Local artist Jeff Beagley found himself with an itch to make something and an overabundance of spare hard drives. However the equation was made, spare hard drive + laser engraving + paint = custom geek clock, ended up being some pretty solid math. The clock seen above was built for BigShinyRobot by Mr. Beagley and has been adorning my nerd lair (a.k.a office) for the past weekend. What I love most about this clock is that it seems to fit naturally into any nerdy environment. Sitting atop my mixing monitors it blends perfectly with my BigShinyRobot poster, giant BioShock 2 picture, and Devil May Cry wall scroll. The deal sweetener is that it keeps time.
I interviewed Jeff about his creations as we discussed putting together the BSR clock, and if anything else the
idea behind them is awesome, and the outlet to which they go is a one of a kind thing.
Here is the interview:
BSR: What was the inspiration behind your nerd clocks?
Jeff: The inspiration was a similar thing i saw. I forget where it was.
BSR: What parts (without revealing too many secrets), do you use to engineer them?
Jeff: Just old hard drives i have laying around. . . I used to own a computer store
where i built custom systems and repaired computers
BSR: Have you been producing these for a while, or is it a new idea that you’re putting your abilities toward?
Jeff: The two clocks in the picture you saw were the first two i put together for sale I would like to keep them all very custom and inspirational.
BSR: When we first spoke you mentioned you were doing a custom clock for someone fighting MS, what inspired the design on their clock?
Jeff: I have worked with him for 15 years now he’s an inspiration to anyone with MS. He and I worked on the logo for a marathon for disabled the logo reads “OVERCOME”. He has also had T-shirts and other things made with his logo.
BSR: The base and body look like a 3.5 inch hard drive, are you using scrap HDs or are they functional? Staying with the HD line of questioning, do you prefer IDE or SATA when you’re putting them together? And does the RPM effect your decision on which one to use? Do you find yourself being picky about storage capacity?
Jeff: The ones you see are just old IDE hard drives that were non functional laying around in
piles of stuff. My wife has asked me for a long time to get rid of them, I guess they’ll be gone now eh?
The hard drive doesn’t matter as long as it has the larger discs inside. I have taken apart some older scsi drives that have tiny discs and they are too small for the clock parts to work.
These clocks are rad, and that’s all there is to it. Having a piece of the computer which most of us tether ourselves to daily, to remind us that time is important, and to remember… stuff… I have nothing deep really left to say, they’re freaking sweet and they’re only $45-$55. You can order one of these through Jeff’s Etsy Store.
Here are some images of all the completed clocks.
[imagebrowser id=49]