Design and Construction

The horizontal sundial gnomon the shadow casting mechanismis a thin but strong, flexible stranded brass cable held very straight under tension applied from a heavy counterweight suspended from a brass, hinged lever. The high-test cable comes from Germany where it is used for the weight cable in large clocks! The 2- to 5-pound counterweight can be almost anything heavy: a beautiful rock or mineral sample, glass, onyx, or crystal balls (which also serve as fire starters!), grandfather clock brass teardrop weights, etc.

My new analemmatic a dial that uses the altitude
rather than the azimuth of
the sun for indicating timesundial has a beautiful vertical gnomon that rests on the dial face and is moved like a chess piece. My polar a dial polar-aligned to latitudes
+90º (N) and -90º (S)sundials have thin but sturdy gnomons made from sheet brass. My thick gnomona dial featuring an inlaid triangular-
shaped gnomon where time is read
by using the edge of the shadow sundials use a traditional triangular-shaped gnomon made from a thick slab of stone that is inlayed into the stone sundial face. With thick gnomons, there is limited space for artwork in the center of the dial, but thick gnomon sundials are more vandal resistant. There is no extra charge for thick gnomons.

Engraved sundial face markings indicate the time and other useful information. Generally speaking, the larger the sundial, the greater is the precision because the hour lines can be divided into smaller portions of time. Size does make a difference!

Artwork

You may choose your favorite artwork or select drawings from our Artwork Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader page for those sundials that have space for it. I'll often use Southwestern Native-American designs, or anatomically correct, 3-D reliefs of native wildlife and vistas, or even the Equation of Time.

I hand engrave the artwork into the stone and I machine engrave the longitude and latitude of each sundial's location on the inlaid brass base of the horizontal sundial gnomon support structure that is attached to the north side of the dial plate.

Maintenance

The sturdy construction should make your sundial last for many years with little or no maintenance. Occasional cleaning of dirt and debris is all that you need to do.

The brass will develop a beautiful, dark green protective patina after several years, or I can gold plate it for a shiny, always-new look.

Monumental Sundials

Large, monumental public sundials can be of any size or material, the sky's the limit! Some are placed on the sides of buildings, others are on the ground. You can actually see the shadow move on large sundials.

Usually, the faces are made from cement, concrete aggregate, stone, terrazzo, or metal. The gnomons are usually of steel, brass, aluminum, concrete or stone. Since most of these are large public sundials, vandal-resistant materials and designs should be considered.

I design these only by special request, and for these large projects, I work closely with your contractors who do the actual construction according to my specifications.