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You can make a DIY learning clock out of an ordinary Daiso wall clock. All you do is print a clock face and swap it in. The hands and the movement stay exactly as they were.
Daiso doesn’t stock learning clocks as such, but it had two clocks that looked like good candidates for a face swap: the 25.4 cm at ¥550, and a square one at ¥220. This is the record of the larger one.
What it took
- A Daiso wall clock, 25.4 cm — ¥550
- One AA battery — sold separately
- The clock face — a free download, printed across two A4 sheets
- Scissors and tape
What I bought at Daiso: the ¥550, 25.4 cm
It has a second hand, a bezel that isn’t too thick, and restrained numerals. As a base to print over, it was refreshingly plain.
The cover came off by hand, from the back
The IKEA TROMMA needed a flat screwdriver, so I braced myself — but this one popped off with a fingernail under the rim from behind.
Measure the inner dial, not the outer size
The 25.4 cm on the box is the outer size. The part that actually shows as the clock face is only what sits inside the bezel. Measured, that came to 240 mm.
That size is worth keeping around, so I put the PDF on the downloads page. You can also grab the Daiso 25.4 cm file directly.
Three steps to make it
- Print half a circle on each of two A4 sheets at actual size (100%), and cut them out
- Leave the hands in place and slide each half in from the left and right, past the spindle
- Tape the seam and the 12, then put the cover back on
I paid for glossy paper at a convenience store, and honestly I couldn’t tell it apart from plain paper. Plain paper is plenty.
The three things to watch
- Fit it to the inner dial, not the outer size
- Print at actual size, 100%. “Fit to page” will shrink it
- Turning the hands by hand after the cover is off will damage the movement. If you want to move them, do it beforehand with the knob on the back
How it came out
Up close you can see the vertical seam, but from a step back it more or less disappears.
The ¥220 square one works too
Outer size 14.8 cm, inner dial 117 mm. Same method. That one fits on a single A4 sheet, so you print it and cut it in half yourself.
I bought two of those and made one an AM face and the other a PM face — that’s a separate post.
Honestly, the IKEA TROMMA is the easier swap
The Daiso 25.4 cm came out fine, but purely on how easy the swap is, the TROMMA (¥399) still wins. It has no second hand, so there’s one less needle to thread paper past, and its bezel hides a margin of the print, so a slightly wobbly cut doesn’t show. If there’s no store near you, IKEA will ship it for a fee.
What Daiso has going for it is that there’s usually one nearby and you can have it the same day. The TROMMA build is written up here.
The clock faces are free
Clear, color-coded faces are shared here, along with a custom version sized to whatever clock you have. No sign-up, commercial use OK, no credit required.
Try the face on screen first
Numbers 1–12 only, or minutes as well? Futatoki the Learning Clock App lets you switch between them in the browser, so you can see which one your child reads more easily before you print. No install, no sign-up, free.