While visiting some of our excellent thrift stores I noticed a couple of mid century clocks with the zodiac arranged on the face. I was intrigued, I would have never suspected mainstream interest in the zodiac during the 40s and 50s. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me when we were shopping, but I did follow up with a search on eBay and found some more examples:

Of course, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted one of my own for my mid century house. It just so happened I had a clock face wood blank and a clock kit that I had inherited from my mother’s craft supplies.

As to the design, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be too much consistency in how the zodiac is arranged in reference to the hours display. Each of the examples I found starts in a different place. I decided to start mine where the zodiac signs would roughly line up if every hour were representative of the month of the year. I didn’t include a separate sectioning out of the clock face for the numbering so the dividing lines between zodiac signs serve as my hour marks. This effectively shifts the signs forward a bit, but the signs themselves do not start when the month starts so I was happy.

Overall, I am pretty happy with it. It was a soft, cheap wood that either flaked away in large chips with hand tools, or feathered up with a rotary carver. This forced me to change my design dreams a little and accept a less finely detailed result. I used paint to highlight the simple relief and cover carving mistakes. If I had been seeking out new supplies for this project, I would’ve made sure to obtain a harder wood that would’ve been more conducive to carving. Part of my pleasure in finishing this up, however, is most definitely tied to using material I already had in the house.