Want to become a watchmaker?

We have a slot open for a FullSkill class that starts in April. More information on our school homepage or send an email to info@khwcc.ch and we will be happy to answer your questions.

"Little Christmas"

On Monday evening we had our little Christmas party in school to celebrate the end of the year just in time before everyone went home for a Christmas break. Unhealthy snacks, drinks, traditional cheese fondue and some ice cream for everyone to enjoy was a nice and simple way for everyone to have a good time before we watched a Christmas film.

Svenja our administrator preparing the snacks.

The school's film expert Robert selected Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger as this year's Christmas film which is without a doubt one of Arnold's all-time masterpieces.

Possibly the best Christmas film of all time, thanks to Arnold.

We are a huge fan of Arnold in the school and one of the conditions for a student to be accepted to the school is of course that he loves Arnold so we came up with three simple rules: 1) That the student can do at least 20 bicep curls with 15 kg dumbbells, 2) The student can name at least 15 Arnold films, and 3) He can do a believable Arnold impression because every Friday everyone in school have to talk with Arnold accent.

We are (maybe) not being very serious. Christmas is coming up, we have been working extremely hard this year and we are looking forward to a well deserved break so we are in a very good mood. We have found our Christmas spirit, have you? We hope so!

Us here at K&H Watchmaking Competence Centre would like to wish all our readers a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you in 2015!

Workshop activities

With the last school week of the year coming up, we are going to show you what the students have been up to and what is the plan for this week.

The workshop 1 students studied battery and quartz watches last week. Quartz watches are not a big subject in our school since we emphasize on mechanical watches but it's still fun to teach it and for the students to get familiar with quartz watches since it's totally different approach to watchmaking.

Henrik is demonstrating to the students how to measure the
electrical currents and the consumption. 

This is a rare movement from the 1960's when Swiss manufacturers were experimenting with batteries and different regulating organs. This is a semi-mechanical watch that has battery and an oscillator, but no quartz.

Charles is working on a hand setting on a quartz watch.

The students in workshop 2 have been going through the balance, hairspring and timing course lately and this week they will have their intermediate exam on that subject, just in time before the Christmas break.

Static poising of a balance wheel, the purpose is to equalize the weight of the balance all around.

Tryggvi truing a balance wheel.

Germán vibrating a hairspring.

And this timing result is from Stefano; this movement has a balance and a hairspring that Stefano made from raw material to its final stage. Pretty good job.

Workshop 1 encasing demonstrations

With the final exams coming up, the students in workshop 1 have been busy with movement repairs lately. But they have also been learning some new stuff that has to do with encasing which consists of putting the dial on the movement, hand setting (and aligning the hands with the date change), repairing dials and hands, fitting a new winding stem and a crown, polishing the watch case and pressure testing.

Here are some photos of the demonstrations.

Chronographs

Workshop 1 students were introduced recently to chronograph watches. We teach here in the school both classical chronographs such as the Valjoux 23 and the El Primero from Zenith and more modern chronographs such as ETA 7750 and Dupois Depraz 2020. Therefore we are able to cover quite a big range of chronographs which have different designs. The Valjoux and El Primero are classically designed with horizontal engagement of wheels and a column wheel which controls all the commands, while the ETA 7750 has a much more simplified mechanism with an oscillating pinion and a cam system. And then the Dubois Depraz is a modular chronograph with a vertical clutch which is yet another system.

The students were extremely fascinated but also quite overwhelmed by the chronograph mechanism since there was a lot of new components and new mechanisms to learn. One thing is certain though, which happens to almost all students/watchmakers that work with chronographs, they fell in love with them.

The legendary Valjoux 23.

Another legendary chronograph, but for very different reasons, the Zenith El Primero.

 Have a nice weekend!

aBlogtoWatch interview with Robert

Photo courtesy of aBlogtoWatch

Our Instructor Robert Michelsen was interviewed recently at 'aBlogtoWatch' where he discussed a bit his background but mainly about a watch that he is lusting after. aBlogtoWatch is the biggest and most popular watch blog on the internet with excellent reviews of new watches and often very interesting editorial articles about industry related things so if you don't happen to know aBlogtoWatch, we recommend that you bookmark it.

So, do you know what watch Robert is lusting after? No? It's a piece of art, a real beauty from a watchmaker that is considered one of the all time greats in the watchmaking history. Check out the interview and see what Robert has to say about the watch.