Dear Membership, I've been listening to all the great ideas about Ceiling dials and they all sound like they would work well under some circumstances. In earthquake country or where the soil shifts from moisture/freezing the mirror is going to have to be adjustable. If the dial is laid out with date lines as well as hour lines it would seem to be straight forward, although tedious to be able to align the bright spot with the correct time and date at any time and thus correct for many of the mentioned problems.
An old friend, being also a professional seamstress, laid out her ceiling dial on tissue, going over the lines with a rolling perforator, tacked it to the ceiling with spray adhesive and pounced through the perfs with a bag of charcoal powder. This got her pretty close, but she didn't paint in the lines til the times actually came. She trusted a gap of a few hours if the hours on each side of it were good. Another, being a professional photographer took a picture of his horizontal dial on 35mm and then projected it on the ceiling aligned with a few check points obtained from the sun's mark from the mirror. Of course he understood all those factors of perspective and distortion and how to deal with them. I've not ever been so located that a ceiling dial is possible, although it sounds so neat that I may try an under the carport roof dial. I guess I'll use a piece of polished stainless steel rather than a first surface mirror, since I can polish it with car polish or tootpaste when the atmosphere fouls it. I really appreciate this list! Edley McKnight [43.126N 123.357W]
