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Mid-Century Modern Koa and Sapele Clock

The sleek design we were aiming for in our first Koa clock finally came to pass. In fact, the long, slender legs we had planned for the “Wild and Crazy” clock ultimately became the legs for this design and another classic combo of Koa and Sapele. We started with a nice slab of 2” thick African Sapele, which we formed into an elliptical base. We then made a slightly larger Sapele ellipse for the clock platform, and offset it from the base using 3 Koa legs of different lengths and cut at different angles and tapers. Atop this we continued the elliptical theme with a clock face of solid Koa sliced apart and affixed to either side of the platform to give the appearance of the clock face passing through the elliptical platform.

But even though a classical Mid Century design was our goal, we still had to add just a little bit of Puffball. We kept the naturally occurring elliptical slice in the Koa clock face instead of trimming it away in favor of a smaller face, and coated it in bright red acrylic paint to match the red second hand of the clock. Just a little splash of bright color in the muted, streamlined look of the overall piece. Sweet.

The tapered and angled Koa legs are attached top and bottom with recessed screws and lots of glue, and the two sections of the clock face are secured to the platform with through-tenons and glue. We chose a set of super modern clock hands to complete the look and finished the piece in several coats of water based polyurethane semi-gloss finish to capture that Mid-Century style.

This clock measures 20” tall x 14” wide x 7” deep. The quartz movement clock is battery operated and the battery of course is included. There is no way to safely ship the clock with the hands in place, so the hands of the clock are packaged separately and will require reinstallation on arrival, but it’s a straightforward process.

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