Do-it-yourself wooden sundial. How to make a simple sundial with your own hands. Sundial from the roof of the house. Photo gallery: equatorial sundial

Everyone who lives in a private house seeks to decorate his household plot in accordance with design innovations and fashion trends. Often the basis landscape design laid natural design - sundial. You will be surprised, but you can accurately determine the time from them. Today we will make a sundial with our own hands.

Sun as a gift

Time passed, we learned to do wrist watch, and the need to trust the sun has disappeared. But today the sundial broke into the expanses of our personal plots. Why not a designer decoration?

First, let's find out what types of sundials exist in nature. There are three in total:

horizontal;

equatorial;

vertical.

You can make such watches from any material, even from cardboard. In general, any waste material you will need.

Please note that the design of a sundial is different from a conventional time measuring device. Be sure to make the following items:

dial plate;
gnomon;
pointer;
frame center.

Do-it-yourself sundial in the country can be made in the form of a fountain, figurine. In general, you can make anything. It all depends on the breadth of your imagination and skills.

Be sure to place the clock in sunny place where there is no shadow. The shadow will be cast by the gnomon. A shadow line will appear on the dial, which will play the role of an arrow. Of course, at night you won't be able to see what time it is. But during the day, while walking or having a great time in the garden, you can always control the running of minutes and hours.

Read also:

DIY vertical sundial - simplest way build original decoration for a garden or alley. You need to place such a clock on a wall, fence or pole. They can be made of wood, plastic, metal, cardboard.

Follow the sun

To make not just a decorative element, but really working hours, you need to know some features:

the angle of inclination is determined by the formula: 90 ° - the angle of your latitude;
the gnomon must be long to cast a shadow;
every hour is approximately equal to 15 °;
clock building is best done on the longest day of the year;
you can decorate a sundial with stone, beads, tiles, snags, bricks, glass, forged elements.

Little tip: before modeling complex structure- sundial, practice on pocket options. For this, it is better to use plywood or cardboard. And only after honing your skills, start creating a real miracle of nature.

Often it is in preschool institutions you can see the sundial. Such an element will not only decorate the territory kindergarten but it will also help children to fully develop and expand their horizons.

And if you also attract your offspring to creative process, then it will be just wonderful. They will be able to learn how to make calculations, of course, under your strict guidance, and also show their imagination. Entrust the decor to your children. It will turn out an unusual and very beautiful design.

Necessary materials:

crushed stone;
glue is strong;
sand;
cement;
gnomon;
tile;
stones;
varnish, paint;
linoleum for cutting out numbers.

Step by step description of the creative process:

We will design a horizontal clock, so no calculations need to be done.
To begin with, we will attract representatives of the strong half of humanity to hard work. We need to dig a not too deep pit.

We fill the recess with sand, trying to level its surface as much as possible.

Now take a tape measure and measure the diameter of our circle.
For such an element, a holder for a shovel, rake or chopper is suitable. You can take a metal tube.

Then we fill the pit with rubble. Let's distribute it evenly. You can even use screening.

Now we need to find a professional builder who will cook cement mortar and make a screed.

Until the solution has completely solidified, we will not be able to perform further actions, so we had an unplanned day off.
It's time to put tiles on the tile adhesive, it is advisable to choose the street version.
If your shelf has tile laying craftsmen, it's best to keep the shape of the circle. And if not, a square will do.
Immediately let's paint the gnomon with paint bright color. We need outdoor coverage.

To make everything perfect, tile joints are covered with the remaining glue.
We measure the circle, the center is our gnomon.
Lay out crushed stone or pebbles in a circle, fix it with glue.
These actions are performed only after the tile adhesive has completely cured.

And now we have to work hard and work as an observer. On a clear sunny day, every hour we will approach our clock and make marks indicated by the gnomon.

Around we can continue decorating the clock and lay out decorative rock.

To keep the decorative stone firmly and the children could not pull it apart, let's fix it with a cement solution.
Paint the inside of the dial with golden paint.

We paint the outer part of the clock with ship paint or varnish.

