Busy Week!

 

Week 35

 

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A+B

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

     This week Art and Nine continued working on pivot gauges. Art finished his 0.15mm pivot gauge!

    This week Daniel, David and Miguel started their practice exam for the final exam! Next week they be very busy servicing their 5 movements.

David preparing his bench for the practice exam.

Miguel's bench set up with the documents for the exam and the boxes for the 5 movements.

 

    This week Ivan, Louis and Varun started their hairspring course. This week they learned how to rivet the balance staff, press fit the roller table, do static poising and pin the hairspring into the collet.
  

    This week Sheikh learned how to flatten wheels and how to correct the end shake and side shake of the barrel.

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Bench Test!

 Week 34

This week we had a bench tester, Mauro from Connecticut, USA!

Here is learning how to black polish screws!

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A & B

Students:

Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Nine & Craig and Dunham

This week Art and Nine continued working on making pivot gauges.

Here Art is using the lathe to part off more blue steel blanks for pivot gauges.

    This week Daniel and Miguel continued to work on their 7 movements. They need to finish servicing them before the final exam.

    This week David serviced his own Seiko 7s26 movement.

    This week Craig took his winding stem exam and passed, Congratulations to him! Now he can move on to learning how to make pivot gauges.

    This week Dunham machined his barrel arbor, ratchet wheel, crown wheel, and all the pinions of his school watch.

Here is dunny's completed barrel!

Here is the steel bar with his ratchet wheel blanks

The completed pinions of his watch.
Top to bottom: Escape wheel, 4th wheel, center wheel and 3rd wheel.

The escape wheel pinion is very small! compared to Dunham's finger. The pinion is only 0.8mm in diameter!

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Back to school!

 

Week 33

We are back to school after summer break and it is scorching hot in the workshops!

 

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A & B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Nine & Craig

     This week Art and Nine started learning pivot gauges! 

Here Nine is turning the cones for the ends of the pivot gauge blanks.

Art is parting off segments of a blue steel bar to make the pivot gauge blanks.

Here Michael is teaching them how to glue their pieces in the carriers and seat them in the Jacot tool.

Close up of the carrier and blank in the Jacot tool before turning the pivot.

    This week Daniel and Miguel continued to service their 7 movements. Daniel finished the 2801 and 2824. Miguel is working on his 6498 and 2801.

    This week David made a new date wheel!

On the left is the original which was missing a tooth. On the right is the new one that David turned on the lathe.

He finished it by round graining with sand paper and then plating it in white rhodium.

     This week Miguel also made a custom Horia anvil to support the roller table of his 2801, 2824, 2892 and 2671 when pushing on the hairspring.

Here it is along side another custom anvil that Miguel made but this one is for the roller table support of the 6498.

    This week Craig took his winding stem practice exam! He passed, but there is still some room for improvement.

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

SUMMER COURSE - HAIRPSRING WEEK

HAIRSPRING MANIPULATION AND VIBRATING

Everyone successfully completed the hairspring course!

Marcus from Sweden doing vibrating.

Praveen doing hairspring manipulation

 

 

Nacho doing hairspring flatness and centering

 

 

Anastasios manipulating the hairspring

Calvin doing hairspring manipulation

Fran manipulating hairspring

Manel vibrating hairspring

Students exchanging contacts on the last day.

It was a wonderful experience to teach the hairspring course. We gained so much throughout the week by sharing our knowledge with one another. Thank you all for your enthusiastic participation and patience!

- Michael