Passing Time

I have a collection of hourglasses in one my school offices that measure anything from one hour to 30 seconds. Seven of them look like this one, except the sand color varies. I bought them at Kohl's several years ago and enjoy them except for the fact that they seem fragile without a base and grab arms to turn them over.

Lately I've been wondering if I could make what I need from the handles of dipper gourds. I can remember growing dipper gourds that seemed to have long, skinny handles. I believe using a canteen gourd would give me the top and bottom base and be the stable foundation to hold the handles as shown in the sketch.









10-10-14
Here are three of the hourglasses (from left to right): 9", 11" and 6". I need to find the dipper handles. Curvy and irregular would be best to maintain the perception of time as a moving target.

I need to do some investigating..MMMmmm...



A Cracklin' fun time!
CAM

1-15-15

Got some success at the Virginia Gourd Festival!  The gourd grower vendor had some long handle dippers with skinny handles. These will make terrific arm braces for the sides of the hourglasses. There are some twisty handles that will add a margin of interest and luckily my hourglasses are different sizes so certainly I can manage to work the right sizes with the right hourglass.

The tops and bottom bases will be painted to match the hourglass sand. They are the leftovers from cutting out other gourd products. I'll probably pinch off the pointy ends that serve no purpose, but the curved nature of the gourd remnant will serve as a good cradle for the top and bottom, and will provide a stable surface for attaching the dipper handles.

So!  We're crackin' on this project!
CAM



2-2-15

A visit to the local Hobby Lobby garnered more hourglasses - different shapes and sizes. With this added number of naked hourglasses, I have begun to wonder about altering the plan a bit since I will not have enough long handled gourds to use as the vertical supports for the two bases holding the hourgalss. What about wires or some other sturdy support system? In this image of antique hourglasses, there are wire vertical supports. In fact some only have two supports, not three. The hourglass on the left has a wooden case-like structure that hold the hourglass inside. A whole gourd could be made to house one of the hourglasses!

To sum up, we have a handful of gourdy possibilities for this project:

1) make bases, top and bottom, from the gourd scraps
2) make vertical supports from the necks of long handled gourds
3) make vertical supports from twisted cords of wires
4) make a hourglass 'house' that will hold the hourgalss and allow for front and back viewing
5) make gourd caps to fit the top and bottom bulb and attach giant pincher fingers that will hold it stable and the whole affair it turned
6) make a center collar from gourd at the ceenter and position it onto a pivot that would swing the hourglass over

So, some options. Time to put experimentation to work!  Let's get crackin"!
CAM