Sundials: Their Theory and Construction

No other book, as far as I know, gives such clear detail about making your own sundials. That word seems so narrow; Waugh covers much more of solar time-telling than just dials. One thing that amazes me is his passion. He writes with clear pride about his own sundials, good to within (he says) ten seconds!This book covers graphical or analytic techniques for laying out sundials on just about any surface that doesn't move, horizontal, vertical (facing any direction), slanted, or even the ceiling. He also discusses the movable kind, like a "shepherd's dial". It has nothing inherently to do with sheep, but can be used anywhere, even without knowing true north.The historian may be disappointed. This is not a catalogue of sundials through the ages, although bits of history are scattered throughout. In one sense, though, this is a view into the time of its writing (1973). A modern reader, with access to modern calculators and computers, will be amused if not puzzled by some of tricks used to make hand computation more feasible. I don't know anyone any more who multiplies by adding logs, and the circumlocutions around negative logarithms look positively quaint. The only real flaw in this book is its systematic omission of half the world: the southern hemispehere. It wouldn't have been so hard to add just a paragraph or two about sundials that work "backwards".Although this book celebrates the craft and art that can go into a sundial, its real value is technical. This book gives the essential methods for the functional side of a solar time-piece; bring your own artistry.

I bought this book and one by Milton Stoneman (Easy to Make Sundials – Dover Books) because I had a casual interest in sundials and their construction. I'm not a mathematician, astronomer or a serious scientist, so the technical side isn't as important to me. I did want to better understand how sundials work and get some ideas about their construction.This book is more advanced than the book by Stoneman. There is significantly more technical information and more of the math to improve the accuracy of your sundials. As I said, I’m not a mathematician and the math in this book is still within my grasp. While I felt the Stoneman book was written and presented to be within reach of the average mortal, this book is at a higher level and certainly satiated my desire for understanding sundials. If you understand and learn everything in this book, you’ll be the local sundial expert, provided you don’t live next door to the university PhDs.I liked the book and it was as good as I expected. The book goes beyond the basic theory of sundials and gives some information on projects. This clearly is a stand-alone book but I'm glad I also bought the Stoneman book as a companion purchase. The two books combined were pretty much what I was looking for.

Driver just threw the item away to front porch.Lucky it was a book but if it were something fragile it could break it.

This book was referred to in, "From the Ground Up", written by John N. Cole and Charles Wing on page 46 / THE LAND. Charles Wing referred to himself as a nut because he attached cosmic significance to the orientation of his house, in effect making it a sundial. I bought a piece of property in Lancaster, PA. and am using Mr. Waugh's book to lay out my very own spot on the meridian that passes through my property with its sun's hour angle (-76 degrees 30 minutes 58.4238 seconds of longitude) from the standard meridian in Greenwich, England. I used chapter 3 of Mr. Waugh's book to find the noon mark. I used chapter 4 to build an equatorial sundial and adjust it for the equation of time and correct the longitude for my location within the Eastern Standard Time Zone. This book is a faith builder helping its readers to better understanding God's design and order in the creation of the cosmos. The cosmos being defined as an orderly and complete system. This is a classic book to be sure.

the text finally arrived in excellent condition. thank you

There are many spreadsheets available to the potential dial-maker, enabling him or her to quickly lay out lines for all sorts of dial configurations and easily add the most complex furniture to any face.However, such an approach is a sort of "black-box" approach and doesn't connect the maker to the underlying principles of dialing. Waugh's book has detailed explanations and examples of graphical and mathematical techniques - if you use either you will understand dial-making.This book appears to be based roughly on Mayall & Mayall. Their germinal book was a standard for many decades but is not as clear an Waugh's.Sundials are attractive additions to any property and needn't look like the abominations sold on-line or in garden supply shops. This book provides the key to making some wonderful dials and even today, some 35 years after it was written it competes well with the computerized dial layout software.Dialing is a gentle art and deserves personal interaction of the type this book enables.I like this book.

Dover Publications is well known for their high quality books for a low price, and this is one of them. It took some time to receive it, but the book itself is top notch!

This book will be most useful for our work . Very thorough and concise. Thank you.

The theoritical concepts are explained in simple terms. While there are many types of dials explained I was looking for the concepts behind simple horizontal garden dials. Without starting off with solar system and the precession cycle etc it beautifully explains longitudinal correction, equation of time and their adjustments.

Images are B&W, low quality and the text is not what I fully expected. With "construction" in the title, I thought there would be at least 2 practical projects. The book was obviously written when even pocket calculators were not very common, so there's a lot of tables to help derive various measures by looking up readings on the table. There is some theory to support basic operation of various types of sundials, but tabular approach and some ad-hoc methods (eg. draw a circle, then a line, then divide it like this) without explaining why doing it like that, made it really uninteresting. A different kind of book, with approach suitable to modern tools, would be a much better choice if you want to make a sundial.

Este es un libro de lectura absolutamente deliciosa. El autor, sin ser astrónomo ni nada parecido, sabe ( léase entiende) de lo que escribe, lo que no es poco.