The Heliotrope

The largest model the workshop builds. Twelve rings, a precession gear that tips the Earth's axis one full turn per three minutes, and a sun cast in gilded bronze from a pattern cut in 1922. Each Heliotrope takes a single maker eleven months and is signed inside the base ring where only the owner will ever read it.

Like every model here, the The Heliotrope runs on the stand for eighteen weeks before it is packed. The rate is logged each morning, the drift is watched rather than corrected, and the instrument leaves only when the log goes flat. The maker who built it signs the inside of the base ring, adds the date, and oils it one last time on the morning of the crate.

Winding is fortnightly. The key is left handed, which is deliberate, and the full reason is in the journal. The beating you hear through a wall is roughly three to the second on most patterns, softer on the Lunarium, louder on the Comet Chaser, which is doing its job.

In the crate

The instrument, two winding keys cut to the house square, a brass level, the care sheet, and the log card from its final week on the stand. The crate is built to be kept and is lined with the same wool blanket the makers use on the bench.