WEEK 115
Alex, Michael
Origin : Taiwan, Malaysia
Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill
Current mood: We both had an introduction to the making of the ETA 6498 hour wheel and had our Hour wheel Exam during the week as well. The P.P. Thornton wheel cutter was still in great condition despite being used over the past ten years or so. Hopefully the summer will ‘soon’ go away because working in SWEAT is definitely not nice!
Renato & David
Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland
Watchmaking class: Fullskill
Current mood: This week I worked on designing the pointed head nose vice. After determining the exact dimensions of the rectangular shape, I worked on determining the angles of the pointed head. I made a 10x larger drawing on millimeter paper, which helped reduce the possible measuring error from the thickness of the pen used to draw the lines. After placing the drawing in the profile projector it was easy to measure the angles of the pointed head. I then took the 2 angles and made a test piece in the milling machine with the angled vice attachment. On this vice attachment the angles can be set on different axes. During this I was faced with an error. The piece was milling in an angle, which took time to realize that my test piece was not perfectly square. I had to mill all of the sides flat to ensure a stable and equal grip in the vice. Doing this corrected the error, and I milled the two angles that Measured in the profile projector. Taking the test piece I went back to the profile projector to measure the angles, where I found that my angles were indeed correct. Another challenge was calculating how much to mill down to get the perfect dimensions on each side. This was calculated by drawing parallel lines with a protractor to be able to measure the distance between the outer corner to the depth I would have to mill down. I moved on to milling my final piece which was already prepared last week. On one side I made an error, where I milled too much by accident, which I had to rectify, this will result in losing some points for that side during grading. Altogether it was a very successful week, where I pushed through many obstacles. Next week I will have to finish all the angles of the final piece, and then move onto drilling the holes, threaded and pressure fitted. (David).
Did another few base pieces on the lathe to make Horia pushers/anvils later on. Then prepared the brass base for my own design of the pallet fork holder. Besides that I spent quite some time with preparing 3 different gravers for hand graving on the India stone and Arkansas stone. Then I finally did a test piece on the jig borer, since we had the intro by Henrik and later on I started drilling the holes on the brass anvil on the jig borer. Unfortunately the 1mm drill broke during the automatic feed, so we'll have some fun dissolving it in acid next week (extraction). Also got a pretty cool aluminium saw from China and it's actually working perfectly (with proper blades) and build quality seems great. Very light as well :) Cool week! (Renato).
Francesco, Åsmund & Robert
Origin: Italy, Norway, USA
Watchmaking class: Fullskill
Current mood: Hello, my name is Åsmund and i am from Norway( I am the first Norwegian attending the two year course, that’s quite cool!).
This is my second week and i have mostly been filing for two weeks straight. I got drawings of tools I am going to use during our course and it’s going to be useful for my career later in life as well. So that’s pretty interesting that I already started with something that will be useful for me, that way I will make sure it will be something I will be proud of. The four tools I have been making are balance bridge holder, brass wheel truing guide and a poising plate with square screws. The last one we could make our own design on it, so I tried to make it like my first letter in my name. ( see pictures, keep in mind that it’s far from finished. - will update later when it’s finished )
Until now I have been practicing sawing and filing thus far, mostly coarse filing and a little bit finer for maintaining flatness and making the corners sharp. Henrik has just showed me how to drill holes and threading which we are going to use on the tools, so I might start on that next week.
Cheers!
Åsmund
Name: Markus McDonald.
Origin: Stockholm, Sweden.
Course: 2 years full skill course.
Current mode: This week was focused on the preparation for the final exam.
Origin: Stockholm, Sweden.
Course: 2 years full skill course.
Current mode: This week was focused on the preparation for the final exam.
Specially both the theory and practical, for the practical I did practice exams. These went well and where necessary as I was able to work on potential blind spots and do the entire movements according to the specifications of the exams which although stressful was worth it.
For the theory, I re read a chunk of theory for the various sections.
All and all this week was quiet intense but good preparation and additional preparation for next week will be done on the weekend.
STEP 1: HOUR WHEEL MAKING! (MICHAEL & ALEX)
Finishing!
Checking the profile in the profile projector!
A practice hour wheel made during the week!
STEP 2: TAPPING! (FRANCESCO)
STEP 3: BUSY WEEK! (RENATO)
STEP 4: BOOKS! (RENATO)
STEP 5: MOVEMENTS & WATCHES! (RENATO)
STEP 6: BALANCE SUPPORT! (ÅSMUND)
HENRIK's WORDS:
Another busy week and hot! temperature keeps going up, now I need it to go down! 😅 The new Fullskill students got introduced how to drill holes with the drill press as well as how to tap with it, since they will later need to make some threaded holes for their tools. Michael and Alex got introduced to the hour wheel making, we all made one together and then they made one each as practice exam and the real one after. Renato got introduced to the jig boring machine and did some trials with it and David worked on his pointed nose vice in the milling machine. I also helped prepare Markus for his upcoming final exam next week as well. Very diverse and interesting week!! Have a great weekend everyone!
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