Thanks Tony,
Here is a photo of gear teeth, the gear on left has had its teeth dipped 1X, the gear on right has had the pencil treatment.
I am treating the teeth by filling a beer cap with the thin super glue, I can dip 2 teeth at a time and it goes pretty fast to treat a gear, what is interesting is 1 dip is effective to prevent the outer layer of plywood from chipping when I am doing the pencil polishing, however, dipping 3 times with a couple minutes dry time between dips has the effect of filling the pores in the wood, and after the 3rd dip, the gear tooth has a gloss to it. I am not going to dip the entire gear set 3X on this clock, but the escape wheel and pallet will get 3X dipping. I have decided not to focus a ton of effort on this unit for cosmetics but test my theorys and see if I can get a fairly reliable time keeper.
If so, I will build a second unit with better stain and finish, I will be familiar with the parts and where they go so I could...say....stain the frame dark like walnut, and the gears a contrast color like cherry as an example.
The issue with teeth chipping is not huge, but certain teeth are worse than others, if we have a gear in front of us and we set it so the outer layer of plywood (grain) is running vertical, the teeth at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock will be Most resistant to chipping...vs the teeth at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock the corners can easily chip (short cross grain) on tip of gear tooth... Of course the harder surface of the super glue does give a slicker surface to put the graphite on and make a clock that needs less power to run. We do have the option of putting less weight in the weight bag if the clock runs faster than can be regulated with the pendulum.
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