MORE:Design | Timepieces | analog | bike chain | clock | copper | gears | mechanical | steampunk
Catena Wall Clock Tells Time With Bike Chain
November 9th, 2009
Here’s an unusual concept for a wall clock. Instead of telling the time with hands or a digital display, the Catena clock tells time along the perimeter of a bicycle chain.
Designed by Andreas Dober for Germany’s Anthologie Quartett, the Catena (Latin for “chain”) has a certain retro-steampunk look about it. Time is told using copper digits mounted on the outside of a bike chain that rotates around a single motorized gear. Now don’t bother trying to tell the exact time with this. The only numbers on the chain are the hours, so any attempt to figure out minutes is a crap-shoot.
While I dig the grungy minimalism of the clock, I don’t dig the $2300+ (USD) price tag. But I suppose if you’ve got really deep pockets, you can order one over at Unica Home.
On the other hand, I won’t tell anyone if you decide to make your own out of $20 worth of junk you find at a flea market.
[via Incredible Things]
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Someone needs to put 4 of these together and make them tell the whole time
or even five 4 digits one am and pm one. but of course they need to make them extremely cheap first.
Hours and minutes- you’d only need two. Make the gears coaxial, hours on outer gear and minutes in five minute intervals on inner gear.
“The only numbers on the chain are the hours, so any attempt to figure out minutes is a crap-shoot.”
That depends, how many chain links are between each of the hour numerals, you could probably suss it out that way.
Is it Cantena or Catena? You’re using both spellings.
It’s Catena, and I made a typo when I wrote this post halfway in my sleep. I’ll correct this now :)
has anyone figured out how to make this?
Double the length of the chain to make a 24 hour clock.
I’m planning on making one, using a high torque movement from ebay, not sure if that is necessary but the chain must weigh something, the gear im thinking of hacking up a six tooth mini bike sprocket so with six links per hour one revolution will equal one hour on the clock, each link is ten minutes…. looking at around $40 for those parts from ebay(obvs this is the non mechanically inclined way of doing it)