WT Design exclusive sundials Office: Production & showroom: W.T. Design Vaalserbergweg 181 Collse hoefdijk 25d 5628 CD Eindhoven 5674 VL Nuenen the Netherlands the Netherlands tel & fax ( ) 31 40 848 00 70 website http://www.zonnewijzer.com/ E-Mail info@zonnewijzer.com This manual describes the W.T. Design sundials up to 600mm / 24 without the extra equatorial spheres. - 1 -
Contents Unpacking and pre-assembly.. 3 Setting up your sundial. 6 The equation of time. 7 Maintenance. 9 Details of the Drop-in Anchor. 10 Angle help.. 11 First make sure you have somebody ready to assist you during the unpacking and (pre)assembly off the sundial! Make sure not to damage any part of the sundial by bumping, scratching or any other kind of mishandling. Do not use any tools that may damage or break any part of the sundial. Take special care to set-up the sundial on a safe way and preventing children to get hurt. - 2 -
Unpacking and pre-assembly Take the sundial out of the package and put the sundial on a firm base. Remove all the protective materials. Take care by doing this to prevent damaging the sundial. Take special care when using sharp objects like a knife to remove the protective materials. The sundials up to 600mm are mounted on an MDF board. Pre-assembly First loosen by hand the top and bottom parts (turn anti clockwise) of the sundials arrow on the outside of the spheres by about one turn. Manoeuvre the engraved timescale-ring in a way to so that the small radius on the outside of the ring click s over the four rounded plastic guides, located at the inside of the two sphere-rings. (See picture #2) - 3 -
After doing so, turn the sphere-ring A that is not attached to the pedestal to a 90 degrees angle to the other sphere-ring. Take several small steps and make sure the plastic guides are still in the correct position with every step. (See picture #3) After checking everything is in the correct position you can fasten the top and bottom part of the arrow (turn clockwise) by hand. Begin with the top of the arrow and turn it in a way you think it looks at best. Now you are ready to take the sundial off its pedestal. This is done by unscrewing the four 4mm inside hexagon bolts, located around the build-in compass. Use the enclosed 4mm hexagon tool for this. (See picture #4) - 4 -
After the four bolts are unscrewed, you can now take off the clamp-disk with the build-in compass. Then you can take the whole off its pedestal and put it out of harms way for the moment. Then you can unscrew the inside hexagon bolt, using the enclosed 8mm hexagon wrench and take the pedestal of the MDF board. You are now ready to set up your WT Design sundial. The build-in compass will help you to set-up your sundial and to find the magnetic north. There is also a video on this CD-ROM for setting up your sundial. Also available from our website http://www.zonnewijzer.com/ - 5 -
Setting up your WT Design sundial Installing the enclosed anker-plug To install the enclosed plug you must first drill a hole in the base on witch you want to set-up your sundial. You must use a good 15/32-inch or 12 mm drill bit, capable of drilling the material of the base. Drill the hole exactly in the middle of were you want to set-up the sundial. Make sure the drill depth is deep enough to fit the complete plug, but do not drill to deep. About 10 % deeper than the length of the plug will be sufficient. Clean out the hole after drilling and check the depth of the hole and make sure the plug fits nicely in the hole so that the top of the plug is just below the surface of the base. For details about the Drop-in Anchor see page 10 Enter the plug in the drilled hole with the thread up and use the enclosed solid pin and a hammer (not enclosed) to hammer down the cone inside the plug in order to secure the plug. Make sure not to use too much force by hammering down the cone to prevent splitting the base of your sundial. Take special care to use the pin in a way without damaging the thread of the plug. If you are not familiar to these kind of plugs we suggest calling in help with this. Note that the plug is to secure the sundial and is not meant to withstand considerable forces. Installing the pedestal (See picture #5) Lay down the engraved base plate on the base making sure the centre hole is centred over the plug you just installed. Then place the lower part of the pedestal on the engraved base plat, making sure it s centred again. Now lay in the enclosed stainless steel washer in the centre hole and lower the enclosed 10mm inside hexagon bolt true the engraved base plate passing true the stainless steel ring and lower part of the pedestal. Using the enclosed 8mm hexagon tool, carefully turn the bolt clockwise in a way it s screwing into the plug and tighten it very loos. You have to be able to turn the lower part of the pedestal by hand! - 6 -
Place the clamp-disk, with the compass up, on the pedestal and screw in two of the four inside hexagon bolts (diagonal) for just a couple of turns. Then turn the pedestal so that the arrow of the compass points to the N (north). The clamp-disk can now be removed again so you can tighten the centre bolt, making sure the pedestal is not turning while doing so. Do not tighten the centre bolt to tight, you still have to be able to fine adjust your sundial Mounting up the ring set Take the set of rings witch you put aside before and place the set on the pedestal so that the angle of the arrow is the angle of the place you are and the arrow of the sundial is pointing to the north. Use the included angle help on page 11 to set the correct angle. Then place the clamp-disk on the ring and screw in the four ins. hex. bolts, using the 4mm hex tool. Do not over tight the four bolts. Now carefully turn the engraved timescale ring so the shadow line, coming from the mid part of the arrow, is on the correct time. This means you have to be able to read the correct time from the sundial. Check the two small rings of picture #2 are still on a 90-degree angle to one and other, if not correct the angle without turning the time scale. Make sure that during this process, the pedestal does not turns, the arrow has to point to the north. After checking everything and being happy with all the above, you can put on the enclosed rubber O-ring on the clamp ring and finally put on the cap of the pedestal (See picture #6) If for any reason the cap has to be removed it might prove not easy to get off. Use leather gloves to get better grip on the cap. Never use as sharp item to try to get the cap off the pedestal!!! - 7 -
The equation of time To set-up your sundial correctly you need to consider the equation of time. This means that depending of your geographical position on this earth you might have to adjust the timescale to your local time. In fact, this means that when the place where the sundial is to be positioned is not exactly on an earth meridian, you have to adjust the time-scale to its correct position. In the picture below the sundial is set on summertime (for those country s that have daylight saving time) plus about ½ an hour. This tells that the position of the sundial is close to right between two meridians s or in the middle of two time zones. For a detailed explanation you can visit numerous sites about sundials and the links below can give you all the information you need. This site has lots of information. http://www.de-zonnewijzerkring.nl/eng/index.htm the Dutch sundial society http://www.sundials.co.uk/ for general information about sundials http://www.sundials.co.uk/equation.htm for the equation of time http://www.sundials.co.uk/setup.htm for extra information on setting up a dial - 8 -
Maintenance The WT Design sundials are finished with the greatest care. This however cannot prevent the sundials, with the exception of the stainless steel models, after a while will get a dark brown surface colour. There will also appear some other colours such as greens because of the oxidation. This happens true the use of brass. Brass contains a.o. copper, zinc, lead and sulphur. Because these materials react on our atmosphere, colorization is unavoidable. The reaction of our clients on this colorization is mostly very positive and they think, as we do, that the sundial looks better and better because of it. If however you want to keep the bright brass colour, you can achieve this by giving it a regular polishing with a scottch-brite. You have to disassemble the sundial to be able to completely do this. After the cleanup you might want to threat it with an oil to delay colorization as long as possible. Please take care to use good quality gloves and avoid touching the cleaned parts with your bare hands. The oxidation can do absolutely no harm to your sundial and it will last for many lifetimes. - 9 -
Source of the EM 10 drop-in anchors: http://www.mkt-duebel.de/produkt_seiten/einschlaganker_e/site_e_eng.php#programm - 10 -
Angle Help - 11 -