Sundial

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Years ago, I had this grand idea that I would have a large bedroom on the second – or maybe third – story of my house, and one whole wall would be floor-to-ceiling windows. Large, single pane windows, like they use in aquariums. And then, in the morning, I could wake up, pull the cord or push the button (or clap, whatever), and the blinds would part, recessing into the side walls. And then I could look down at my property where, there, in the back yard, would be this enormous sundial. Like 20 feet long on each side, probably made of granite. “Well, it’s 10:30,” I’d say to Jennifer as I looked out at the old-school chronometer, “time to get up.”

Or something like that.

Anyway, I scaled that idea down a bit, and, following the instructions from this ancient book titled Fun With Astronomy (it was published before I was born), Owen and I constructed a sundial.

Okay, so first I did most of the work. I bought some wood and cut it to square, then made a groove down the center. I actually made three of these groovy squares, trying to get it just right. When Owen asked why I was making three, I told him I needed the practice, and maybe we’d give the other two to his cousins. This made sense back then, when he only had two cousins.

Anyway, so then I glued the gnomon onto the board, sanded the board real well, then painted it white. That was in 2009. We lived in an apartment back then, so I tried setting the sundial out on the deck. Yeah, that didn’t work. Primarily because we never received direct sunlight before 1:00 in the afternoon. So the sundial just languished in the garage.

A couple of months ago, Owen and I took the sundial outside to nail it to a tree stump in our yard. This has to be done exactly at noon – when the style can be moved until the gnomon casts the thinnest shadow possible. Alas, we didn’t do it correctly, so we had to abandon the project that day.

A few weeks later, when we had another free weekend day, we tried again. Success! After securing it in place, Owen drew a line on either side of the shadow and drew a “12” inside the lines. He did this every hour for the rest of the afternoon, writing in the correct time, respectively.

Owen marks the two o’clock position. His trusty water bottle waits nearby, in case the task becomes formidible and Owen needs to rehydrate.

The next day, we went outside in the morning and marked off 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00 and at some point later in the week, we also marked off 6:00 PM.

A week later, Owen wiped off the style (which a squirrel had been using as a walnut-cracking station) and carefully applied fancy-schmancy numerals. Owen pointed out that we used a lot of ones. This is true: a twelve-hour clock exhibits five numeral ones.

Owen applies the numerals while Dad (not pictured) barks at him to get it “just right” lest the universe end. Just to be safe, Owen donned a bike helmet for the duration of the activity.

This morning, we cleaned off the squirrel mess yet again, and Owen applied a coating of polyurethane, just like the anicents used to do when they built sundials.

Mission accomplished!