Hairspring Exam Week, Visitors and Trouble Shooting

 This week most of the time went to practice for the hairspring exam. We did have some time for other things as well; we had some very nice visitors all the way from the United States, Dean and Jacob who recently also took Henrik's restoration class a few month back in AWCI Harrison, Ohio.With them they also had a Swiss friend, Kilian who works here in Switzerland as a watchmaker. Also Vincent working as a teacher in HSNY http://hs-ny.org/ stopped by to see Henrik and meet the students, very nice visit as well!  We also had a very interesting case of a movement stopping after only running for a few hours, so we got to learn a way to troubleshoot and find where the problem may be, all in all we had a very interesting week!

This bent barrel tooth with a crack at the root was found to be the culprit. It can be clearly seen that it is leaning closer to the left neighboring tooth that the right one.

Kilian to the left, Dean in the center and Jacob on the right.

Students and watchmakers sharing ideas, how it should be!

Sharing contact details for maybe future collaborations.

Vincent came by for a visit and had also time to do a quick modification job on the jig boring machine.

This was another problem we had; suddenly the movement gained massively without it being knocking as sometimes happens when the escapement receives too much energy delivered from the mainspring and barrel through the gear train. No knocking! it took some time to actually find out what caused it but in the end it was clear; the hairspring body was ever so slightly bouncing on the stud in certain positions when the amplitude got high, it was an easy fix by correcting the centering of the hairspring, but hard to find.

Practice Exam Week

This week learned how to do the timing in order to complete the last part of our exam. And we also had our first and second practice exam during the week.

For this exam we need to put a complete balance together, including riveted with the staff, fit the roller and everything about the hairspring, we need to pin the hairspring with the collet and vibrating it to the correct length. And try to find the most efficient order for us to do this best during our exam.

learning how to read the timing machine and what that means need to have some basic theory background

Make the hairspring flat and centere around the collet is also very important in this exam

This exam have so many things to do, therefore the time management is very important.

using the jacot tool to correct the bend pivot if necessary

The first trial shows red for all position.

Another one that got better results.

Now it look pretty good, and it also shows this balance has a poise error. We will continue to practice and get closer timekeeping in the future.

Back to school

Back to school after the summer break. This week we get familiar with the hairspring work again, the hairspring exam is coming soon. After the break, we need some practice to get the feeling back for the hairspring work. We believe that after taking the 4 pre-exams we will be ready for the real one.

 During the summer break, Henrik was invited to go to Harrison, Ohio by Jordan Ficklin the executive director of AWCI to give the restoration course for the experienced watchmakers in the USA. There is always something new for watchmakers to learn so it's great Henrik still willing to sharing his knowledge. If you are also interested in our short term course, feel free to ask us.

Hairspring exam is coming soon!

                                Stan checked the position for the stud on the balance wheel, making notes.

                                                Yi-Ting was making the hairspring flat

                                   CJ was using the vibrating tool to find the vibrating point

                                                        Black polishing the screw head.

                                       Doing restoration work in Harrison, Ohio hosted by AWCI.

Best Summer Wishes!

Today we finished the annual 'deep' cleaning of the whole school. Now we are ready for our last summer break in school and wish you guys also an enjoyable summer.

This week we had a nice school outing to the castle near Montreux, Château de Chillon and hiking in Rochers de Naye. The view from the mountain is really fantastic, we spend some time up there and got some tanned. Really nice.

we also share some pics of our pop task two weeks ago, this is what the prototype click look like of our school watch in the future.

One week before summer break

We keep working on the click, click spring and, of course, hairspring. Surprisingly, this year so far, the temperature in Le Locle is pretty cool, so it's kind of comfortable for working. We also took the advantage of the nice weather and had a short visit of the Jules Grossmann exhibition in Le Locle.

The show room 407 was Mr. Grossmann's workshop in the old days.

Nice view, look out from the room 407.

Pop Task

Haha...We had a pop task from Henrik this week- making a trial piece of click spring (with beryllium copper) for our school watch.  It actually bring us back to reality from manipulating hairsprings. (Everyone is like zombie ....) Which is very good, I guess all of us are kind of exhausted of doing hairspring. We need to escape from hairspring and to refresh or reset our brain.

By the way, thank you Richard and Aris. Henrik received your gift this week. Thanks a lot. :)

Last weekend, Eero machined the regulator of his restoration project. We are sure we'll soon see his project done.






Share some pictures (we forgot to share last week :P) of our school outing in a beautiful sunny day. Enjoy