Take pieces of linoleum and cut out numbers from them.
You can draw Arabic or Roman numerals by hand. To make it beautiful, use templates.
Glue our numbers on the dial.
Here is the clock and ready. Kids will rejoice looking at such a miracle of nature.

Hello, dear readers KARTONKINO.ru! Spring ... Somewhere it is already in full swing, somewhere it is only expected to arrive, in a month or two, but the sun shines brighter and longer everywhere. And we have a great opportunity to let sunlight in business, having made do-it-yourself sundial. Of course, they will not replace the traditional - mechanical and electronic - watches, but this homemade product is very entertaining, and for the younger generation it is also educational, because the model of the sundial that we will be making is the most effective one, and its manufacturing will require certain knowledge in the field of astronomy and trigonometry.

There are many varieties of this ancient instrument for measuring time. But among all the variety of sundials ever used, they distinguish as basic or classic the following types:

— equatorial(for such a sundial, the plane of the frame (dial) is parallel to the equator, and the gnomon (the part that casts a shadow), usually a metal rod, is parallel to the earth's axis);

Equatorial sundial on the banks of the Thames (London, England)

— horizontal(the plane of the frame is parallel to the plane of the horizon, and the gnomon has the shape of a triangle, one of the sides of which is inclined to the plane of the frame at an angle equal to the geographical latitude of the place where the clock is set);

Horizontal Sundial (Limassol, Cyprus)

— vertical(as the name implies, the dial of such watches is placed in vertical plane usually on the walls of buildings).

Wall sundial (Ely Cathedral, England)

We will make an equatorial-type sundial, as the easiest to manufacture. Due to the fact that the dial is set parallel to the equator, and the sun moves almost uniformly across the celestial sphere, the shadow from the gnomon will shift by an angle of 15 ° every hour. Therefore, the hour divisions on the dial are applied in the same way as in ordinary watches, only the marks are needed not 12, but 24. It is clear that top part the dial is unlikely to be useful, except for the inhabitants of the Arctic, when the polar day comes, and the sun will shine around the clock.

There is no need to draw the dial yourself, you can use ready-made templates- round or square (whichever is more to your liking):

Our task is to correctly orient the sundial in space. The angle of the dial relative to horizontal plane is defined like this:

α=90°-φ ,

where φ is the geographic latitude. You can find out the latitude of your place of residence on the map or on Wikipedia.

And knowing the required angles, it is very easy to make an inclined stand made of cardboard or paper for our sundial and then stick a printed dial on it or prepare a scan of the watch case with a printed image of the dial in a graphic editor.

We know the dimensions of the dial template. The side of the body is right triangle. Thus, we know the length of the hypotenuse C and the angles of the triangle, and the lengths of the legs A and B are calculated using trigonometric formulas:

A=C×sinα

B=C×cosα

It remains only to draw a scan according to the obtained dimensions, even without side walls.

I made a case with an opening back cover (I will explain below why):

Whatever you do, you still get the box

- cut out a rectangular strip 60 mm wide (we determine the length empirically, by eye, so that when folding we get a dense tube with a diameter of about 5-6 mm with a small hole);

- stick on 1 edge double sided tape and roll up the tube

- cut out another rectangular strip 15-20 mm wide and also fold it into a tube with a diameter that matches the diameter of the opening of the first tube;

- cut off part of the first tube at a distance of 10 mm from the edge (it will be something like a nut)

and connect the details;

- we fix the gnomon on the dial, fixing it on the reverse side with a “nut” (this is where the opening cover came in handy).

The sundial is ready. Now, in order for them to work correctly, you need to put them in a place lit by the sun (on a windowsill, on a balcony, etc.) so that the gnomon “looks” to the north (we determine the direction by the compass).

Of course, it is not worth waiting for an exact match of the readings of such a sundial with the readings of ordinary watches. First, a sundial that shows true solar time does not take into account standard time in a particular area. Secondly, do not forget that the magnetic and geographic poles of the Earth have a discrepancy, and the fact that we oriented the clock along the magnetic pole will also introduce some error.

