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.
