WE ARE BACK!

 WEEK 197

Team A

Origin: Sweden, The Philippines & Taiwan

Name: Daniel, Miguel, & David

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood:

This week we came back to school from Christmas break and started by learning how to add angles to the lathe and reset to 0, use the milling machine to make our brass anvils and polishing tripods, as well as reviewing our previous lessons on filing, how to use the lathe and drill press.

Miguel

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (9-13 Jan.) Tetsu and Dean began the technician module of the Fullskill program!  Henrik introduced them to the maintenance of tweezers and screwdrivers, mainstays of watchmakers’ tool sets.  He also reviewed various other bench tools & materials such as checking tools, benzine, leather buff sticks, and staking sets.

Henrik also issued Tetsu and Dean the seven movements they will be working on during the technician module.  To start though, he provided 30 Incabloc settings for them to disassemble, clean, oil, then reassemble.

In summary, this was a great way for Tetsu and Dean to start the year.  They’re looking forward to learning more in the coming weeks.

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:

Hello everyone, 

First week of the new year done and Me Robert and Francesco have already dived deep into the theory on escapements. We first got introduced with the first types of escapements, like the verge, virgule, cylinder and rack lever escapements and then working our way through history until we got to the detent and Swiss lever escapement. Henrik has a few pocket watches with these escapements, so we could actually see how it works and operates. This gives a great insight and makes it much easier to understand. 

Furthermore we learned the theory on how to manipulate and repair broken or badly functioning escapements. We still got some more theory left to do, but next week we will start working on the escapements. Very looking forward to that 😊

Have a great weekend!

Åsmund

Team D

Origin: Finland

Name: Xinying

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood:

Back to school from the break! It took a few days to get the engine running but it is really nice to be back. Michael showed us how to work with milling machine and had also some theory about escapement. Continued with the practices and waiting for next week to really get into effective studying mindset.

Xinying 

STEP 1: SNOW! (EVERYONE)

It was a really nice beginning of the week!

STEP 2: MACHINING! (MIGUEL, DANIEL, XIN, AND DAVID)

Lots of machining this week!

STEP 3: WATCHES! (DEAN)

Dean submitted another watch from his private collection for overhauling!

STEP 4: THE ESCAPEMENT! (ASMUND, ROBERT AND FRANCESCO)

Robert, Asmund and Francesco checking what tools to use to adjust the balance endshake, which determines the rest of the divisions in the escapement.

STEP 5: IMPORTANT BASICS! (TETSU & DEAN)

One of the most important basic tool each watchmaker must respect and master the use of, is the humble screwdriver! 

HENRIK's WORDS:

We got greeted with a lot of snow and sunshine! Unfortunately, most of it rained away as it got warmer towards the end of the week, but its forecasted a lot more next week! Francesco, Asmund and Robert got introduced to the next course, the Escapement course, also Xin started the same course! Michael introduced Daniel, Xin, David and Miguel to the Aciera F1 Manual milling machine as well as other machining practice! Renato and David L. were mostly working on private repairs and some hairspring work! Dean and Tetsu got introduced to the technician course, where we covered the basics such as proper screwdriver and tweezer sharpening, as well as proper screw driving and handling of parts safely with tweezers, proper ways of disassembling and assembling mechanical watch movements as well as lubricating the winding and setting mechanism and a discussion on what hand tools typically watchmakers work with! It was a very busy first week as expected but also enjoyable and great to see everyone back again! Have a great weekend everyone!