And finally main point, which will also have to be reckoned with - the equatorial clock works only between the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes. All the rest of the time upper surface the frame will be in shadow. But the day spring equinox in the northern hemisphere soon, so the wait is not long. Just enough time to make a sundial with your own hands and set it to work.

Successful experiments!

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By the way, a new master class on making a sundial is already ready. This time we are talking about a pocket watch model. horizontal type.

See you soon in KARTONKINO!

The oldest mechanism for determining time. Sundial - the simplest device, but it contains the knowledge and observations of our ancient ancestors. Currently sundial used as landscape decoration. For example sundial parents teach their children how to build solar system and the building itself DIY sundial - exciting activity for our children, for example, being on the beach. In the manufacture sundial you need to know some points and features of their design, which we will discuss in this article.

What is a sundial made of?

Sundial consist of a pointer hand that casts a shadow (this hand is called a gnomon) and a sundial dial. Time by sundial determined by the shadow cast by the gnomon on the dial. Everything is simple, but there are some features. Clock face sundial divided into 24 hours instead of 12 hours as usual mechanical watch. The dial or gnomon should be tilted above the plane. Sundial do not take into account the transition to summer time. Sundial works only in clear or partly cloudy weather during daylight hours. That's all the restrictions sundial.

There are several types sundial. Let's deal with them in order.

You can do it right on the sand on the beach. To begin with, we need to know two things: what latitude we are at and where north is. If the second part can be established by selection, then the first will have to be prepared. So, we have a compass and we know our latitude (St. Petersburg - 60, Moscow - 55, Nizhny Novgorod- 56, Yekaterinburg - 56, Sochi - 43, Rostov-on-Don - 47, Novosibirsk - 55, Vladivostok - 43 degrees north latitude). If we make a dial sundial on a portable surface - draw a circle and divide it into 24 parts. If we make a sundial on the ground, draw a circle, insert a stick (gnomon) into the center of the circle and tilt it to the north so that the angle between the surface of the earth and the gnomon is equal to our latitude, draw a line from the lower end of the gnomon exactly to the north - it will be 12 hours of the day according to astronomical time. We draw the remaining lines, dividing the entire circle into 24 equal sectors. Each sector sundial equals 15 degrees.

Here we are in for an ambush. After a competent division of the dial and the inclination of the gnomon, the time showing sundial may differ from the time shown by local television. The problem lies in the standard time and time zones, which were artificially created for convenience. A portable watch face will easily solve this problem, just turn it around until the time is right. With a clock drawn on the sand a little more complicated, this point must be taken into account when starting to paint the dial. For example, you can postpone the marking of the dial until 12 o'clock, when we will determine the north without a compass and accurately draw the main axis of the dial of our sundial. If there is no time to wait, and creativity is rushing out of you, draw a dial sundial in draft version and correct your dial for the error that you got.

In our latitudes sundial they work in the midst of summer hours from 8 am to 8 pm, so it is almost pointless to race numbers between these values. Because of this, often on a round dial, the base of the gnomon is shifted down.

The same horizontal clock, only the gnomon is set clearly vertically, and the dial itself is inclined to the earth's surface at the latitude angle of the place where such clocks are installed.

Vertical sundial.

Vertical Sundial usually attached to the walls of houses. The same inclined gnomon and a dial lined through 15 degrees.

Usually in cities they make a mixed type sundial, i.e. the dial is tilted half the angle, the gnomon is tilted half the angle. Such a construction sundial look more spectacular, in fact, because of what they are made.

Building sundial with your own hands will really captivate your child and, in addition, expand his horizons.

The history of the sundial

Man invented a number of instruments for measuring time, for example, moon, water, candle clocks, which were used until the 18th century, then hourglass and from the 16th to the 18th century oil clocks. However, due to its dependence on external conditions and their fluctuations, as well as due to technical imperfection, these means of measuring time have not found general application.

