Big day today

 On this sunny spring Friday we are all rooting for most senior student Craig. He has just finished his final exam, and is in a good moral. Best of luck Craig, and until next week! 

For the rest of us, working away. It has been an interesting week, with parts disappearing in mysterious ways. Here I am staring at the dust attempting to find something of value. 

I did not find it

In our workshop everyone is up to different quests, some are machining and plating, others are working on hairsprings and escapements. Joan is making progress on adjusting pallet fork jewels. Aiming to get no mislocks and safe play, while keeping a good run to the banking and even total lock.

Pallet fork adjustment tool 

Meanwhile Louis is working on the hairsprings, here you can see him two double bends, his spring centred between the regulating pins and the collet centred over the jewel. Very tedious work, Louis did a good job at it. 

Here we can see a before and after 

In the other workshop, Gary is touching up his Jacot tool doing some pretty decoration, after many hours of labour we have the finished product.

Sparkles 

Sens is now spending his time servicing watches that come across his bench, this week he’s working on a very cute Maurice Lacroix.

Cutie

That is it so far, until next week!

Clouds on the horizon

Stormy week over here in Le Locle, signs points to an end of winter but we will not get our hopes up yet. 

This week the workshop 1 students; Bernd, Louis and myself have started learning the ever exciting and frustrating topic of hairsprings. Slowly hypnotising our selves in the spirals. We learnt the assembly of a balance wheel, attaching the spring to the collet and the stud, flattening and centring the spring. Still a lot more content to cover next week.

Joan took and passed his gear train exam this week, now being a step closer to finishing up the course content.

I took apart an old pocket watch for restoration and found a very bizarre pallet fork. We assumed it was some bad restoration job done in the past. The pallet fork has no axel but sounds around in a fixed post.

Jae won is working on his brass anvil and making quick progress.

We are joining up two weeks of content this time. A lot has been happening these last few days. We’ll start with the most important, Craig started his final exam! Yesterday he took his theory exams and today he filled in the scratch sheet and more. Next week he will start servicing and off he goes. 

The other senior students have finished up learning all the content of servicing a watch up to the timing. Learning to assemble the entire balance wheel, use the vibrating tool, static and dynamic poising along with hair spring manipulation. All very exciting stuff.

Disassembled balance 

Chris, Phill and Gary are figuring out how to burnish pivot gauges, a sensitive skill where a small sneeze can ruin hours of work. 

Chris’ pivot

Jaewon has done some very nice grattage on his brass anvil, came out very nicely.

That’s it for this week, until next time.

Exams Passed and Future

 

   Week 6

The snow and ice are starting to melt; the hope for warmer days is around the corner.

The view from the workshop Friday afternoon

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A

Students:

    Bernd, Caio, Cesar, Guilherme, Joan, Louis Lu

     Caio and Guilherme have passed their first exam! The filing milestone reached, they now move on to the lathe, learning proper operation and how to sharpen the gravers on the diamond disk.

 

Cesar continued his cannon pinion restoration, polishing the sides of the tube.

 

 

Workshop B

Students:
    Christiaan, Craig, Gary, Jaewon, Philippe, Sense    

 

Craig has officially completed all requirements to take the final exam. All that remains now is practice and more practice.

A practice movement disassembled to look for broken parts and prepare for cleaning

 

Gary is working on making his own enamel dial. He has made the copper blank and coated the back with counter-enamel. The front surface has been treated, and is ready for the fire.

 

 

 

Jaewon finished his and-turning exercises and now has a shiny collection of cylinders.

 

 

Philippe spent the week on the lathe, first taking (and passing) the hour wheel exam, then making his own barrel closing tool.

 

 

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week