Galesville man's clockwork gains national attention

By FRANCES JAQUES Staff Writer

David Holmes is one for details - small, intricate details. The old sailor turned carpenter has found his passion in the minute ticking pieces of a clock. And recently, he's garnered national attention for an innovative clock he pieced together in his Galesville work shop.

Mr. Holmes, who has been living in the Annapolis area off and on since the 1970s when he came here on his hand-built, 20-foot ferro-cement Friendship sloop Bluenose, is now an award-winning clock maker and designer.

His Binarwork clock set into a coffee table is making waves among clock collectors and enthusiasts. It was the most popular experimental clock at the recent national convention of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors in Chattanooga, Tenn., and earned ribbons and a crystal loving cup as the People's Choice winner.

"There were lots of oohs and ahs," Charly Holmes said of her husband's creation. "Someone from the Carnegie Institute said this is the most ingenious clock movement of this century and virtually a new way of keeping time."

To a layman who gets lost in a world of computer lingo and binary numbers, the electronic composition of the clock is a mystery. Electrical engineers and the computer savvy find the intricate workings fascinating and on the cutting edge of design.

As designed by Mr. Holmes, the clock is set in a hexagonal coffee table cabinet. Every piece, from the oak base of the table to the black cherry wood clock movements and the metal wheel, was made by Mr. Holmes.

"I've built more than 20 musical instruments and have enjoyed working with little pieces of wood in intricate ways," he said. "Then I became interested in computers and electronics and came up with the thought that clocks make use of all of these parts."

The rest of us are more likely to be captivated in watching the way the movements tick away the seconds rather than trying to understand how and why they do so.

He's working on a fourth coffee table clock, which is slated for the Hands of Time store in Savage Mills. The clocks aren't cheap, priced in the $5,000 range. But he also makes wall clocks with simpler movements that go for around $800.

Mr. Holmes lives with his wife on a 52-foot schooner, Adventure, docked at the West River Marina in Galesville. Since carpentry work space is limited on a boat, he rents a small workshop on a neighboring farm where he builds clocks and guitars.

A native of Texas, Mr. Holmes got acquainted with the Annapolis area when he was stationed at Andrews Air Force Base from 1969 to 1973. After his discharge, he built his sloop and never went back to Texas. In the ensuing 30 years, he has served as artist in residence at St. John's College and has built guitars, harpsichords, clavichords, pipe organs and a few clocks for diversion. He also crewed on a tall ship for Operation Sail in 1976.

The first of his Binarwork coffee-table clocks was made in 1989. It was sold and forgotten while Mr. Holmes worked on other projects and he and his wife spent several years sailing with the seasons from the Caribbean to Maine.

After docking his boat in Galesville in 2006, Mr. Holmes first got back to his guitar making, a career that began with Paul Reed Smith in 1979.

"I helped Paul set up his first factory, designing and making many of the jigs and fixtures," he said.

But with the slow pace of the guitar business, Mr. Holmes decided to resume work on his Binarwork clocks. He took one to the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pa., in January, and the staff there gathered around, intrigued.

"We've got to have this clock in the museum," Mr. Holmes remembers them saying. "We've never seen anything like this before."

So he gave it to them, on loan for two years. They encouraged him to show the clock at the national convention, and he took his original. What's most surprising to him is that this first clock, now 17 years old, hasn't missed a beat and shows no signs of wear. He estimates that in this time it has made 300 million cycles.

"One of the joys of inventing something radically different is that you get to make new names for the parts," Mr. Holmes said.

His kinetic clock is run by yokes and butts held together by a wabble, the name he gives the wheel.

"It's totally original and one of a kind," he said.