The week before Christmas Holidays

Experimental sandblasted snailed blue ratchet wheel

Sandblased blue center with snailed outer rim

Sunray center with snailed outer rim

The students continued with their finishing exercises this week.  Many students experimented with different styles of finishing such as chamfering, black polishing, beveling (internal corner), frosting, sandblasting, straight graining, sun-ray, circluar graining, snailing, blueing and mixtures of these finishing techniques.  The students really had a lot of fun with these exercises although it took them many hours to finish to their satisfaction.  We will let the pictures do the talking.

Before

After

beveled and chamfered then polished

Completely redecorated bridge with bevels made with internal corners

Black polish screw exercise (Big boss included)

The process from start to finish of making the bevels and circular graining a setting lever 

A close up of the frosted finish

The piece of the left sandblasted by Shuai compared with the original sandblasted ratchet wheel on the right

Before the holidays, the school took the students out to visit the Caillers chocolate factory in Broc.  It is a nice change from the watchmaking side of Switzerland.  The students learned a little about the history behind Swiss chocolate making and even learned a bit about how to be chocolate tasters.  At the end of the visit, they were able to do some shopping to bring gifts home, where ever that may be, to their family and friends.  After the chocolate factory, they travelled to the neighboring city, Gruyere, where they are famous for their cheeses.  They had fondue for lunch and visited the Chateau Gruyere to end the day.  It was a beautiful castle from the 1500s, and just for a bit, the students felt they travelled back in time.

A view from the castle

Group photo

The beautiful town of Gruyere

Chocolate factory

CNC chocolate maker

This will be our last post before the Christmas holidays, so, we wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!  Enjoy, as we will!

Twinkle twinkle little screws

Shuai flat polishing with the tripod

Exercise one

It was all about finishing this week.  Henrik planned a full week exercises about decorating and finishing of different watch components.  The students started off by black polishing 17 assortments of screws, starting from the smallest and easier to eventually, the big boss, a ginormous screw.  In no particular order, the students had to accomplish several types of finishing on parts such as ratchet wheel, setting lever springs, bridges, and other wheels.   They learned how to bevel steel and brass components, along with polishig them afterwards.  They cut chamfers and polished the chamfers using the bow and pegwood.  They tested circular graining, snailing, and straight graining on the wheels.  All in all, the students were extremely excited to learn about finishing, afterall in today's industry the finishing is one of the biggest parts of the value in a watch.

Tomas checking condition of his polish

Theren trying out some snailing patterns

Simone making bevels

Eddie checking his beveled bridges

Chronographs

Simone assembling his chronograph

Tomas disassembling the 7750

The 7750 cam system

The classical column wheel chronograph

The Dubois-Depraz chronograph module

It has been an intense week of chronographs for our students. The students not only learn about the theory behind how a chronograph works but also get to practice on three different styles of chronographs!  They start off by learning the classical column wheel chronographs, the more logical of the bunch.  Besides the basic assembly and disassembly, they also learned how to make adjustments to the engagements of levers and hammers, where sometimes modifications to their shape are required.  They then moved on to the more modern chronographs, starting with the most common Valjoux/ETA 7750.  It was very interesting for them to compare the two systems.  To top it off, Henrik also showed the students a modular chronograph.  Modular chronographs are chronograph modules that connect to a basic movement which converts it into a chronograph.  It was a lot of work, but the students loved every minute of it!

Eddie making adjustments to his chronograph

Shuai making fine oiling to his chronograph

Theren making a 4th wheel pinion for his school watch

This week the school had two visitors.  The first coming directly from Bangladesh.  Hasan is a former student of Henrik's back when he was teaching in WOSTEP.  Hasan is now owner of his own workshop where he services watches from over 40 stores.  The students can see the appreciation in Hasan's eyes of having Henrik as his mentor.

Hasan's visit

Tom and Melissa visiting the school

The second visitors were Mr. Tom Schomaker and his wife Melissa.  Tom is a well known watchmaker/instructor in America, teaching in the AWCI.  Tom and Melissa are visiting countless watchmaking related establishments and were able to also make time to visit us at the school.  Tom shared many stories and tips from his 30 plus years of watchmaking experience.  It was quite informative for the students to hear the watchmaking ways of America.