HOLIDAY!

 WEEK 141

This will be a short blogpost, Today (Friday) we did the final resetting of the school, so it will be like new when we get back! We had a nice Christmas dinner and also to celebrate Michaels graduation! It was a really nice different week which is great once in a while. Below some pictures in no particular order of the week happening. Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Congratulations Michael!

And also Congratulations to Alex!

Christmas dinner!

We had the good fortune to visit Maurizio in the Herrli tool and watch part store in Bienne just before the holidays! 

Renato made a prototype return to zero hammer, the prototype has been temporarily mounted over the lower hammer for adjustments as they both have to return to zero at the same time, as this one worked perfectly he will make a steel copy of it!

Francesco modified his micrometre by making new narrow jaws so he can measure inside narrow slots! The once he made are on the left and the original are on the right.

We also got plenty of snow!!

STOP WORK!

 WEEK 140

Michael

Origin : Malaysia 

Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill 

Current mood: It has been a busy week designing the movement. Nothing particularly interesting. Drawing in the Inventor and adjusting the dimensions relatively is really a time saver. Hope everyone will have a great weekend at home, since it will be snowing heavily. We will be going to Bern for some watchmaking shopping tomorrow! 

Renato & David

Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: Finished the screw for the Maltese cross dimension wise as well as the brass cross prototype. Then I did the steel Maltese cross with slightly adjusted measurements for better fitment. Came out really accurate, as it should, needing no real adjustment, except that i filed the slots for the finger piece a tiny bit wider. It's ready for finishing now after the heat treatment. Friday I started the work on the missing piece for the minute counter. It is a return to zero hammer for the center minute. Cool restauration on which I will use the pantograph. Renato

Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Origin: Italy, Norway, USA

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: 

Hi everybody, this week I started a new project. 

Me and my classmates bought a micrometer that I’m going to use for winding stems. The problem was that it didn’t have the right jaws so I designed them according to the teacher’s ones.

At the end I had to make six components: two  screws, two jaws, one tube that goes into the bottom hole and one bushing that goes into the upper jaw. 

Now I’ve just finished the machining part and the heat-treatment and I’m starting with the finishing. Next week you'll see the result. 

Have a good weekend,

Francesco.

Greetings to all,

This was a week spent deep in thought over the possibilities of machining for a tool. The week ended with the machining started...and the realization that (get pen and paper ready for the handy tip that is next) the tool should have been clamped​ in the vise at whatever angle was needed so as not to disturb the basic x, y, and z settings of the mill. As it is now, I can't accomplish any quick changes in machining directions, as wanted, because a change in one angle affects another...woe is me.

Just because you can change the x, y, or z settings to clamp a part straight, doesn't mean you should...you'll have to re-zero the axes when done...versus taking the part out of the clamp and being done. Lesson learned.

As a note on local Swiss weather, now that Friday is over, it's time to dig a tunnel through all the snow we got today so I can get home to the apartment. Everybody stay warm, dry, and well-fed!

Robert

Hello, 

Exhausting week, mostly been working on my tools trying to finish them up before the vacation so I can get to doing the winding stem as fast as possible after Christmas. Other than that, I’m trying to make a cube within a cube which will be a screw head for the polishing 3pod. Very interesting project and I’m almost done now, will take some photos and share with you next Friday, stay tuned!

Also trying to make new jaws for the micrometer so it will be useful for measuring the winding stem, only one week left and so much to do🤯 

Have a good weekend

-Å

STEP 1:  STOP WORK! (RENATO)

Renato completed his Maltese cross in steel for his stop work, it worked perfectly!

Renato milling the slots of the Maltese cross!

STEP 2:  NEW PROJECT! (RENATO)

Next project for Renato will be to make a return to zero hammer for the central minute counting function as it was missing in his pocket watch chronograph!

He will first make a brass prototype using the lower hammer as template and from that slowly adjust it for function. 

STEP 3:  WINDING STEMS! (DAVID)

David continued practicing making winding stems, here he is heat treating one of them!

STEP 4:  MILLING! (ROBERT)

Robert was working on his pointed nose vice, here milling it in the Aciera F1!

STEP 5:  FINISHING! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund was busy finishing some of his tools and also practiced more snailing, here he is setting up the milling head on the cross slide of the lathe before starting the finishing! 

STEP 6:  TOOLS! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco making new jaws for one of his micrometers!

He made some instructions and drawings for his jaw making!

STEP 7:  BOOKS! (KHWCC LIBRARY)

Very useful book about the watchmakers lathe!

