Friday, March 15, 2024

Hairspring Week!

 

Week 11


STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A & B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Harold, Miguel, Nine
    Amer, Dunham, Faris, Ivan, Louis, Varun 

    This week, Daniel, David and Miguel learned how to manipulate hairsprings.

Here they are learning how to manipulate a clock hairspring to begin.

They also learned how to pin the hairspring to the collet, cut the hairspring, pin the hairspring to the stud, and attach it to the balance bridge.

They also learned how to regulate the hairspring to exactly 18,000 vibrations. This is done before studding up and cutting the hairspring.

 

    This week David worked on finishing his first practice hairspring.

Above is the original balance with ruined coils, below is the hairspring now after adjustment.

    This week Miguel is finishing the poising of his 6498 balance before he moves on to hairspring. He also made a plastic anvil for hairspring work. 

Here is the balance resting on the poising tool. It has a plastic box around it so that it wont be disturbed by dust or wind.


    This week Dunny made several pinion blanks for his school watch.

 

    This week Ivan is making prototype pieces of the click spring for his school watch.


Here is the Omega pocket watch assembled and cased up with no dial while waiting for final adjustments.



Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week! 

Friday, March 8, 2024

Quiet Week

 

Week 10


STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A and B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Harold, Miguel, Nine Amer, Dunham, Faris, Ivan, Louis, Varun

    This week Daniel, David and Miguel started the hairspring course. They started with removing the balance staff from the balance wheel and installing a new one.

Michael demonstrating how to remove the roller table on the Bergeon Platax.

Michael also showed them how to remove the roller table using the roller table removing tool.

After removing the roller table, the balance is clamped into the lathe and the balance staff is mostly turned off close to the hub of the balance wheel.

Using the staking set to punch out the remaining part of the balance staff.

Preparing to fit in a new balance staff on the staking set.
 

    Miguel prepared his staking punches before riveting. He refreshed the staking punches by grinding away the deep scratches with a diamond file and then polishing it.

2 Flat punches

2 Tapered punches
 

    This week Art and Nine learned how to use the milling attachment for the lathe. Afterwards, Art used it to make the locking screw for his graver holder.



Art made a hexagon shaped screw using the lathe's divisions.



 

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Friday, March 1, 2024

Busy week and yet another bench test!

 

Week 9

This week we had yet another bench tester! Joan from Barcelona!


Here he is sharpening his screwdrivers to prepare for working on a 6498.

 

 

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Harold, Miguel, Nine

    This week, Daniel has continued with adjusting pallet forks and completed his first trial exam. 

Here is a pallet fork on the escape meter to adjust the depth of the pallet fork jewels.

    This week David made a special attachment for the lathe to do sun ray finishing on his Omega cal 601 ratchet wheel.

David turning a steel wheel for making new sun-ray finishing.

Above: The ratchet wheel's original finishing was scratched
Below: The ratchet wheel after re-finishing

    This week Miguel polished his presto tool because there was some rust.


    Miguel also started servicing an old Zenith pocket watch movement.

 

    This week Art made a graver holder from aluminum.


Here Art is tapping the hole he drilled for the locking screw.


  

 GUEST STARRING

Workshop B

Students:
    Amer, Dunham, Faris, Ivan, Louis, Varun 

    This week Ivan made his brass anvil and continued working on his school watch design.


 
 

 



Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Friday, February 23, 2024

Another Benchtest!

 

Week 8

This week we had another bench test! Nicholas from England!


Here he is learning how to put in the mainspring in the barrel by hand.

 

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop B

Students:
    Amer, Dunham, Faris, Ivan, Louis, Varun

    This week Ivan continued planning out his school watch with Fusion 360.

     Ivan also continued his restoration work on his pocket watch.

He beveled and polished the edges of the ratchet wheel and used tetrabore to matt finish the top of the screw.


Here Ivan refinished the entire surface of the barrel bridge. He used paper to flatten the surface before he frosted the surface.



GUEST STARRING

Workshop A

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Harold, Miguel, Nine

    This week Daniel, David and Miguel learned how to oil the gear train and apply epilame.

Coming in at a 45º angle to touch the pivot to allow oil in.

Using a dropper to apply epilame only to the teeth of the escape wheel.

2 Incabloc jewels. The one above has epilame and the bottom does not. You can see that the epilame helps the oil to form more consistently for cleaner work.

     This week Daniel made a prototype of his escape wheel and asked Ivan to help him create his gear train in Fusion 360.

Daniel made some mistakes centering the spokes and wants to reshape them to be thinner.

    This week Daniel also prepared to take his escapement exam next week

    This week David and Miguel took their escapement exams and passed!

    This week David also serviced his Omega 601.

    This week Miguel made and finished his pallet fork holder just in time for his escapement exam.




    The base is made out of brass that has been straight grained and black rhodium plated before the mandrin was cut down and friction fit into the base. It was designed to be adjustable when under the microscope to check the cleanliness of the pallet fork.

 


COMING UP NEXT...

We have another bench test next week! Tune in next week to find out where they're from.

 

 

 

Thank you for reading! 

Hope to see you again next week! 

Friday, February 16, 2024

Bench Test!

 

Week 7

    This week we had a new bench tester! Bernd from Germany! Here he is working on a 6498 and a pocket watch movement.    
 


STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Harold, Miguel, Nine 

    This week, Daniel, David and Miguel learned how to remove the hairspring collet from the balance staff and flatten a balance wheel using the lyre and the horia tool.

Here is the laser welded collet of Nivarox for an ETA 2892 balance wheel.

Using hand levers, you must gently pry off the collet to separate it from the balance staff.

Then you place the balance in a Lyre tool to check the flatness of the balance wheel.

Finally after spotting the high or low spots, you place it into a horia tool and gently press with your finger.

Here is the balance wheel before flattening.

Here is the balance wheel after flattening, the wobble has been almost completely eliminated.

    This week Art and Nine have also finished their filing exams! They are now focusing on making some of the required tools and exercise pieces such as the balance bridge holder and the press fit plate.

    Here is art turning the spike of the balance bridge holder on the lathe.
 

    David also took several practice exams for escapements this week.

    This week Harold has dealt with ETA7750, 6498 and 2892, learned the disassembly and assembly of the balance complete, the different types of configurations of the hairspring, adjustment of the stud and regulator, and made good progress on the set of theory questions.

 


 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!