RESTORATION!

 WEEK 203

Team A

Origin: Sweden, The Philippines & Taiwan

Name: Daniel, Miguel, & David

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood:

This week David and I finished our brass truing guides and steel angular rules. We also did more winding stem exercises, practicing to file squares from round bars.

I also made on a wooden display stand for my winding stem exercise pieces.

Daniel continued working on his tools. He made the adjustment screw and guiding pins for his hand vice and the attachment for his polishing tripod.

- Miguel

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (20-24 February) Tetsu and Dean worked on the task items on their mandatory movements and also took another practice exam on barrels, wheel flatness, and wheel end shakes.  All of these items have been great to learn as it will help them with getting the best performance from vintage and modern movements.  After passing the practice exams, they took the actual exams, and passed!  This was a great way to end the week and look forward to learning the next components of their program.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Tetsu & Dean

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

Name: Renato, David L., Francesco, Åsmund & Robert

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week I’ve started a new restoration project on an old detent escapement pocket watch.

After taking all the measurements from the movement I made a winding stem, then I cleaned the movement and I took all the measurement for a new mainspring.

On one of the bridges both the chatons screws were not original so I’ve turned them in the lathe. 

Finally I practice black polishing with some screws. 

It’s going to be a really interesting project because a lot of parts need to be still fixed! 

See you next week for new updates!

-Francesco

This week we started working on the chronograph course movements. We studied several column wheel movements like Valjoux 22 and Valjoux 23 and also looked at cam operated movements like the ETA 7750 and the Valjoux 7734. We practiced fine adjustments to ensure correct operation.

-Renato & David L.

Team D

Origin: Finland

Name: Xinying

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood:

This week I continued hairspring practices and found it very interesting. Finnished the first practice box and I am continuing the second. Nice week over all.

-Xinying 

STEP 1: BLACK POLISHING! (FRANCESCO)

Left screw is the restored one and the right one is another unrestored screw from the same watch.

transition of light!

Light reflected into the camera! This is for a pocket watch that Francesco is restoring during the course!

STEP 2: SQUARE BARS! (MIGUEL & DAVID)

Square bars hand filed by Miguel in a fancy stand also handmade by Miguel!

Turned brass bars ready to be filed into square bars!

Filing the squares by hand!

STEP 3: TOOL MAKING! (DANIEL)

Daniel busy on the Schaublin 102 lathe making parts for his tools!

STEP 4: BOOKS! (ROBERT)

Robert had this very interesting book on loan for the school, very interesting to see the various tools watchmakers used in the past!

STEP 5: CUSTOM MADE SAPPHIRE CRYSTAL! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco got back the crystal he ordered for a repair job, great job by the crystal manufacturer!

STEP 6: TASTER COURSE! (HAROLD FROM CANADA)

Harold from Canada took the taster course!

STEP 7: HAIRSPRINGS! (XIN)

Xin enjoying the course on hairsprings!

STEP 8: NOMENCLATURE! (DAVID)

David found a good way of memorizing all the names of the chronograph parts!

STEP 9: NO SNOW! (EVERYONE)

All the snow disappeared in Le Locle!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

Unfortunately all the snow in Le Locle disappeared! Francesco started a pocket watch restoration! Daniel, David and Miguel continued making their tools, and also finished the hand filing square exercices! Renato and David had their chronograph course! Tetsu and Dean had another trial exam and decided also to do the real exam! Harold all the way from Canada came to take the taster course which was nice! The week went by in what felt like a few hours!! It was a really solid and intense week! Have a nice weekend everyone!

TOOLS & EXAMS!

 WEEK 202

Team A

Origin: Sweden, The Philippines & Taiwan

Name: Daniel, Miguel, & David

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood:

This week we started practicing for how to make winding stems by learning how to file squares by hand from a round bar.

- Miguel

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (13~17 February) Dean & Tetsu continued woking on the barrels, the winding & setting mechanisms, and the gear trains of the mandatory 7 movements. 

