This is advertised as an extremely accurate adjustable Sundial, claimed to be within 10 minutes of actual solar time. It folds up flat to fit in a pocket. Although with all the electronic devices, clocks and watches, we can always read the time of day, this device would still be able to show the time when literally everything else fails.

After sending ten minutes adjusting my pocket sundial to find out the time I announce: "It is cloudy"

Only joking it is a cool and interesting object that would probable have good potential for when all else fails.

Also have you seen the rings which work as sundials?

 

I tell time in the traditional way of my ancient Lithuanian forefathers.... I ask the guy next to me.

 

And he reaches over and lifts the cow's udder so he can see the town clock.

 

Yehudi, For those of us who are loadout weight conscious, a magnetic compass usually carried can be used for time. I forgot how.

 

If you don't have a clock of any kind available, other than this in your entire vicinity, is time still important?

Time can be important yes, for large scale navigation and things like that. But generally it doesn't matter that much for actual life if you're in a situation where you don't have any kind of timepiece. It's just important now because we're in a society which "needs" timekeeping for things like when to go to work.

 

IC, I'm reminded of a line from the movie "South Pacific": "What time is it? It is summer".

 

I’ve seen a couple versions of these. Be aware that you need to get one that is for your latitude or the time will be off.

 

This unit has settings for latitude, summer/winter, and AM/PM

 

That thing looks harder to figure out than Chinese arithmetic. By the time I got it set up, it would be dark. I can usually tell pretty close to what time it is by looking at the sun, not too good with the moon.

 

I find timekeeping useful when I have to meet somebody. Trying to describe "When the sun hits the roof of the car place that's over on Jefferson and bounces light off the third boxcar" kind of situations would really hurl, as would trying to explain when church starts or I'm supposed to show up for a community event without at least a few people around having access to a timepiece. Plus, that's very cool looking in the meantime.

 

I'm assuming you need a compass to set it up properly, which in itself is enough to give me the time of day for my uses.

 

Rather it can be used as a compass by itself.

 

Here is a video of how it actually works.

Setting it up takes minutes(as long as you have a general idea of what the date is( within a few weeks is good enough).

It also is its own compass so any time the sun is shining(and you know the date) you can use it to find north.

 

For anyone interested in astronomy it can really be useful for showing the tilt of the earth and motion of the earth and sun.

 

I really like that. Having another way to tell time that's not powered by anything other than the sun isn't a bad idea. The other thing I like is think how much fun something like this could be for kids out camping. Great teachable moment on how to use it and how it works in relation the the earth and the sun with a bit of directional figuring.

Thanks for posting it.

 

I've always loved sundials and would love to have a large bronze one in the flower garden but was never willing to spend the money. One thing not discussed was that solar time differs from our time zones so I am thinking if I lived in the middle of my time zone it would be off 30 minutes from local time and so on.

edit: Maybe the slider can be moved slightly to match clock time.

 

Looks kinda neat; another item for the jun...er, ... museum shelf ...
but probably not 50 bucks neat.

Enjoy!

 

Way cool! And I want one. At the same time, I had always intended to put a straight stick in the ground and figure things out from there, or get one of those terra cotta/metal sundials one usually puts in gardens. I mean, if clocks don't work, exact time (and even time zones) won't mean a whole lot, most likely.

 

Some where I have a steel circle maybe I will try to make a simple one for the garden. My son can weld for me. I used to have a pair of whisky barrel rings but I don't know if they are still around or not.

 

Inquiring minds wish to know what happened to said Whiskey that was previously contained in those barrel's????

 

Any watch with hands on it will give you true north.

If you know true north, any watch with hands on it will give you the time, even if it is not running.

Going from memory, if you point the hour hand at the Sun, True South is exactly half way from there till 12:00. (assuming you are in the Northern Hemisphere)

You can reverse the procedure if you know true north , to find the time.
1) Point the hour hand at the sun.
2) adjust the hour hand until the point halfway from the hour hand to 12:00 is pointing true South.
3) Read the time on the watch.

Edited to correct per the dwg below.

Not sure how accurate you can be with just a watch though. Maybe +/- an hour?

 

Any watch with hands on it will give you true north.

If you know true north, any watch with hands on it will give you the time, even if it is not running.

Going from memory, if you point the hour hand at the Sun, True north is exactly half way from there till 12:00. (assuming you are in the Northern Hemisphere)

You can reverse the procedure if you know true north , to find the time.
1) Point the hour hand at the sun.
2) adjust the hour hand until the point halfway from the hour hand to 12:00 is pointing true North.
3) Read the time on the watch.

Not sure how accurate you can be with just a watch though. Maybe +/- 20 minutes?

Finding north with a watch like that will give you something like"north is in that general direction" rather than true north. Unless your watch is set to local solar noon. However in a lot of situations a reasonable idea of where north is can be the difference between having to walk bit farther than you planned or a full search and rescue mission to find you.