ROKR Perpetual Clock Wooden Kit

 

For various reasons I don't feel like elaborating on, I ended up buying one of the cheapest ROKR wooden laser cut kits (2,000 yen ($19 USD) off of Amazon.co.jp). They did a good job of shipping it - standard transport only took 2-3 days to get to Kyushu. ROKR is horrible about giving names to the kits, though. There was nothing in the Japanese name that identified this one as a Perpetual Clock. 

 

There are several moving rings, but only two of them really matter. One sets the year (right now, it's locked at 2020), and the other sets the month. That's it. The settings give you half the date, and the numbers showing through the little window (see below) give you the days of the week, and the dates for the month. However, it doesn't handle leap years right. Since 2020 is a leap year, you have to set the month "one-off", so that September is actually the display for April. Otherwise, it works fine. It's about 6" x 6" x 2" thick. You have to set the disks manually (the year and the month), and it doesn't show individual dates (such as "Today is Monday, the 6th"). If you look at the right-hand side of the frame, you may see what looks like an up-down slider switch. It's a lock lever used to keep the year disk from accidentally rotating as you change the months or otherwise handle the kit.

(Stand)

It's a pretty easy kit to build. The box says there are 50+ pieces, possibly including the backup spare parts for the small stuff that's likely to break or get lost. It took me pretty close to 30 minutes to punch the pieces out and assemble them. I didn't bother with trimming "flash", sanding or waxing, and the finished kit still works fine. I was confused by why the date wasn't coming out right when I tried setting the disks, and ended up disassembling the main components and putting them back together again to make sure I hadn't gotten something wrong. Looking at the instructions on the back page, I discovered the caveats for dealing with leap years. That added another 15 minutes to the total assembly time.

  

Over all, it's not a bad kit. It's easy to work with, and if you want to make it a little more sturdy you can always add glue to the main frame sections. But, there's no "replay value." This is something that is going to sit on a shelf or desk, and act as a novelty paperweight. But, it was fun to build, anyway.