STEP 8:  TOOLS! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund was also busy with milling a special shaped decorative screw for his tripod, will be interesting to see what shapes it will come out as!

HENRIK's WORDS:

We got massive amounts of more snow and forecasted even more in the next few days! Very busy workshops which is not surprising this close to Christmas, everyone wants to finish as much as possible before the holidays! As so many other previous weeks this one was also very diverse and interesting. Renato finalized his Maltese cross in steel and it worked perfectly! He will do the finish at a later stage in the course when he has manufactured some more watch parts, David continued practicing making winding stems and did two winding stem trial exams, Michael continued designing and drawing parts for his school watch project, Robert and Francesco continued with tools as well as making more suitable measuring jaws for a small micrometre they got. Asmund also tried some more ground snailing on his barrel including red gold plate it. Tomorrow we will go to Herrli in Bienne to get some more tools! Have a great weekend everyone!

COOKIES!

 WEEK 139

Michael

Origin : Malaysia 

Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill 

Current mood: After drawing on paper and found some limitations to some details for example different planes and overlapping. Also if there is something wrong or have to be edit, everything has to be redrawn and it’s not very time efficient so I decided to try Inventor. Managed to draw an escape wheel after some research and time. 

Renato & David

Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: This week I worked on creating a winding stem. Did some testing of heat treatment and winding stem bending in order to get ready for my winding stem exam. David

Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Origin: Italy, Norway, USA

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: 

Hello everyone, this week I started the restoration project. First of all I started with the profile projector, I drew the piece and then I measured all the dimensions. I’ve chosen to start with a brass prototype and see if it works properly, but suddenly I figured that we don’t have the right die. We have the normal pitch but I need the thin one. So I have to wait until I get the right one.

After that I started filing my last tool, the brass wheel truing guide and the steel angular ruler. 

See you next weekend,

Francesco

Hello, 

Two weeks left until Christmas, so our school admin decided that we would make Christmas cookies this Thursday. That was a fun day and got me in the Christmas mood. Now we have cookies for weeks🎄 

Last Sunday our teacher Henrik did some trials for finishing a wheel and that caught my interest as I have a few wheels that was in need for finishing. So I went on to make different supports and cutters, first I tested the classic method with shellac to hold the wheel, but I wanted something less messy, so I went on to try double sided tape which worked good. But I had an idea that a screw would be the ultimate as you don’t need to spend time with cleaning, changing tape or centering the wheel. Some time went into planning how I would do it, so the wheels would always be centered and also so the cutter could reach the middle section when doing the finishing. Tried different ways of snailing and sunray finishing and it turned out good, but I’m not at the point where I am satisfied yet, so I’m probably gonna spend the weekend doing some trial and error. Other than that I still need to finish the tripod and deliver it to Henrik for evaluation so I can start doing some black polish again, because that is so satisfying!! 

Head over to our Instagram to see the results for the wheel I finished(keep in mind that it’s one of the first trials I did). 

Have a great weekend. 

-Å

STEP 1:  FINISHING! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund practiced finishing ratchet and crown wheels, this is one of the practice wheels, the pictures above is the same wheel but under different lighting conditions!

Asmund setting up lathe with milling head to finish crown and ratchet wheels!

STEP 2:  COOKIES! (EVERYONE)

Making cookies! As the majority of us like cookies we decided to have a short brake from watchmaking and try to make our own cookies for the coffee break!

Improvisation!

Slightly inconsistent visual quality 😅 

STEP 3:  SPECIAL TUBE! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco used the profile projector to draw the original broken case tube before making a prototype for his restoration project! He then found out that unfortunately we have to make an order on a special cutting die as the pitch did not correspond to the normal metric ones we use in the school. 

STEP 4:  BOOKS! (KHWCC LIBRARY)

If you are interested in the history of the Swiss watch this is a good first book to start with!

STEP 5:  SNOW! (EVERYONE)

Feels like the real winter arrived!

STEP 6:  DRAWING! (MICHAEL)

Michael tried out drawing with the inventor program.

HENRIK's WORDS:

As forecasted we did get plenty of snow and this time it sticks around as the temperature got lower! Nothing much new this week except Asmund tried out grinding a snailed finish on ratchet and crown wheels. As we have not done anything together for sometime we decided to try to make our own cookies as many of us have it for the coffee break anyway, I think we got enough cookies to last us until next year probably! David continued practicing making winding stems, Asmund, Francesco and Robert continued with their tools and Michael continued designing parts for his school watch project but now with the computer program Inventor from Autodesk! It was a nice week in general! Have a great weekend everyone!