Greetings, Tony! I am new to constructing sundials (personal enjoyment only and on a much less refined level!) and am most impressed with your work and your website!
Thank you, especially, for sharing about the vandal issue. I am an artist and have proposed a solar calendar sculpture (15 ft. x 30 ft., mostly constructed from granite) for my local downtown plaza. (Recently, I completed a commissioned mosaic mural 21 ft. x 5 ft. for another area downtown which took into account "vandal- proofing" methods, too.) While I took vandalism into account while designing the sculpture, I did not think about it in regards to the addition of an armillary sphere sundial that I would like to include at the site. I will now! Thank you, again, for raising the issue and discussing your solutions to it. Sincerely, Gay McCarter -- http://www.GayMcCarter.com "Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live." : Goethe, "Mephistopheles and the Student" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tony Moss wrote: > Fellow Shadow Watchers, > I don't know what it is about sundials that seems to > present a special challenge to vandals but they do seem to inspire their most > destructive resolve. Much of the 'repair' work I've done seems to have been > to replace a wrenched-off or bent gnomon so it was nothing new to be asked to > design a large public dial which would be 'vandal proof'. This is for a town > which has recently suffered the destruction of their brand new wooden > skateboard park with a CHAINSAW so one can follow their reasoning. > > If and when it is built it will have a 4ft diameter x 10mm thick stainless > steel plate with a cast stainless steel gnomon 46mm thick across the sloping > style and a base 'tenon' 400mm x 36mm going 300mm down into the underlying > masonry....and still I am only prepared to call it 'vandal resistant'. If it > can't be destroyed it can always be defaced. > > On a smaller scale I've just completed a 'first' for me in the form of a dial > which reads from 3.0 am to 9.0 pm being above 57° north where, if Mike Shaw's > 'Universal Diallist's Companion' reads aright (as I'm sure it does), the sun > rises before 3am and sets after 9.0pm (GMT) on midsummer day. > > There's a quick pic' of the dial taken before despatch and two others showing > the method of fixing the 'vandal-resistant gnomon' in the new "Latest - work > in hand" section near the top of my webpage at > http://www.lindisun.demon.co.uk for the curious. This method allows for the > extension of the gnomon further downwards into the pedestal as an additional > security measure if desired. > > Tony Moss.
