TOOLS & EXAMS!

 WEEK 202

Team A

Origin: Sweden, The Philippines & Taiwan

Name: Daniel, Miguel, & David

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood:

This week we started practicing for how to make winding stems by learning how to file squares by hand from a round bar.

- Miguel

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (13~17 February) Dean & Tetsu continued woking on the barrels, the winding & setting mechanisms, and the gear trains of the mandatory 7 movements. 

To prove that they were going to complete all the current tasks, Henrik gave them 2 chances to take practice exams to find out where their levels were.

In between times, Dean started making a balance staff for a Zenith movement to gain more repair points. He is also working on a winding stem for another service repair point job.  After doing some final timing, Dean submitted a Rolex Sea-Dweller to Henrik for his assessment of Dean‘s work.

Tetsu was getting to feel natural to work with tweezers and screw drivers and building up his confidence.

Wish you all a nice weekend! 

Dean & Tetsu

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

Name: Renato, David, Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

David and I continued working on precision timing this week. David also did the hairspring exam. We also looked at the hairspring flatness and centering on high frequency movements. Really interesting to see how to identify both by observation or on video by watching the reflections of the coils. I also finished hairspring fitting on our practice movements including flattening and centering manipulations and started timing. Next week we'll have the chronograph course. That should be lots of fun!

-Renato

Hello everyone, 

This week me Robert and Francesco continued working with the escapement and perfecting the adjustments of the pallet jewels. It’s quite time consuming inspecting the pallets in the microscope, disassembling, adjust pallets in the escape meter, assemble and then inspect again - if it’s not good we’ll have to repeat the process😄 After awhile you get a good eye for positioning the jewels in a good spot to make it easier to see how to adjust them to perfection. Furthermore we also continued with trial exam earlier this week, before ending the week with the real exam yesterday. 

Soon our group will finish up the escapement subject and we will move onto the balance and hairspring work. Very looking forward to start working with the most sensitive part of the watch. 

Have a great weekend!

Åsmund 

Team D

Origin: Finland

Name: Xinying

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood:

This week I did the test for escpament course and finished remaining practices. Then I had introduction to hairspring course and will continue that next week.

Xinying 

STEP 1: TOOLS! (EVERYONE)

Sabri came by with some tools and vintage watch movements!

STEP 2: POWDER COATING! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund powder coated one of his vintage watch tools, really good looking unique color that he mixed himself!!

STEP 3: CAFETERIA UPGRADE! (WORKSHOP I)

The students of workshop I assembled in team work a furniture that came to very good use in the cafeteria next to our coffee machine!

STEP 4: MANUAL SKILLS! (MIGUEL, DANIEL AND DAVID)

David, Miguel and Daniel worked on filing squares by hand to understand the geometry of the winding stem square and also continued on the tool manufacturing, manual repetitive precise work is a great way to upgrade dexterity!

STEP 5: TWEAKING! (RENATO)

Renato busy tweaking hairsprings for optimum timing performance, here he is in the process of truing the hairspring flat and centred around the collet!

STEP 6: ESCAPEMENTS! (FRANCESCO, ROBERT & ÅSMUND)

Asmund Francesco and Robert had their real Swiss lever escapement exam this week and will try to finish as much of the remaining exercices by next week before starting the next course!

STEP 7: BOOKS! (ROBERT)

Robert got this book about time clocks found in some very serious safes of the past! very interesting indeed! 

STEP 8: TIME LOCKS! (ROBERT)

Of course, he also had to get a time lock to properly study the mechanism!

STEP 9: MOLFRES! (DEAN)

Dean proudly showing his Molfres and what its capable of!

Nice!

Such an impressive little machine and a time saver!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

Another sunny week and the snow is almost gone! although it did get cloudy and rainy on Friday! Francesco, Asmund, Robert and Xin had their real escapement exam this week! Daniel, David and Miguel continued making their tools, but also got introduced to the first excercise pre winding stem production! Renato and David L. continued timing movements, David L. also took his real exam! Tetsu and Dean kept pushing and got to make 2 trial exams, they will probably make one or two more next week! We also once again had Sabri swing by with his mobile vintage tool and watch part store, most of us got a bunch of hand tools and also movements for spareparts and for collections. It was a very intense week due to all the exams but really fun and enjoyable at the same time!! With this pace it will feel like a few weeks before we are on summer holiday :) Have a nice weekend everyone!