According to modern chronology, already 4000 years ago, clocks of varying degrees of complexity already existed everywhere. The Egyptians were the first to try to make them, who invented stellar hour charts, and it was possible to determine the night time by watching the rise of the stars. As for daytime, the late Egyptians invented shadow clocks. (sundial). Shadow from cross beam gradually crossed a series of marks from sunrise to sunset. A set of instructions for making such a clock was found in the tomb of the pharaoh.

Seti I, who ruled around 1300 B.C. Such simple shadow clocks were the forerunners solar.

Particularly favorable climatic conditions to measure time with sundial had Egypt. News of the most ancient of the ancient Egyptian sundial refers to the reign of Thutmose III - the first half of the XV century. BC. One of the types of sundial was a stepped clock in the form of an obelisk with two inclined surfaces, oriented along the axis to the east - west and divided into steps. At sunrise, the shadow fell on the edge of the upper step of one of these surfaces - the eastern one, then gradually lowered until it completely disappeared by noon. Then, in the afternoon, the shadow reappeared at the bottom of the western surface, from where it kept rising until, at sunset, it touched the edge of the top step.

On the described sundial time was measured by the length, not the direction, of the shadow cast. However, the Egyptians had a sundial with a scale to determine the direction of the cast shadow. The famous Roman architect and architect Marcus Vitruvius, who worked during the reigns of Caesar and Augustus, describes in his essay "Architecture" at least 13 types of sundials.

These include horizontal hollow hemispherical sundial- the so-called hemispheres. The inner surface of the hemisphere represented the celestial hemisphere with an equatorial line, two solstice lines and a twelve-hour time scale. The invention of such clocks is attributed to the famous ancient astronomer Aristarchus of Sames, who lived in 320-250 BC. BC who also made sundial with semicircular dials divided into five parts (hours) of unequal length. in perfection of the Greek sundial The well-known mathematician, doctor, founder of Greek astronomy, Eudoxus of Knidos, who lived in 408-356, also took a great part. BC. The sharp end of the gnomon, which originally served the Egyptians to clearly limit the shadow on the scale, was later replaced by the Greeks with a small one. round hole, the so-called solar eye, throwing a small point of light on the scale. In addition to the horizontal clocks mentioned above, the Greeks also had more advanced vertical sundial, the so-called hemocycles, which they placed on public buildings. All ancient sundials were based on simple principle gnomon, in which the length and direction of the cast shadow depended not only on the position of the Sun in this moment in the firmament, but also from the time of year.

With the Roman method of dividing day and night into 12 hours, daylight hours were lengthened in spring and summer, and shortened in autumn and winter. The ancient sundial, due to its imperfection, indicated such a time, main feature which was that under the influence of the changing inclination of the Sun, the length of the day and night hours changed during the year. Later antique and many medieval sundial had curvilinear scales, eliminating this drawback. Such clocks, with more complex and more accurate time scales calculated for quarterly or monthly intervals, were used until about the 15th century. new era in the development of sundials opened important invention dating back to 1431. Its principle was to set the shadow arrow in the direction of the earth's axis. By this simple innovation, it was achieved that the shadow of the arrow, called the semi-axis, after this innovation, rotated uniformly around the semi-axis, turning every hour by 15 degrees. This made it possible to introduce a uniform time that could be used throughout the year, and the segments corresponding to the hours were of the same length regardless of the changing height of the Sun. The next step in development sundial a sundial with a compass. To the first creator sundial with a corrective compass applies astronomer and mathematician

Regiomontan. with a dial parallel to the plane of the earth's equator, and a gnomon perpendicular to it, were, in essence, the simplest clock with a uniform time scale. The creators of such watches usually proceeded from the fact that they would be used in different geographical latitudes. Sometimes such watches had a geared hand and a small dial with a hand for counting minute intervals with an accuracy of 1 to 3 minutes. Such clocks were called heliochronometers.

