Hands

With the design of the Locus Pocus clock face completed, it was time to complete the primary physical design by creating the clock hands.

Several primary design elements were needed:

The clock shafts were different nested sizes, so corresponding, differentitated hand attachment points needed to be designed for each shaft
Hands should be visually distinct, to more easily distinguish between different participants
Hands needed to be of a length that would clearly point to different locations

Research

In considering potential clock case designs, I reviewed the hand designs used in some of the previous related projects.

Project	Hand Design
Modern Weasley Clock	3D Printed - Combined Geometric Shapes for Design
Weasley Clock	3D Printed Scissor Blade Style - Name in Blade, Initial in Loop, Painted for Contrast
Where'sLy Clock Project	3D Printed Scissor Blade Style
Magic-Clock	3D Printed Scissor Blade Style - Painted Blade - Printed transparency film glued to back for Name in Blade, Initial in Loop

The scissor blade design is popular, because it seems that was how the movie version of the clock was designed.

I also briefly looking at examples of clock hands - more specifically moving to image section of the search.

Locus Pocus Clock Hand Design

I wanted the clock hand designs to be very distinctive from one another. I kept an end loop as part of each design as an homage to the scissor blade versions, created distincitve shapes for each of the hand bodies.

I used Autodesk Fusion to design the hands. The general process I followed was to:

Project the end of the corresponding clock shaft (arcs and flat sides) into the design sketch
Create a series of construction lines to a total distance of 4 inches for the blade and 1.5 inches for the loop
Use the construction lines to scaffold different shape geometries
Extrude the shape 2mm

I first created a test fit hand to check on potential tolerances for press fit. After several iterations that felt a bit too loose, it seemed that the best connector size for press fit was to use exactly the dimensions of the clock shaft.

Test Fit Pieces for Press Fit Clock Hand Attachment

The first hand design was a basic rounded blade.

The second hand used a lightning bolt theme.

The third hand used a snake inspired design.

The fourth hand was an homage to the metal clock hand design created using the waterjet cutter for the Wildcard Week Assignment.

Locus Pocus Clock Hand - Hollow Diamond Blade

I 3D printed the final hand designs in a variety of colors that were available at the time.