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.