There were also equatorial clocks arranged in such a way that their dial indicated directly the mean solar time, not local solar time like a regular equatorial clock. Varieties sundial were very diverse. Interesting roundabouts sundial- one of the options for traveling sundial, which very often served as a decorative pendant at the same time.

main part such sundial there was a brass ring a few centimeters in diameter with another movable ring provided with a hole for the sunbeam. On the outer surface of the main ring, the initial letters of the names of the months were usually engraved, and against them, on the inner surface, there was an hour scale. Before measuring, it was necessary to turn a smaller, usually iron, ring so that the hole for the beam lay at the name of the corresponding month. When measuring time, the clock was held in a position that allowed the sun's beam to pass through the hole in the scale. The so-called equatorial rings were built on a similar principle - similar clocks, on the main ring of which there were two more circles intersecting with each other. Later arose new version with a cross member instead of the third ring.

On one side of this crossbar were indicated the months, and on the other - the signs of the zodiac. In the middle there was a jumper with a small hole for the passage of the sun's beam. Correct position of this watch when measuring time was such when Sunshine, passing through the hole, fell on the central line of the equatorial circle. In conclusion of this section, I would like to dwell briefly on one of the models of road sundial used by Indian travelers. They were wooden octagonal sticks with a metal tip 160 cm long with carved hour scales. A rod about 15 cm long was inserted into the hole above the scale for the corresponding month so that its tip, when the stick was in a vertical position, cast a shadow on the scale. There should have been 12 scales on the stick. Since the same conditions were valid for the days removed from the solstice at the same time, it was enough to have 8 scales. These watches received the name ashadah according to the season (June-July) in which travel was made. Sundial have never lost their significance and continue to be designed even today. The Romans improved upon the sundial we are familiar with today, and even made solar portable watch convenient for travel. They existed for millennia and remained for a long time a means of checking and coordinating for very unreliable wheel clocks, until they were finally superseded by the invention of the spiral spring as a regulator (1674), but we will talk about this below.

We examined the structure and functioning of a sundial, which has been improved and changed over the years. Sundial with a height-adjustable pole, compass, and minute scales were a simple and reliable solar time indicator, but they also suffered from some serious shortcomings. Their work was associated with sunny weather and with a limited period of work - between sunrise and sunset. Therefore, new devices for measuring time were fundamentally different from sundials. While the unit of time according to the sundial was derived from the rotation of the Earth and its movement around the Sun, it was necessary to create an artificial standard of the unit of time, for example, in the form of a time interval necessary for a certain amount of substance to flow out in a chronometric device.

DIY sundial. Master Class

Spring... It is already in full swing... The sun shines brighter and longer everywhere. And we have a great opportunity to put the sunlight into action by making a sundial with our own hands. Of course, they will not replace the traditional - mechanical and electronic - watches, but this homemade product is very entertaining, and for the younger generation it is also educational, because the model of the sundial that we will make is the most effective one, and its manufacturing will require certain knowledge in the field of astronomy and trigonometry.

There are many varieties of this ancient instrument for measuring time. But among all the variety of sundials ever used, the following types are distinguished as basic or classic:

Equatorial (for such a sundial, the plane of the frame (dial) is parallel to the equator, and the gnomon (the part that casts a shadow), usually a metal rod, is parallel to the earth's axis);

Equatorial sundial on the banks of the Thames (London, England)

Horizontal (the plane of the frame is parallel to the plane of the horizon, and the gnomon has the shape of a triangle, one of the sides of which is inclined to the plane of the frame at an angle equal to the geographical latitude of the place where the clock is set);

Horizontal Sundial (Limassol, Cyprus)

Vertical (as the name implies, the dial of such watches is placed in a vertical plane, usually on the walls of buildings).

Wall sundial (Ely Cathedral, England)

We will make an equatorial-type sundial, as the easiest to manufacture. Due to the fact that the dial is set parallel to the equator, and the sun moves almost uniformly across the celestial sphere, the shadow from the gnomon will shift by an angle of 15 ° every hour. Therefore, the hour divisions on the dial are applied in the same way as in ordinary watches, only the marks are needed not 12, but 24. It is clear that the upper part of the dial is unlikely to be useful, except for the inhabitants of the Arctic, when the polar day comes, and the sun will shine around the clock.

