Christmas is coming

Time fly’s. It's almost the end of the year. We are on our way to our Christmas holiday so this is our last week before our vacation.

Before the end of the semester we finished our tools and plated them so they look nicer. Everyone had his/her own design for the outlook of the tools. They look really cool. In addition, we finished our final theory exam, and we are free from now. 

One of Yi-Ting's tools after finishing and plating.

Polishing tripods ready for surface treatments. 

CJ is doing the beveling

Early this week, we had a great chance to visit Urban Jürgensen which is a historic watch brand. In their place, we saw their amazing watches, finishing, and also how they polish the hands and do the Grenage on the dial. After the visit, we hope that if someday we could work in Urban Jürgensen that would be really cool. Thanks for the hospitality of Urban Jürgensen. 

Group photo in Urban Jürgensen

They are polishing the hands.

Everyone is amazed with the result.

Cool blueprint of a lever escapement. 

Historical document, Urban Jürgensen is more than 243 year old company.

After the visit, we went straight ahead to Mr. Simonin speech in Neuchatel at EPFL, microcity, he share his watch career on the event. He is really a living legend and dictionary of watchmaking. We could always learn something from him. It's nice to meet hime again.



In the last few days, we also got some tin bars, and we made our own tin plate for polishing. It's really easy to make one. We think we could use these tin plates for our entire watchmaking career.
Last, Merry Xmas for all KHWCC friends and alumni.

Happy St Nicholas Day!

Last weekend, three professional watchmakers came to KHWCC to learn how to make watch parts for the chronograph. These watchmakers learned new and useful skills that are rarely taught in Switzerland now.  Anyone who is interested in improving his/her watchmaking skills should come to our school. You will learn much more than you could imagine.
It's almost the end of the semester, and this week we practiced different finishing skills. It's really fun and challenging to do finishing. Stan also finished his hour wheel exam. We only have the final theory exam next week, and then we are free.
 This Wednesday is also St Nicholas' Day. This is our first time to hear about this festival. To celebrate, everybody cooked a small dish  and we all got some small gift from school. It's fun to have dinner all together.

professional watchmakers working on their minute jumper.

attempting oil blackening

It's the most wonderful time of the year

This week the temperature keep going down and of course we got a lot of snow. Every morning we have to get up early, dress properly and walk to school. No more biking. :(

Recently we just upgrade our photo shooting system from now on we can enjoy more detail of the beauty of watchmaking.

Upgrade in pixel and light of photography

Stan start his hour wheel making course this week.

Felix practice using Horia burnishing tool. This is good for mass production and for watchmakers who want to save time and have stable quality of burnish.

This tool is handy and easy to use. Really nice.

We got the tin bars 99.9% purity, to prepare for the making of tin plate for screw polishing. 

Can't wait to make the  plate.

CJ try to produce the spectrum of bluing process. Make the bluing process more visible.

Which color is your new BLUE?

CJ's first trial of finishing parts.

After decoration, with jewel, screw hole chamfer and edge beveling. Surface treated with sand frosting. 

The decoration gives a warm feel back to old days.

3 Weeks Before Winter Break

Last weekend is our global food night ,Stan and his wife Amanda cooked some Taiwanese family traditional dish for us such as pork stew, tomato fried eggs and stir fried cabbage. It's really tasty and everyone enjoyed the food.

After boosting with delicious food we keep going with our works before winter break.

Familiar dishes made our home sickness less.

Pork stew. We can eat tons of rice with this dish.

Felix restores balance staff for his British pocket watch.

Nice and shiny. The tapering cylinder at both end is designed as oil traps.

Let's turn on the night club mode. Oh ya~~

Sif is making hour wheel this week.

Yi Ting is finishing her tri-pod base.

Stan turning the winding stem.

CJ modifying his sun ray grinding tools.

Ratchet wheel before restored.

After restored. Bling Bling

Crown wheel before finishing.

Crown wheel after restored.

Henrik showed us how to properly ream holes for guide pin.

The drill is very delicate, we should to use it properly.

Continue pushing

This week we had our first snow in winter, and it means that there are not much time left for us to finish our works and tools. It's Yi-ting's turn to take the hour wheel exam this week, and she succeed in making a good hour wheel in 4 hours. Felix and Sif finished their first balance staff this week. Felix also try to make one balance staff in two hours, and he succeed in making a functional one. That's pretty awesome. Stan was busy donig his last four pivot gauges, and he got some trouble in make the dome shining and black polished. It's the most difficult part for him not the small dimater. CJ finished all the works that we have to finish so he got some extra projects to do. He practiced black polishing with different size screws, and they all look nice. He also took his second-hand tool to school to see if there were something to modify. He found a little problem for his screw polishing tool, and he mill a part to replace the old one. Now, he could use the tool for his next week porject.

Yi Ting turning pivot gauge.

CJ modify his polishing tool.

Le Locle is already super cold to us.

Felix measuring balance staff

Decoration for the Christamas.

Black polished screw from CJ.

Angular rule with straight graining from Sif

Sif using jig bore.

Stan turning pivot gauge.