TASTER COURSE!

 WEEK 151

Origin: Thailand & USA, 

Name: A, Kate, David & Leilani

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood: 

The technicians have been quite busy! We have had three trial exams for the Gear Train in the past two weeks. We are graded on cleanliness (THE most important aspect of watchmaking), screw tightness (second only to cleanliness in importance), flatness and endshakes of gear train wheels, lubrication of the winding and setting mechanism, proper positioning of the mainspring bridle, and lubrication and endshake of the barrel. The final exam is coming soon. We have also been assessing power reserves in automatic movements using a technique that is quite simple but very reliable. A few of us have used the lathe to make custom anvils out of brass and steel for the Horia tool. These come in quite handy when adjusting jewels. At the end of next week, we’ll be a quarter of the way through our course. Time is truly flying by!

-David

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (21~25 February) started with a bit different feeling…, our first proper exam was on the way.

Dean & Tetsu did the first trial exam last week and graded the pieces on Monday. Based on the results and explanations given by Henrik, we had another chance of trial exam on Tuesday followed by the results on Wednesday.

We still have a lot of room to improve, but at the same time we are improving and building our confidence towards the first proper exam of the micro mechanics program. Hence, the judgement day has come on Thursday.

We have had enough time to prepare beforehand and material pieces are now on the workbenches together with all the necessary hand tools. Starting at 8h and finishing at 17h with an hour lunch time between, we put our effort to accomplish the task.  With the time constraints, not everything goes smoothly as you expect but it is our current ability.

At the end of the day, the pieces were done and handed over to Henrik for the verdict…

On Friday, we both got a pass and will be moving on.

Even in this situation, we still managed to find a time slot to gain some more experience with Agathon grinding machine to sharpen the gravers and also worked on tool making, which would be graded in the near future.

Now we are allowed to use the machine without Henrik’s supervision.

Another week went by unbelievably quickly. We have finished one thing and are going to face many more tasks to come.

No time to stand still but no rush, steadily and surely.

We wish you all a great weekend!

Dean & Tetsu

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

Name: Renato, David, Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood: n/a

STEP 1: VISITOR! (DANIEL)

Daniel from Sweden came for the taster course/bench test which was very nice!

STEP 2: JAWS! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund assembled back his micrometer, but now with his own jaws!

STEP 3: FILING EXAM! (TETSU & DEAN)

Dean in one of his trial exams!

STEP 4: ANVILS! (TECHNICIANS)

The technicians found out that you can't buy commercially all the sizes of anvils and pushers needed to be able to service and repair watches at a high level, so they made several custom ones for themself! 

STEP 5: GRAVERS! (ÅSMUND, FRANCESCO & ROBERT)

Asmund, Francesco and Robert also learn how to make slot gravers!

STEP 6: TECHNICAL GUIDES! (RENATO)

Renato got this technical binder about Longines watches, and found some technical info for his Ultra Quartz!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

 

 

I will keep it short as I am running out of time! This week was extremely busy with trial exams for the technicians but also Dean and Tetsu had their real filing exams. Daniel from Sweden came for the bench test/taster course which was very nice! A balanced but also very intensive week! Have a great weekend everyone!