Manufacture Visit!

Week 27

 This week we were grateful to have the opportunity to visit the manufacture of Laine!

 He showed us around the workshop and explained their different workstations.

Here is their media room. The inside has photography equipment and a small studio for taking professional photos. There is also a 3d printer that they use for making custom tools and other useful items.

The next room was where they kept the rose engine and straight line machine.

 

Mr. Laine demonstrated how the rose engine is operated and explained how its functions and features.

He also demonstrated a rare piece of machinery, a straight line machine! It is a similar machine to a rose engine, except that it only makes straight lines while a rose engine works in circular patterns.

 

Here is their assembly room where they do the final assembly and timing of their watches.

    

He showed us their small oven that they use for heat treating, tempering and for firing enamel items!

Here he is demonstrating how to operate their profile projector. It is used for precisely measuring the dimensions of items.

This is the main work area. It is where they have the lathes, polishing, and finishing stations.

In the back is where they keep the 3 CNC machines they use to make their own parts, pinions, wheels, and other essential components.

It was a very enlightening experience for us students who have goals of making their own watches, to see how a workshop is run, what essentials are needed and what are the problems and challenges we will face when operating our own workshops.

We are very grateful to Laine for granting us a good learning opportunity!

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A+B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Mun, Nine
    Craig, Dunham, Ivan, Louis, Sheikh, Varun

 

    This week Art and Nine did more practice tests for winding stems.

    This week Daniel, David and Miguel finished their chronograph course! Michael also taught them how to use breguet tweezers and how to form breguet curves.

Here Michael is teaching them how to properly use the Breguet tweezers. You must align the cylinder properly to hold the hairspring in place for bending.

    This week Miguel worked on servicing and restoring an EMKA Geneve Ladies watch.

Here is the dial out of the case. There is a lot of dirt and tarnishing on the edges where it is close to the case.

Here is the dial after some cleaning. There are still some very hard stains from tarnishing.

Miguel also made a case tube for the watch. Here it is fresh from the lathe.

After plating it with white rhodium to match the silver case of the watch.

        

Here it is after being installed in the case of the watch.

He had to use the milling machine to open up the top of the case tube because of the way it is design to put in the movement.

     This week Mun started his gear train lesson. He is currently learning how to oil and service the parts of the winding and setting.

    This week Craig finished his first winding stem!

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!