BUSY!

 WEEK 204

Team A

Origin: Sweden, The Philippines & Taiwan

Name: Daniel, Miguel, & David

Watchmaking class: Fullskill

Current mood:

This week we learned how to properly service and set our 8mm Horia lathes.

Next we learned how to refresh our grinding stone by rubbing it against a special kind of gravel.

Finally we began preparing our gravers with the required angle for us to use when we start our winding stem lesson next week.

-Miguel

Team B

Origin: Japan/Switzerland & Canada

Name: Tetsu & Dean

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week, (28 February~03 March) after passing the first exam of Watch Technician Course, Dean & Tetsu had a rather relaxing week.

They received a surface finishing lecture from Henrik and tried it out by themselves. The techniques were “black polishing” and “frosting,” which were completely different from each other.
“Black polishing” is a process used to produce scratch-less super shiny surfaces, often seen on screw heads.
The “frosting” creates a rough surface by using sand blasting beads and making a sparkling effect, seen on bridges.
As both are very interesting and useful techniques, the guys will be practicing next week as well.

For individual projects, Dean made his pallet fork platform for jewel adjustment on top of his mandatory 7 movements and continued more repair work.

Tetsu registered his first watches for repair points and started to disassemble and inspect the condition of them.


Wish you all a nice weekend!

Dean & Tetsu

Team C

Origin: Switzerland, Norway & USA

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

Watchmaking class: Fullskill 

Current mood:

This week we worked on going over the Chronograph modules like Dubois Depras and 2894-2 chronographs. We went over the careful way to replace and attach the module onto the movement, by making sure that all of the wheels are actuated. With that we completed the chronograph course.

-Renato & David

Åsmund worked on finishing some school tasks, and then started work on finishing a pallet bridge for a personal project. (Lots of work on bevelling the edges while looking at it through a microscope.

Francesco spent a lot of time restoring/refinishing a vintage pocket watch that has a detente escapement. Not just an ordinary timepiece, some of the parts were treated to a black polish, there was some sablage done...standards befitting the movement.

Robert was working on the escapements of the school supplied movements. One of the tasks involves setting the pallet jewels in new shellac.

"What is shellac", you ask? A resin secreted by the female lac bug, it softens at approximately 120°C, and once the pallet jewels are in the wanted position, the shellac hardens when removed from the heat. There you have it, a little known piece of watchmaking: Relying on a bug secretion for a critical purpose in modern watchmaking.

-Robert

Team D

Origin: Finland

Name: Xinying

Watchmaking class: Technician

Current mood:

This week I struggled with hairsprings. It was frustrating but I also learned a lot. Hopefully next week will go more smoothly.

Xinying

STEP 1: SERVICE! (DANIEL, DAVID & MIGUEL)

On regular intervals its necessary to take apart the 8 mm watchmakers lathe to inspect bearings for wear and then clean and lubricate them, especially when they are used 8 hours a day!

Daniel, David & Miguel adjusting the spindle of the Horia lathe to have the correct endplay!

STEP 2: FINISHING! (DEAN & TETSU)

Before finishing the screw!

After finishing the screw in different angles, Dean & Tetsu learn how to black polish steel watch parts!

STEP 3: MODULAR CHRONOGRAPHS! (RENATO & DAVID L.)

Renato and David L. learn the final part of the chronograph course; how to deal with modular chronographs!

STEP 4: ANTIQUE CHRONOGRAPHS! (RENATO)

Renato brought some of his antique chronographs and we had an interesting discussion comparing them to modern chronograph systems!

STEP 5: HAND REMOVAL! (DEAN)

Everyone interested to see how this willl work out! No pressure Dean ;)

On one of Deans watches (Omega chronograph) he had to remove the hands, in this case he was using a very stable hand removal tool for the removal of potentially very tight hands!

STEP 6: RESTORATION! (FRANCESCO)

Francesco was very busy this week to restore a pocket watch!

STEP 7: VINTAGE WATCHES! (TETSU)

Tetsu submitted some nice vintage watches to repair for later!

STEP 8: HAND GRAVERS! (DAVID, DANIEL & MIGUEL)

Daniel, David and Miguel learn how to sharpen gravers by hand, of course, as always without any type of guide or fixation tools to obtain the true skill!

STEP 9: FLY-PRESS! (TETSU & ÅSMUND)

Tetsu found out that suddenly the speed regulator on one of the Schaublin 102 lathe was stuck and the speed was fixed at one speed only, upon the disassembly of the mechanism it was found that one locating pin inside the mechanism had over time dislocated, this was fixed by Tetsu and Asmund driving in a new pin with the fly-press!

HENRIK's WORDS:

 

Will keep my words to a minimum as I am running out of time. It was a really creative and interesting week but also very intensive! Have a nice weekend everyone!