To prove that they were going to complete all the current tasks, Henrik gave them 2 chances to take practice exams to find out where their levels were.

In between times, Dean started making a balance staff for a Zenith movement to gain more repair points. He is also working on a winding stem for another service repair point job.  After doing some final timing, Dean submitted a Rolex Sea-Dweller to Henrik for his assessment of Dean‘s work.

Tetsu was getting to feel natural to work with tweezers and screw drivers and building up his confidence.

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:

David and I continued working on precision timing this week. David also did the hairspring exam. We also looked at the hairspring flatness and centering on high frequency movements. Really interesting to see how to identify both by observation or on video by watching the reflections of the coils. I also finished hairspring fitting on our practice movements including flattening and centering manipulations and started timing. Next week we'll have the chronograph course. That should be lots of fun!

-Renato

Hello everyone, 

This week me Robert and Francesco continued working with the escapement and perfecting the adjustments of the pallet jewels. It’s quite time consuming inspecting the pallets in the microscope, disassembling, adjust pallets in the escape meter, assemble and then inspect again - if it’s not good we’ll have to repeat the process😄 After awhile you get a good eye for positioning the jewels in a good spot to make it easier to see how to adjust them to perfection. Furthermore we also continued with trial exam earlier this week, before ending the week with the real exam yesterday. 

Soon our group will finish up the escapement subject and we will move onto the balance and hairspring work. Very looking forward to start working with the most sensitive part of the watch. 

Have a great weekend!

Åsmund 

Team D

Origin: Finland

Name: Xinying

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood:

This week I did the test for escpament course and finished remaining practices. Then I had introduction to hairspring course and will continue that next week.

Xinying 

STEP 1: TOOLS! (EVERYONE)

Sabri came by with some tools and vintage watch movements!

STEP 2: POWDER COATING! (ÅSMUND)

Asmund powder coated one of his vintage watch tools, really good looking unique color that he mixed himself!!

STEP 3: CAFETERIA UPGRADE! (WORKSHOP I)

The students of workshop I assembled in team work a furniture that came to very good use in the cafeteria next to our coffee machine!

STEP 4: MANUAL SKILLS! (MIGUEL, DANIEL AND DAVID)

David, Miguel and Daniel worked on filing squares by hand to understand the geometry of the winding stem square and also continued on the tool manufacturing, manual repetitive precise work is a great way to upgrade dexterity!

STEP 5: TWEAKING! (RENATO)

Renato busy tweaking hairsprings for optimum timing performance, here he is in the process of truing the hairspring flat and centred around the collet!

STEP 6: ESCAPEMENTS! (FRANCESCO, ROBERT & ÅSMUND)

Asmund Francesco and Robert had their real Swiss lever escapement exam this week and will try to finish as much of the remaining exercices by next week before starting the next course!

STEP 7: BOOKS! (ROBERT)

Robert got this book about time clocks found in some very serious safes of the past! very interesting indeed! 

STEP 8: TIME LOCKS! (ROBERT)

Of course, he also had to get a time lock to properly study the mechanism!

STEP 9: MOLFRES! (DEAN)

Dean proudly showing his Molfres and what its capable of!

Nice!

Such an impressive little machine and a time saver!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

Another sunny week and the snow is almost gone! although it did get cloudy and rainy on Friday! Francesco, Asmund, Robert and Xin had their real escapement exam this week! Daniel, David and Miguel continued making their tools, but also got introduced to the first excercise pre winding stem production! Renato and David L. continued timing movements, David L. also took his real exam! Tetsu and Dean kept pushing and got to make 2 trial exams, they will probably make one or two more next week! We also once again had Sabri swing by with his mobile vintage tool and watch part store, most of us got a bunch of hand tools and also movements for spareparts and for collections. It was a very intense week due to all the exams but really fun and enjoyable at the same time!! With this pace it will feel like a few weeks before we are on summer holiday :) Have a nice weekend everyone!