FILING EXAM WEEK!

  WEEK 126

Michael

Origin : Malaysia 

Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill 

Current mood: I have been Bee-zy doing repairs for the whole week. Have to accumulate repair points to qualify for the final exam. Wish everyone have a great weekend! 

Renato & David

Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: Took my time and worked on the winding stem this week. Always good to do it slow the first time and think about each step and how to do it best. Following pieces will go much faster then. Clear is, the more sharp gravers I have prepared before each stem, the better :) First winding stem is done, except for the finishing, which I started to try out on a test piece today. Hand turning silver steel with HSS gravers is quite time consuming and needs sharp gravers. Threading went fine with minimally bending the stem, while heat treatment worked well too without further bending. No need to bend it back, but I straightened several industrial winding stems that were bent successfully, which was a lot of fun. Looking forward to do the polishing of the stem as the last part next week! Renato

This week was the first time I actually got to turn on the 8mm lathe. I used the gravers I sharpened last week to create brass parts. The most challenging part was to try to turn round tips to match a specific roundness from a gauge. It only fit if the part was the exact roundness. David

Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Origin: Italy, Norway, USA

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: This week I kept on with filing, in particular I focused myself on becoming faster and more precise during the filing, the measurements and the finishing. Those are essential skills for my next exam. 

Francesco.

This was a week in which a few more projects moved closer to completion, and I got a sense that things are starting to gel. I made a new baseplate for my balance bridge support, the original base went out of tolerance on the top and bottom surfaces as I was removing surface scratches with a coarse abrasive. Lesson learned: The center of the abrasive surface wore down faster than the edges, and as the baseplate was moved around the surface of the abrasive, the outside edges had more material removed from them than the center. Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until the baseplate was moved to a finer abrasive, and the expected flat, even surface, was not in evidence.

Now working on a press-fit project, experimenting with various sizes for an interference fit.

What made the week even better, Wednesday and Thursday were perfect weather-wise.

Robert Gordon

STEP 1:  THREADING! (RENATO)

Renato threading his winding stem!

Making an iron basket for the winding stem to be in during the hardening procedure!

Cocooned winding stem!

After hardening, tempering and slot turning its now ready for the finishing stage!

STEP 2:  TURNING! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund turning a balance bridge holder conical pin.

STEP 3:  FILING! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco hand filing! 

STEP 4:  BOOKS! (RENATO)

Another nice military watch book on loan from Renato!

STEP 5:  WATCHES! (RENATO)

Here is some interesting info about the viper stamp; https://www.besancon-ville-du-temps.fr/la-vipere-ou-le-poincon-de-lexcellence/

Another nice pocket watch from Renato!

HENRIK's WORDS:

Interesting week! We had one visitor, a student from the United States who will be with us from January next year. Renato continued his winding stem journey and completed all the steps but without finish, next week he will practice various methods how to polish steel and then apply some nice shine to it! Asmund and Francesco had their filing exams this week, so lots of hand filing the whole week for them! Michael continued repairing watches to get ready for the final exam, David practiced the basic cuts such as cylinders with flat shoulders and sharp corners, convex and concave shapes, cones etc. on the 8 mm lathe by hand turning them. Renato showed us another really interesting pocket watch! Very interesting week we got! Have a great weekend everyone!