MACHINING!

 WEEK 146

Team A

Origin: Thailand & USA, 

Name: A, Kate, David & Leilani

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood: 

Hello everyone! 

We (the 8 month technicians) are settling in nicely in this new town and have been doing a lot of sawing and filing to make tools that will be used during our course. This week we learned how to operate the Schaublin lathe. It has been really interesting to learn how to make screws and threaded holes with different methods, and I’m excited to see what more this course has in store for us! 

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: 

This week, (17-21 January) Tetsu and Dean worked on sawing and filing of the basic components of some of the tools they will be making by hand to be both graded as part of the Fullskill program.  Additionally, Henrik provided a tutorial regarding the use of the Schaublin 70 watchmaking lathe.  Fun fact: The “70” in the Schaublin 70’s name originates from the distance in millimetres between the lathe bed and the centre of the collet axis.  During the tutorial, Henrik demonstrated how to tap threads on the interior of a drilled work piece and how to cut threads on the exterior of the same piece.  As a bonus, Tetsu and Dean also had an impromptu trigonometry lesson related to calculating the cross-slide angle for cutting conical shapes; in this case, a balance bridge support.  After the lathe lesson concluded, Tetsu and Dean continued working on making their tool components.  Suffice to say that they have a very healthy appreciation of the work involved in filing brass to tolerances within +/- 0.05 millimetres!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

Name: Renato, David, Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: 

Hello everyone, this week me, Åsmund and Robert have been introduced to the 8 mm lathe. I’ve started turning some cylinders and cones. Then I calculated some dimensions for my school project and some technical stuff.

Åsmund started with his micrometer jaws in the milling machine, he has also done a bushing and two screws with the lathe for the jaws.

Renato finished the minute reset hammer for his pocket watch movement. Mainly turning the steady pins and press fitting them to the hammer.

-Francesco

STEP 1:  MACHINING! (ROBERT)

Robert was doing some very interesting machining of tripod screws!

STEP 2:  HAMMER! (RENATO)

After some adjustments Renato got his real steel hammer to work now and it only needs finishing! Nice!

Fitting the Steady pins!

Adjusting the steady pins!

Checking the fit of the steady pins before shortening them.

STEP 3:  TURNING! (TETSU)

Tetsu trying out the basic use of the Schaublin 70 lathe!

STEP 4:  TURNING! (DEAN)

Dean trying out the basic use of the Schaublin 70 lathe!

STEP 5:  SCREWS! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco turning some screws for his tools!

STEP 6:  HEAT TREATMENT! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco heat treating his screws!

STEP 7:  DESIGNING! (ÅSMUND)

Åsmund designed some new jaws for one of his micrometers!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

It seems everyone has settled in nicely in the school! The technicians and the new Fullskill students got introduced to basic machining such as drilling and tapping with a drill press, and also the basic use of the lathe, they tried out turning slender tapers, cylinders, drilling holes and tapping them, threading screws and parting off. Robert got very creative and designed and machined some very fancy screws for his polishing tripod, Renato was doing some final adjustments on his return to zero hammer and David did a few more winding stem practice exams aiming to do the real one next week. Asmund continued mainly with making a pair of new measuring jaws for his micrometre and Francesco did some designing for his school watch project. The week went by what felt like one day! It was also really enjoyable! have a great weekend everyone!