PART MAKING!

 WEEK 134

Michael

Origin : Malaysia 

Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill 

Current mood: I have been practising some countersinks and experimenting with the Geneva stripes. It was very hard to make a proper Côtes de Genéve. It should be a thin layer and not deep cuts that will destroy the bevelling. I shall continue next week! Have a great weekend everyone! 

Kind Regards,

Michael Lau 

Renato & David

Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: Worked on a new setting lever for one of my pocket watches. I already made the pantograph drawing earlier. We figured it would be a nice exercise to do the whole lever on the jig borer. After drilling the two holes, the rest was mainly milling by rotation and radius adjustments around the rotation centers. Lots of measurement and angle calculation had to be done. Also interesting how the jig borer behaves when milling due to the lower rigidity vs. a milling machine. I now have very good control over the jig borer, especially with regards to milling. Excellent exercise! Renato

This week I moved on to finishing the tools that we have working on before the winding stems. I created 2 screw heads and m4 threads for them. I sandblasted one of them to see what kind of finishing I would get. The second I left with a machined finish. We also tested plating parts. David

Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Origin: Italy, Norway, USA

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: Hello everyone, this week I used the Schaublin 102 for the first time, I got really surprised how stable and how handy it is. I needed it for a special attachment for the polishing tripod. 

In the second part of the week I started finishing a pallet fork bridge from an old Tissot.

I’m practicing with internal and external bevels, it takes so much time!

See you soon, 

Francesco.

Hello, 

This week I mostly just practiced on black polish, blueing and making brass matt. Spent very long time experimenting with making large brass surfaces matt and getting it perfect without any micro scratches. Getting close, but not as perfect as I want. Also going to black polish all the screws in my 6498, but they are round so all of them has so be flattened. So I’m going to spend the weekend doing that 

Have a nice weekend.

Å

This week was an introduction to:

-The standing grinder and it's functions and  perils (loose clothing, ties, strings on hoodies...),

-Plating and the various metals available,

-Heat treatment and blueing of steel parts.

Otherwise, it was a continuation of last week, with work on bevelling and different methods to do it on inside and outside corners/angles.

While making tools, and selecting screws to use with them, it gave me a deeper appreciation for all the miniature sizes of screws. A tip-o'-the-hat to all the companies and people that make these fasteners in diminutive sizes, for reference, look at the size of a comma for a "small" example.

Weather here in Le Locle: The sun is shining every day, but the sounds of ice being scraped off windshields is heard every morning.

Have a good weekend!

Robert

STEP 1:  PART MAKING! (RENATO)

Partially machined setting lever!

Raw Setting lever!

Strategizing the manufacturing!

STEP 2:  TOOL MAKING! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco made his balance wheel support very fancy! Now he has to finish all the surfaces!

STEP 3:  FROSTING! (DAVID)

David practiced making a rougher type frosted look on this test bridge!

He also tried out the sandblasting machine, left screw sandblasted!

STEP 4:  MAKING SCREWS! (DAVID)

David making above screws for his tools!

STEP 5:  GENEVA STRIPES! (MICHAEL)

Michael practicing making Geneva stripes with different size discs on the Aciera F1!

STEP 6:  BOOKS! (KHWCC LIBRARY)

If you are into collecting vintage automatic Swiss wristwatches, this is the book to have!

HENRIK's WORDS:

Got really great fall weather in Le Locle! This week we continued practicing the various finishing techniques from last week and also learning the heat treatment of steel as well as electroplating the parts with black rhodium and red gold, We also continued with the tool making as well and Renato milled a setting lever in the jig borer, Francesco made his very fancy balance supporting tool, very good machining exercise! Next he has to finish all the surfaces! it was an interesting week as it was really diverse! Have a great weekend everyone!

FINISHING TECHNIQUES COURSE!

  WEEK 133

Michael

Origin : Malaysia 

Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill 

Current mood: It was a very busy week! Did some bevelling and finishing on steel. It was hard. First time doing it and it was a good start, more room for improvements. I also did some tools for black polishing and Geneva stripes. Looking forward to next week! Have a good weekend everyone! 

Renato & David

Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: Continued practicing various finishing techniques this week. Countersink polishing, matt finish on steel and brass, black polishing, corner filing. Also did Geneva stripes. Setup is everything there and then it's relatively easy to do. It was great to have another week to experiment and get more routine after the finishing week. It's all about the details and I figured out plenty of them this week :) Renato

This week I worked on skeletonizing a 6497 movement. I learned a lot of finishing, using the hand motor. I also learned what areas to avoid when skeletonizing in order to keep the integrity of a bridge or a mainplate. I also tried frosting finishing. David

Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Origin: Italy, Norway, USA

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: This was a full week of making some tooling, and spending time on putting bevels on small parts. And...most parts in watches happen to meet that category of "Small parts".

The beveling, for a beginner, can be very exasperating, just a small movement of the file, at a wrong angle, and you have to make corrections in that section of beveling, and perhaps in the adjacent beveling.

