THE ESCAPEMENT!

 WEEK 78

Pierre Aubert

Origin :Toulouse, France.

Age : 24

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: Making some progress :) I had to separate my bridges before I can proceed to any further machining. In fact, I can drill my remaining holes once I have made pins to locate my bridges precisely. Moreover, my recesses can only be turned once my bridges are semesters as my balance recesses would have hit the gear train bridge if I had done so 😁. Have a good weekend everyone. See you next week!

Name: Markus McDonald.
Origin: Stockholm, Sweden. 
Course: 2 years full skill course.
Current mode: This week I focused on the escapement section for the fundamentals, learning the theory the various parts and how to adjust them and applying it too all the seven movements. This went well as I was able to get the hang of it especially the adjustment Being an incredibly satisfying experience seeing everything run smoothly made this a very solid experience.

Michael

Origin : Malaysia

Age : 28

Watchmaking class : 2 years Fullskill Program

Current Mood: Another week of pivot gauges trials and I did actually broke my 0.11mm pivot again during the real exam and I have to do it next week! For all of the horology god and goddess bless me with dexterity so I won’t break it again and pass with a good score please.

Alex

Origin : Kaohsiung, Taiwan 

Age : 27

Watchmaking : 2Y Fullskill Program

Current mood: Another weeks of micro-mechanics, it was the week of winding stem. Mostly practicing and trying out different strategies for hardening and squaring filling. I would say the end result is fine to say the least.

STEP 1: THE ESCAPEMENT! (MARKUS)

Various old escapement parts and escapements.

STEP 2: BOOKS AND TOOLS! (ALL)

The new edition of the complicated watch book, I like it! it has a small pocket with colored movement plates of complications and also fold out drawings, very practical when reading it!

STEP 3: SCHOOL WATCH! (PIERRE)

Pierre sawing out his bridges, leaving the scribed line as filing reference for later.

STEP 4: FILING SQUARES! (ALEX)

Alex hand filed squares (for winding stems) are starting to look very fine!

HENRIK's WORDS:

This week was really nice and creative! We also found some nice stuff on Saturday at Mr. Simonin watch tool and book store. Markus is discovering a new mechanism inside of the mechanical watch movement; the escapement (the distributing organ). Alex is making and finishing some winding stems, he discovered a good technique for filing and finishing the square. Pierre is also progressing well with his school watch. Michael is continuing with pivot gauges. I finished an interesting restoration project myself and will be writing an article about it in the future. My watches got featured ones again in The Naked Watchmaker, thank you! All in all, a really enjoyable week!

The Naked Watchmaker; https://www.thenakedwatchmaker.com/

Some of my watches can be seen here; https://www.thenakedwatchmaker.com/blog/2020/9/25/lost-and-found