounds of change. I went to the bank and got $10 more in pennies. I was able to squeeze about two hundred combined quarters and nickels rolled up, one hundred loose dimes, and seven hundred loose pennies into the 3.2 inch weight shell, no extension. My thinking was that pennies and BBs are comparable in price. But also pennies are technically free, since you always still have that money if you need it. And I thought it might be possible to get even more mass into the shell if the pennies were in rolls, since packing density of cylinders is up to 90% as opposed to sphere packing density which is max 70%. I was not able to really arrange the rolls neatly in the shell though, so I put a couple rolls in the bottom, then poured loose pennies on top. Shaking the shell packed the loose coins down a little bit as they spontaneously formed little cylinders. Maybe at some point I'll try to remake the weight shell to be more similar to the pendulum, where it has premade cylindrical slots for pennies, but with thin walls, and the areas left over between the cylinders can be filled with something else, like BBs or sand. It's ticking away. I'll try to tune the speed of the pendulum over the next few days.

Very nice color choices.

Ok, thanks a lot. Yes, it is nice to be able to easily print replacements. I'll let you know how my efforts to reduce friction go.

Ok, thanks a lot. Yes, it is nice to be able to easily print replacements. I'll let you know how my efforts to reduce friction go.

Don't the instructions say to add the lube to the arbors though? That wouldn't make much difference? Also, it says that oils attract dust and shouldn't be used on clock gears. It's okay to use lithium grease? Good to know about the bearings. Understood about the second hand. For some reason I was imagining a smooth spinning second hand where it wouldn't make a difference what the pendulum period is, but now I see that wouldn't make sense.

Don't the instructions say to add the lube to the arbors though? That wouldn't make much difference? Also, it says that oils attract dust and shouldn't be used on clock gears. It's okay to use lithium grease? Good to know about the bearings. Understood about the second hand. For some reason I was imagining a smooth spinning second hand where it wouldn't make a difference what the pendulum period is, but now I see that wouldn't make sense.

Would the white lithium grease be used instead of the dry teflon lube for the arbors as well? I'll try free spinning the gears. One suspicion is that I didn't smooth up the ends of the arbors enough after cutting them and they're catching inside the frame holes. Also, how important is having a snug fit with the arbors inside the bearings? The arbors I bought are a tad loose, and I wasn't sure if that adds friction. I was thinking to maybe wrap teflon tape or something around them to snug them up. That makes sense about the length of the pendulum. I wasn't sure how long it would be. The clock in that video looks very cool, especially the movement of the rewind mechanism. Once I get the weight shell printed and attached, I'll be sure to post a photo of the full clock on MyMiniFactory.