>I was recently at the Smithsonian looking at sundials and was interested in >the Saxon Pocket Sundials. Where can I find out more about these, does >anyone make them, I'm thinking about making one and would welcome help and >suggestions.
This type of sundial, I assume, is the type described by Waugh in the book you mentioned, as an "ancient Saxon pocket sundial" on page 166 of the Dover edition. I have normally seen this described as a type of pendant dial. It consists of a small flat metal pendant hung from a chain. A small rod is inserted in one of a set of holes along the top edge, the specific hole dictated by the month of the year. The rod sticks out horizontally over the surface, which is marked with curves that trace out the hour lines underneath the holes. It is essentially a pillar, or shepherd's, dial except that the curves that are generated are not wrapped around a cylinder, but are placed on the front or back of the pendant. Instead of turning the gnomon around the top of the cylinder for a specific date, a gnomon is inserted through a specific hole. Waugh does a good job of describing how to generate these curves in his section on pillar dials, and has the altitude table to figure them in the back of the book. I haven't seen one sold anywhere, but I am in the process of making one myself. I was working on it last year outside during lunch until it got cold outside--I'll be continuing it this spring. I obtained a rectangular (about 1" by 2" by 1/8" thick) silver plate. Banks often sell these, particularly around Christmas, and coin dealers usually have some. They are 1 troy ounce of 99.99% pure silver, and cost about 7 US dollars--not bad considering it's just what you need! I polished off the bas relief with the bank's name on it to get flat, shiny surfaces. I calculated points on the curves, painted the surface with white eraser fluid made for typed pages, marked the curves on the white surface, scratched the curves with a pin, and rubbed off the white paint. I did that on both sides of the pendant. Then I drilled 6 holes across the top at the appropriate spots over the curves. This gave 6 months of holes on each side. If you drill the holes with a drill press, which I highly (!) recommend for accuracy, you can then use the same drill bit, broken off above the spiral cutting edges, as the actual gnomon that just fits in the holes (the gold chromium bits sold at Sears look very nice). I also drilled a hole at the top in the middle for a chain. This left the task of engraving the curves where the pin scratches were. Never having done it before, I bought a couple of engraving tools and set at it by hand. It was difficult, but the silver is a very soft metal, and I didn't make any major errors on the front side. There was a certain charm in hand-engraving a silver sundial myself. Anyway, I stopped before I did the back side, but when I resume I think I'll use a tiny engraving bit I came across for use in a Dremel (rotary) tool to make things a lot easier. It's a standard Dremel accessory part. Hope this helps, Ron Doerfler
