North American Sundial Society

Sundial Construction

Do It Yourself

Want to make some interesting sundials? Origami and Card models site by Wee-Meng Lee from Singapore is just the thing. Very creative small card dials including universal ring sundial,

quadrant sundial (shown at left), polar dials (kindly configured by Valentin Hristov), and horizontal dials.

http://leewm.freeshell.org/origami/

Carl Sabanski is a preeminent Canadian dialist who has a “Sundial Primer” presenting easy to assemble paper dials for both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The make interesting science projects and are drawn to be used for a wide range of latitudes. Horizontal, polar, equatorial. Even gnomonless dials and digital dials. Try them all.

http://www.mysundial.ca/sdu/sdu_sundial_kits.html

More from Carl Sabanski. Description of how to build a polar cycloid sundial. Requires a little bit of mathematics.

http://www.mysundial.ca/tsp/cycloid_polar_sundial.html

Robert Terwilliger’s Laser Trigon is a unique instrument to simulate the rays of the sun, allowing the layout of large and complicated sundials. The instrument is easily constructed from a small transit and a pocket laser pointer. Learn more.

http://www.sundials.org/links/trigon/trigon.html

Additional Sundial Construction Links

All the Books to Read include instructions for making sundials.
Before you start
Some simple trigonometry for a horizontal dial
Use DeltaCad, a simple and inexpensive shareware CAD program.
You can download special special programs or "Macros" which will produce a variety of dials.
How long should my gnomon be?
The Dialist's Companion A computer program written especially for dialists. Follow the link for a complete overview and a summary of the data elements presented. The program has been released to non-members as shareware and can be downloaded.
Special Software for making Sundials
A note on materials: For anything in metals you would have to explore for sources, but for ordinary projects, you can probably get weather-proof boards similar to plywood from your local sign shop. They might also be able to provide durable vinyl numerals etc. which can be custom made from computer files.