Cows are back

 You know spring is properly here when the cows return. 

Unfortunately it’s a rainy day for them. As for us, hard at work. Hair springs are still taking up all of my time and the other senior students. Our skills have greatly improved since we started, after many weeks bending springs under the microscope we are feeling much more confident using tweezers to manipulate the spring.

Gary made a new case prototype out of brass for a 7001, it’s looking sharp!

Some more good news, Jaewon do his wining stem exam  this week and passed! He’ll be moving on the pivot gauges.

That’s it for this week, until next time.

Fire and fury

This week we all just spent laboring away, the senior students are still working with hairsprings, almost understanding the secrets the coils hold. Preparing for their exam. Guilherme and Caio are understanding the frustration of hardening the winding stem and learning of the fickle nature of steel under high temperatures and cold water. 

Over in the other workshop, Chris, Gary and Phillip are making their way through the pivot gauges. A task which at the start seemed almost impossible, but now burnishing is coming naturally. As for Nick, still fresh off learning the drill, still got plenty to learn from the machines. 

Jaewon ever on his experiments, is trying hardening on winding stems of different materials and with different techniques. Results are inconclusive.

Hardening 

Until next time!

Watched and wondered

 Last Friday until Sunday, most of us stayed in Geneva to marvel at some lovely watches. We started off by stopping over at Time to Watches, a micro brand watch event with some very unique pieces. 

Keaton

After a nice lunch in Geneva old town, we hopped over to AHCI, the independents watch event. Here is were the real horology lies, and where you get the opportunity to meet the master minds behind the master works. 

Lederer 

Moving on, still on the same day by the way, we went for a gander at Cronipolis, yet another watch event. Some more lovely watches that you don’t get to see very often.

Sexy time with penguins

Now, us being pretty exhausted from watches, needing a break, we hit the streets for a good evening. Filled ourselves with a Brazilian barbecue, nectar of the Gods. 

The boys 

The night didn’t stop there, but unfortunately that will remain off the blog, anyways I digress.

Now on Saturday, we hit up the big boy, and go visit Watches and Wonders. Way saw way too many watches to talk about here. So I will just mention what stood out the most. We were lucky enough to get a meeting with Armin Strom in the press room. They unveiled to us their new 12:59 any time watch. An unequalled marvel, containing a minute repeater with the Westminster chime and double balance in resonance. All put into a lovely sized titanium case.

Voila

Now back to school, been a long week here for us. At workshop 1, myself, Bernd, Joan and Louis are making progress on the hairsprings, but those coils are really testing our patience. 

Gary is making some good headway on the production of lovely little case for a 7001.

At the start

Where he’s at now

The new student Nick has now started to learn the machines, as always starting with the drilling press.

That’s it for this week, until next time!

Watches & Wonders Inbound

 We’ll start off the coolest stuff. Our friendly neighborhood Craig is making amazing progress on his school watch. Although he has graduated, he has rented a bench to carry on his research into the mystical arts of horology. 

Curvy

All you see is designed and made by Craig, here using a sandwich method for the bridges, giving it a truly unique look. Not only that but also making curved Geneva stripes, putting the waves into waves of Geneva.

As for myself, I have been trying my hand at black polishing larger surfaces. Here I am attempting it at the regulator of a Zenith pocket watch. Black polishing and frosting.

Before 

After

Meanwhile, in my workshop, Caio and Guillerme have started learning the process of making the winding stem, a complicated part which required many steps to complete. Jae won has also been making progress with this task, here showing his hardened and tempered stem.

Gary has started to work on a case, looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Geneva for a weekend in watches, we are all super excited and we will catch you up next week.

New student!

 Hello everyone, this week we welcome a new student to our school! Nick has joined us from England and will be staying in Le Locle for the next two years. 

Welcome Nick

On some other exciting news, our school is getting some tool upgrades! We have some new lapping machines, installed this week. It’s now up to our professors to master its use, then to teach us these new skills. 

The big guns

Onto the students, Jaewon ever on his side quests is pursuing the perfect burgundy, or maroon, or Bordeaux. So he’s been has success on screws, but still working on bigger pieces.

Slick

Gary has plated some hands on his vintage Tissot and relumed. Also found a perfect crystal replacement. Looking lovely now.

Before 

Voila

Meanwhile Chris, is doing some science experiments, a screw head broke with the screw in the watch. Unable to remove the screw Chris decided to melt it out. He dipped the bridge in warm sulphuric acid to dissolve the screw, it was successful. 

That’s it for this week, see you in watches and wonders!

Happy Easter

 Starting off with the most important event this week. Craig’s graduation!! We threw a little party in the workshop in honour of our new graduate, speeches drinks and diplomas were given.  

Happy teacher and happy student 

Congratulations Craig! We’re all excited to see the watches you will make. He is our 41st fullskills graduate!

Craig’s family joining us

This now making Bernd, Louis, Joan and Cesar the senior students. We are still making our way through the hairsprings, definitely the most patience testing part of the course. One slip and hours of work are gone. A lot of time is spent flattening and centering the hair spring around the collet, a crucial step in order to get good timing out of a watch later down the line.

This is not a happy sight

But we are persevering and making progress. Trying not to lose ourselves in the spirals of the spring. 

Chris in the meanwhile found himself a little hidden treasure. A pocket watch belonging to a priest with a very nice Moser calibre. 

Bearing the Moser stamp

Closer up

Now we break off of a long weekend to enjoy the Easter break and ponder what rabbits and eggs have to do with the resurrection of Christ.