This is one of the skills where speed is not on your side, mistakes are easy to come by, and hard to fix. 

The tool making was a way to step away from beveling for a breather and make tools we will use, adding a little bit of pattern for grip.

Robert

Hi everyone, this week I kept on with finishing.

Yesterday I’ve just completed the yoke from the ETA 6498. I decided to change its shape, I filed until I got a a sharp external corner. Then I finished the flanks, the bevels and at the end I decided to do the matt surface on the flat surface. I started with the 800 paste but the grains where too small so I passed to the 600, it’s a bit coarser but in my opinion it turned out better.

Now I’m practicing with a bridge doing counter-sinks.

I’ve also ended with the aquamarine stones, I ground them until I got a round shape and I put it in the screw head of the scissor tool for the balance wheels.

See you next week, 

Francesco

STEP 1:  FINISHING TECHNIQUES COURSE! (KALLE, EDWIN, EWOUD)

STEP 2:  FINISHING WEEKII! (FULLSKILL)

STEP 3:  BOOKS! (KHWCC LIBRARY)

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

 

It got even busier this week! We had Kalle, Ewoud, and Edwin from Chronoglide in Holland taking the Finishing Techniques class this week, as its only one week we only have time to try out techniques and see how they work in principle, but we covered a lot; bevelling, graining flanks with two different techniques, black polishing, making and polishing countersinks, Geneva stripes, spotting, two different techniques of straight graining, and even some more techniques. The Fullskill class continued in the other workshop to practice what they learned last week as well as continuing with their tool manufacturing, indeed very enjoyable and fun week!  have a great weekend everyone!

FINISHING!

 WEEK 132

Michael

Origin : Malaysia 

Watchmaking class: Technician & Fullskill 

Current mood: Finally finished my final exams last week! This is the finishing week and lots of fun stuff to do! First time doing flanks and bevels. Very addictive! Just don’t know when to stop. We were introduced to the various finishing including Geneva stripes, frosting, Matt finishing and etc. Looking forward to next week to meet new people attending the finishing class for public. Have a great weekend everyone! Cheers! 

Renato & David

Origin: Zug, Zürich, Switzerland

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood: This week we learned different finishing techniques. We learned how to do Geneva stripes on the milling machine, frosting, straight graining. We tried bevelling and refinishing the flanks of different parts. We learned how to finish countersinks. David

This week was finishing week. We started with black polishing screws. Interesting to see all the finishing tools that can be used on various parts of the movement. Abrasive papers, polishing paste, various materials/shapes they can be applied on... lots of possibilities we explored. Sablage, frosting, Geneva stripes, straight graining... check. Week ended with working on a yoke on which we also practiced bevelling and polishing the bevels by hand and with a motor. Not done yet, but it was great to try several techniques to figure what works best for me. Renato

Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Origin: Italy, Norway, USA

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: 

Hello,

This week was very exciting. We have learned many different finishing techniques, black polishing, bevelling, make counter sinks, frosting, matt finish on steel and Geneva stripes. and even more to come next week as well. 

Spent most of the week experiencing with black polishing screws, bevelling and polishing a yoke. Preparation are key to perfection 

Have a great weekend.

-Å

Hi everybody, 

this week was really intense because of the finishing course. We had a lot of lessons: we started with the black polishing technique and I  polished screws and a crown wheel. Then Henrik showed us how to finish flanks, counter-sinks and some different techniques to make bevels. At the end of the week we learned to make steel matt looking, Geneva stripes at the milling machine and frosting with two powders. 

I have just started finishing a yoke lever from the ETA 6498. I have finished the flanks and I’m going to begin with hand bevelling. 

Have a nice weekend,

Francesco.

This week all prior projects were set aside while we received instruction on applying various methods of finishing (decoration) to watch movements.

Bevelling edges of parts, machining Geneva stripes, and other methods of finishing large, flat surfaces were the main focus.

Some time was also spent on tool-making to hold some of the smaller parts while they had the finishing work done to them.

Not much else to report on, as this week was heavy on the "Instruction & Demonstration" part of this watchmaking pursuit.

Robert

STEP 1:  FINISHING WEEK! (ALL)

Everyone busy with practicing various finishing techniques!

STEP 2:  WATCHES! (RENATO)

Renato show us one of his cool wristwatches! Not sure we can really trust all the values due to the quartz's crystal running at warp speed, 2.4MHz!

STEP 3:  BOOKS! (KHWCC LIBRARY)

This is a very enjoyable read! especially since it describes a lot of the life of the company and the people behind the chronometers as well as having some repair tips concerning marine chronometers.

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

As I suspected this week did get extremely busy! I introduced everyone to common classical finishing techniques such as Geneva stripes, making steel parts matt and black polished, Frosting on brass bridges with polished and bevelled countersinks etc. Since it was only a short introduction they will continue practicing next week and hopefully soon we have some nice finished parts to show you! This part in the course is always very exciting for everyone! And it continues next week with another 3 watchmakers coming for a similar finishing week as well. Very nice week!  have a great weekend everyone!