THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM!

 WEEK 186

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (24~28 October) Dean & Tetsu continued their basic training of pivot gauge turning.

From φ2.0 blued steel, base pieces were cut off to required lengths with 45° cones on both ends by using the Schaublin lathes. 

Then a piece with a glued carrier was set to the Horia 8mm lathes and turned down the specified area to φ1.0.

This will become a handle for a pivot gauge.

As the introduction stage, Dean and Tetsu were turning the blued steel with HSS (high speed steel) gravers before using hard metal (tungsten carbide) gravers, which they will be using heavily next week, so that they would understand and feel the differences.

The real work (pivot turning) will be coming shortly.

We wish you all a nice weekend! 

Dean & Tetsu

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

Name: Renato, David, Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

Hello everyone,

This week me, Francesco and Robert started off with an introduction to barrel service and restoration. Henrik taught us basically a-z on techniques and different approaches on how to handle barrels for all modern, vintage and even antique movements. He gave us 6 barrels in total with different faults and then we have to use what we learned to approach the problem and solve it, in other words this week was really busy with barrels. 

It’s great getting closer and closer to being able to service watches on our own! 

A few months ago I bought a micrometer stand with a micrometer attached to it. The micrometer only measured 0.01 and I wanted a digital micrometer which measures 0.001. The obstacle would then be that I had to make an adapter to attach to the stand and bore out a precise 8mm hole for the new micrometer, since the new one wouldn’t have fitted onto the stand. I decided to go with German silver for the adapter since that was the biggest bar I had available in school. I got my micrometer last week and it had a big round tip which is useless in my situation - back to this week; last evening I made a new tip with 0.75mm. The results are pretty great so far imo, but I need a way to lift the measuring tip for ease of measuring. 

 

Fransesco is still working on his school project and this weekend Henrik brought him to his brother to borrow some special equipment that he needed. Unfortunately we all couldn’t go, but Henrik took a lot of pictures of his workshop - and it’s a really well equipped workshop! Hopefully we might get a chance in the future! 

Have a good weekend! 

STEP 1: GRAVERS! (TETSU & DEAN)

Tetsu and Dean busy grinding gravers made from HSS to cut hardened and tempered steel by hand!

STEP 2: MODIFICATIONS! (DAVID)

David busy modifying a tool for escapement adjustments for upcoming practice exams!

STEP 3: WATCHES! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund submitted a collection of watches that he will later in the course overhaul and repair!

STEP 4: SCHOOL WATCH! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco and Michael went to Henriks brother to borrow some specialized tools for Francesco's school watch project!

STEP 5: MACHINING! (ROBERT)

Robert made his barrel closing tool!

STEP 6: HAND TURNING! (TETSU)

Tetsu got really long strains of blue steel when turning!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

 

The weather was a bit mixed but we got summer like conditions on Thursday and Friday! Renato and David did 2 Escapement practice exams this week and Asmund, Robert and Francesco worked mostly on preparing tools for barrels and mainspring work and also started to restore various size barrels, Tetsu and Dean continue to turn blue steel between fixed centres with HSS gravers! Me and Michael have been super busy preparing for the new students coming next week! Me, Michael and Francesco went to see my brother to use some specialized tools for Francesco's school watch project! It was a very nice week! Have a great weekend everyone!