SOON X-MAS!

 WEEK 191

Team A

Origin: Sweden, The Philippines & Taiwan

Name: Daniel, Miguel, & David

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood:

This week we took 2 Filing trial exams for the male and female pieces.

After the first one, we learned from our mistakes and by the second exam our scores improved greatly.

We scheduled another 2 trial exams next week in preparation for the real exam.

In between we also got a refresher on how to use the profile projector to check the dimensions of our parts.

Miguel also made a brass replacement stopper for his caliper by hand.

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (28 Nov. - 2 Dec.) Tetsu and Dean turned more of their mandatory pivot gauges, some of which were graded by Henrik, of which the passing gauges were counted towards the amount required for graduation.  As they produce these pivot gauges, Tetsu and Dean also preparing for the four-hour time limit required for the exam.  In the meantime, they will undertake a practice exam next week to confirm they have a process in place to remove large amounts of material from their blanks in an efficient manner, so that as much time as possible may be allocated to turn down the final thousandths of millimetres, ensuring the pieces stay within dimensional parameters.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Tetsu and Dean

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

Name: Renato, David, Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

David and I continued in the balance program and we learned how to do static poising on the balance. Quite interesting and fun exercise! Nice to get a feel for how much to cut and where. After some time, getting a pretty good result goes rather quickly. I also started another servicing project, the rare Bulova 10AH monopusher chronograph. Need to put a nice one together from incomplete movements. Some very nice technical solutions on that in house chrono. Some probably only to prevent being sued for patent infringement :)

-Renato

This was a week of doing testing on a watch movement's winding/setting works and geartrain. Faults were introduced into the movements, we had a time limit to disassemble the movement and find broken or "modified" parts that needed to be replaced, then a time limit to continue on with the cleaning, lubrication, and assembly.

Tuesday was the module trial test, with Henrik grading them as if it was the final test. The feedback from the work we do is invaluable as a reminder of improving our methods and the time it takes to do them.

Thursday was the real test for this module, WE PASSED! 

Now that we are on Cloud 9 with that behind us, we will start the escapement module next.

 We have been a little cool here in Le Locle, yesterday was 0°C all day, today a couple of degrees warmer, but no snow...yet.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

-Robert

Team D

Origin: Finland

Name: Xinying

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood:

I started this week continuing flattening wheels and servicing barrels. On Tuesday I had lessons for the gear train and adjusting jewels. Finished one movement for the practice before returning barrel and flattening wheels. At the end of the week I had almost finished them for all the movements. Next week I will take a practice exam and continue with gear train and adjusting jewels.

Xinying 

STEP 1: SOON X-MAS! (EVERYONE)

When the Christmas decoration comes up we know its soon holiday!

STEP 2: TASTER COURSE! (AMER FROM SERBIA)

Amer came from Serbia to take the taster course which was really nice!

STEP 3: KIT WATCHES, TYPE A FLIEGER STYLE! (DEAN)

Dean putting together a nice type a flieger style watch!

STEP 4: SPECIALIZED TOOLS! (RENATO, DEAN, TETSU AND DAVID)

Renato, David, Dean and Tetsu learning about the MTM device from Horia for burnishing pivots! 

STEP 5: BALANCE STATIC POISING! (RENATO & DAVID)

Both David and Renato finished their static balance poising excercises and are now ready to move on with hairsprings!

STEP 6: WATCHES! (RENATO)

Some of Renato's private collection watches that he will make one functional one out of! very small mono-pusher chronograph watch! 

STEP 7: TOOL REPAIR! (MIGUEL)

A weak plastic part from Miguels calliper broke so he made a more rigid one in brass by hand filing it! Nice repair work!

STEP 8: PROFILE PROJECTOR! (MIGUEL, DANIEL & DAVID)

Daniel, David and Miguel got introduced to the profile projector by Michael in between their trial exams!

HENRIK's WORDS:

Cant believe how fast time flies! only two more working weeks for us then holiday!! The cold feels now raw and getting to the bones, it finally feels like real winter! It was a busy week as we became 12 students for the week! We had  Amer from Serbia taking the taster course which was really nice! We also had trial exams going in both workshops and Asmund, Francesco and Robert finished the real gear exam! and Miguel, Daniel and David had trial filing exams. Renato and David L continued their journey on the balance and hairsprings with static poising, they also got an introduction to the balance spring aka hairspring! Both Tetsu and Dean have finalized more than 50% of the mandatory pivot gauges which is really good progress for them, they are now ready to take their first pivot gauge trial exam and most likely that will happen next week!  Really a great week it was! Have a great weekend everyone!