There is no need to draw the dial yourself, you can use ready-made templates - round or square (whichever you prefer):

Print the template "dial-square"

Print the dial-circle template

Our task is to correctly orient the sundial in space. The angle of inclination of the dial relative to the horizontal plane is determined as follows:

Where φ is the geographic latitude. You can find out the latitude of your place of residence on the map or on Wikipedia.

We know the dimensions of the dial template. The side of the case is a right triangle. Thus, we know the length of the hypotenuse C and the angles of the triangle, and the lengths of the legs A and B are calculated using trigonometric formulas:

It remains only to draw a scan according to the obtained dimensions, even without side walls.
I made a case with an opening back cover (I will explain below why):

No matter what you do, you still get the box.

Well, now in the center of the dial you need to install a gnomon. To do this, you can use any rod that is suitable in size (for example, a plastic tube from a juice bag). And you can also make it out of cardboard or paper:
- cut out a rectangular strip 60 mm wide (we determine the length empirically, by eye, so that when folded we get a dense tube with a diameter of about 5-6 mm with a small hole);

- stick double-sided tape on 1 edge and fold the tube;

- cut out another rectangular strip 15-20 mm wide and also fold it into a tube with a diameter that matches the diameter of the opening of the first tube;

- cut off part of the first tube at a distance of 10 mm from the edge (it will be something like a nut)

and connect the details;

- we fix the gnomon on the dial, fixing it on the reverse side with a “nut” (this is where the opening cover came in handy).

And finally, the main point, which will also have to be reckoned with, is that the equatorial clock works only between the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes. The rest of the time, the upper surface of the frame will be in shadow. But the day of the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere is soon, so the wait is not long. Just enough time to make a sundial with your own hands and set it to work.

Successful experiments!

And we have a great opportunity to put the sunshine into action by making do-it-yourself sundial. Of course, they will not replace the traditional - mechanical and electronic - watches, but this homemade product is very entertaining, and for the younger generation it is also educational, because the model of the sundial that we will be making is the most effective one, and its manufacturing will require certain knowledge in the field of astronomy and trigonometry.

There are many varieties of this ancient instrument for measuring time. But among all the variety of sundials ever used, the following types are distinguished as basic or classic:

Equatorial (for such a sundial, the plane of the frame (dial) is parallel to the equator, and the gnomon (the part that casts a shadow), usually a metal rod, is parallel to the earth's axis);

Vertical (as the name implies, the dial of such watches is placed in a vertical plane, usually on the walls of buildings).

Wall sundial (Ely Cathedral, England)

We will make an equatorial-type sundial, as the easiest to manufacture. Due to the fact that the dial is set parallel to the equator, and the sun moves almost uniformly across the celestial sphere, the shadow from the gnomon will shift by an angle of 15 ° every hour. Therefore, the hour divisions on the dial are applied in the same way as in ordinary watches, only the marks are needed not 12, but 24. It is clear that the upper part of the dial is unlikely to be useful, except for the inhabitants of the Arctic, when the polar day comes, and the sun will shine around the clock.

There is no need to draw the dial yourself, you can use ready-made templates - round or square (whichever is more to your liking):

Our task is to correctly orient the sundial in space. The angle of inclination of the dial relative to the horizontal plane is determined as follows:

α=90°-φ ,

where φ - geographical latitude. You can find out the latitude of your place of residence on the map or on Wikipedia.

A=C×sinα

B=C×cosα

It remains only to draw a scan according to the obtained dimensions, even without side walls.

I made a case with an opening back cover (I will explain below why):

Whatever you do, you still get the box

We cut out a rectangular strip 60 mm wide (we determine the length empirically, by eye, so that when folded we get a dense tube with a diameter of about 5-6 mm with a small hole);

We stick double-sided tape on 1 edge and fold the tube;

We cut out another rectangular strip 15-20 mm wide and also fold it into a tube with a diameter that matches the diameter of the opening of the first tube;

Cut off part of the first tube at a distance of 10 mm from the edge (it will be something like a nut)