Happy Easter !

Daddy’s home

 Michael has returned! Much missed by his class, the whole gang is back together. Heavy snow fall followed Michael back to Le Locle for this never ending winter.

A busy week for myself, have been working on a balance staff replacement for an old Russian watch. My first restoration of this kind, and a difficult one. With the guidance of Michael it’s all done by Friday afternoon. Beating happily away.

Alongside, Caio and Gui have now learnt how to operate every machine in the school and are now moving on the watchmaker lathe. 

While Chris, Gary and Phillip are learning how to properly service said lathe.

Short blog this week, but until next time!

Little excursion

 A fun week this week. We were all invited by Nicolas from Cenic watch parts for some pizza over at his lovely store. He had received some new tools and watches, which we are all excited to see. We had lunch together outside with plenty of pizza to go round. It’s always great visiting his treasure trove of a shop, thank you Nicolas!

Some happy students 

Marvelling at his watches

A unique school watch minute repeater

After a day of pizza, we were treated to a day of cake! It being Kaio’s birthday we sang and ate. 

Onto Kaio’s work, making his way through the start of the micro mechanics, he’s finishing up the shapes of his tools before the continues with the more detailed work.

Tools coming along 

Guillerme is doing some restoration work on the Jacot tool he just bought from Cenic. One of the runners was missing a cap, so he turned and sawed one for a seems fit.

Existing and new caps 

Sens is here learning how to find leaking spot on a watch case. He used the water pressure tests to find that the case failed the test, then used the leak finder to isolate the leak.

Craig is pursuing some side quests, doing a full overhaul of a lovely Valjoux 23, an iconic chronograph.

Very sexy

Here is Joan’s radioactive dial.

As for me, I’m doing some experimenting on making frosted dials. Slowly making progress, but it’s nice to see that I’m heading in the right direction.

That’s it for this week! 

Until next time 

Time for celebration

 We are all in high spirits thanks to Craig’s final exam result returning. Craig is now a fully fledged watchmaker, and his journey is just beginning. So a huge congratulations to Craig, we are all very happy for him.

Now that Craig has spare time on his hands, he took the opportunity to teach us aspiring watchmakers his techniques to bevel wheel teeth. 

Craig (blue coat) sharing his secrets

Onto the other students, Joan also took an exam this week. Having done his escapement exam. A difficult and tedious exam. After having passed the exam very nicely, he has now started to restore a vintage IWC.

Cute lil guy

On the topic of buying watches, Jaewon has also made a special purchase, having acquired the legendary Valjoux 23.

A beauty

Chris accomplished a great feat. He made a negative set winding stem. Adapting a pocket watch crown and stem to have a pusher which goes through the winding stem.  A very difficult task, as you need to drill and very thin and very long whole through the stem. He did this by drilling two hole from different sides which met in the middle.

Finally, here we are celebrating Guillerme’s birthday!

That’s it for this week, until next time!

Big day today

 On this sunny spring Friday we are all rooting for most senior student Craig. He has just finished his final exam, and is in a good moral. Best of luck Craig, and until next week! 

For the rest of us, working away. It has been an interesting week, with parts disappearing in mysterious ways. Here I am staring at the dust attempting to find something of value. 

I did not find it

In our workshop everyone is up to different quests, some are machining and plating, others are working on hairsprings and escapements. Joan is making progress on adjusting pallet fork jewels. Aiming to get no mislocks and safe play, while keeping a good run to the banking and even total lock.

Pallet fork adjustment tool 

Meanwhile Louis is working on the hairsprings, here you can see him two double bends, his spring centred between the regulating pins and the collet centred over the jewel. Very tedious work, Louis did a good job at it. 

Here we can see a before and after 

In the other workshop, Gary is touching up his Jacot tool doing some pretty decoration, after many hours of labour we have the finished product.

Sparkles 

Sens is now spending his time servicing watches that come across his bench, this week he’s working on a very cute Maurice Lacroix.

Cutie

That is it so far, until next week!

Clouds on the horizon

Stormy week over here in Le Locle, signs points to an end of winter but we will not get our hopes up yet. 

This week the workshop 1 students; Bernd, Louis and myself have started learning the ever exciting and frustrating topic of hairsprings. Slowly hypnotising our selves in the spirals. We learnt the assembly of a balance wheel, attaching the spring to the collet and the stud, flattening and centring the spring. Still a lot more content to cover next week.

Joan took and passed his gear train exam this week, now being a step closer to finishing up the course content.

I took apart an old pocket watch for restoration and found a very bizarre pallet fork. We assumed it was some bad restoration job done in the past. The pallet fork has no axel but sounds around in a fixed post.

Jae won is working on his brass anvil and making quick progress.

We are joining up two weeks of content this time. A lot has been happening these last few days. We’ll start with the most important, Craig started his final exam! Yesterday he took his theory exams and today he filled in the scratch sheet and more. Next week he will start servicing and off he goes. 

The other senior students have finished up learning all the content of servicing a watch up to the timing. Learning to assemble the entire balance wheel, use the vibrating tool, static and dynamic poising along with hair spring manipulation. All very exciting stuff.

Disassembled balance 

Chris, Phill and Gary are figuring out how to burnish pivot gauges, a sensitive skill where a small sneeze can ruin hours of work. 

Chris’ pivot

Jaewon has done some very nice grattage on his brass anvil, came out very nicely.

That’s it for this week, until next time.