Year 2004

Work of our members

Horizontal sundials by
Dees Verschuuren

While making my first sundial in 1991, I made some marvellous mistakes.
After I had selected the stone from a large pile, I thought ‘horizontal sundial’ at once. To make the sundial appear as large as possible, I intended to place the style in a corner, making the noon line a nice, long diagonal across the rectangular stone.
Fortunately, I realised in time - just before carving - that this would only allow me to read the hours between nine in the morning and three in the afternoon.
That would give me only seven hour-lines, but also a short period, especially in summer.

I therefore changed the design, placing the style in the middle of an edge, so that the sundial operated from six in the morning until six in the evening. That was reasonable.
I was halfway through dressing when I realised that I should have moved the style inward. That would have enabled the dial to indicate the daylight hours before six in the morning and after six in the evening, so that it would have been a normal horizontal sundial.

My next horizontal sundial was better in this respect.

In this sundial, the tropics delimit the hour lines. A break in the hour lines indicates the equator. The shadow of the style tip serves to read these seasonal lines.

En om in de winter de schaduw van de stijl nog op de steen te laten vallen is het stijltje zo klein. Want eigenlijk is het maar een klein stijltje op een grote steen.

The stone measures approximately 50 x 30 cm and the style is 6 cm long.
The sundial indicates CEST. Because I did not want to have many numerals by the hour lines, I only indicated the twelve-hour line on the side of the stone.

For the stonedressers among us: I have had to finish the V-shaped lines with a file and narrow hearthstones. Now, thirteen years later, I succeed in carving reasonably straight lines directly. This has the small advantage that the impression of the chisel in the groove remains visible, making the sundial more beautiful.

You will find other sundials by Dees Verschuuren in the Work of our members archives for
February 2003
March 2003.