Charles Birchall: A new journey begins

This is a face of a truly happy man.

We are extremely happy to announce that our (former) Canadian/English student, Charles Birchall, who graduated from the school this past week, got a job with Roger W. Smith in Isle of Man, Great Britain. Charles flew over to England on Wednesday so he could settle in before starting working after Easter.

For Charles, this is an opportunity of a lifetime since Roger W. Smith is considered one of the greatest living watchmakers, if not the greatest. He is a true craftsman and his passion and love for watchmaking is endless. Mr. Smith makes his watches "the hand made way", only around 10 pieces a year and each and every one of them are a piece of art. Mr. Smith is a former apprentice of the late George Daniels whom everyone who are interested in real watchmaking should know. If not, then we recommend you use Google and educate yourself.

Charles will now continue his journey of learning from one of the best watchmakers and we wish him all the best in his new job and of course for his whole future. We are kind of jealous of Charles!

Charles could not stop smiling.

If you are interested to know more about Roger W. Smith, then here is his homepage. Then we recommend you read few articles about him, such as this one and this one. Roger's youtube channel is also worth mentioning, very interesting and educational.

BaselWorld

We will be busy over the next few days because BaselWorld, the biggest watch- and jewelry fair in the world, is on-going. Most of the big players in the watch-and jewelry industry, and also the small players, participate in this fair which brings hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to Basel every year where the brands and the independent watchmakers introduce their novelties and socialize with their retailers.

KHWCC will be there to promote the school and do some networking so expect some inactivity until we are back. We will be posting few photos once we return to Le Locle, until then, take care and enjoy your weekend.

BaselWorld official homepage.

The blue box.

Can anyone guess what is going on here?

Sorry for the inactivity lately, we have been super busy!

Photos of the week.

It's Friday afternoon here in Le Locle and this has been a long but very productive week. Here are some photos of what we did this week.

Workshop 2 students continued with chronographs and they did dis-assembling, cleaning, assembling and oiling of a modular chronograph from Dubois-Depraz which can be a bit tricky to service.

Service manual.

The students were also introduced to the world's most common chronograph, the 7750 which is made by ETA. Good and solid chronograph, but not the most exciting or the most beautiful compared to more traditional chronographs.

Germán assembling and servicing the ETA 7750 chronograph.

Assembled but missing the oscillating weight.

Then we had some students that wanted to do electroplating for their special projects so Instructor Robert demonstrated how to utilize the plating machine and the basic steps of plating.

The palladium plating liquid being heated up to desired temperature.

A component being plated.

That's it for this week!

Article about bluing.

In January, we blogged about an article that Henrik Korpela, the director of K&H Watchmaking Competence Center, wrote exclusively for Watches by SJX. The subject of that article was a thorough step-by-step explanation how to flat polish a screw head, bevel the slot and round polish the thread end. If you missed it, here's the link.

Henrik wrote another article for Watches by SJX that was published a few days ago. This time it's about bluing (or tempering) and is an extremely interesting subject. If you are into fine watchmaking and want to know a little bit how things are done the 'hand made' way, why don't you take a look? We promise it's worth it.

Visit to Renaud & Papi manufacture

Last Friday, February the 13th, we were fortunate enough to be allowed to go for a visit to Renaud & Papi manufacture that is located only 250 meters away from the school.

At the modest Renaud & Papi facilities many of the world's most exclusive and expensive watches are made for some of the most prestigious watchmaking houses, most notably Audemars Piguet which owns majority of the manufacture. We felt extremely lucky and privileged to go there and see how they make watches and to witness their talented watchmakers work on pieces that cost more than most cars and even more than some houses. We saw their training workshop and had a nice talk with the in-house teacher there. After that we walked over to the part making department where highly sophisticated CNC machines mill and turn the components from blocks of brass and rods of steel. Then we visited the surface finishing department which finalizes the rough components made by the CNC machines by polishing the parts and decorating them before the watchmakers receive the "movement kits" to clean, assemble, oil and adjust. That was the most interesting part of the visit, to see the watchmakers work on their benches with those complicated and highly decorated movements. The main challenge for the watchmakers is to make all the components, in some cases over 500 separate components, work in perfect harmony without leaving any traces such as scratches or dust. Very impressive stuff.

As said before, some of the most exclusive and expensive watches in the world are built at Renaud & Papi. For instance, we saw this amazing watch being assembled and tested.

This particular watch from Richard Mille costs more than $1.5 million. The movement is very special with some exotic materials and mechanism such as tourbillon and bridges made from sapphire. The case itself is made from a solid block of sapphire and is extremely challenging to make. It completely blew us away to see this watch live, it's intimidating and fascinating at the same time.

 We thank Renaud & Papi very much for inviting us for a visit, and what a nice visit that was!

The teachers and students happy with the visit.

Balance staff!

Now when the program is coming to an end, the students are working on some private repairs, some of them are extremely interesting.

Brad Taylor is for instance servicing a vintage Bucherer chronograph, which has the legendary Valjoux 72 chronograph movement.

Quite a lot of components there, lets hope Brad doesn't forget how to assembly it again.

Charles Birchall went back to micro-mechanics this week when he started making a balance staff. Making of a balance staff is a dying skill but our student of course learn how to make one since we find it an absolute must skill to have.

Concentration.

Cleaning and checking the pivot.

Balance staff back in the Jacot tool for more burnishing.

And voilá, a balance staff!

Tomorrow afternoon we will be visiting Renaud et Papi manufacture which happens to be in a walking distance from the school. That will be an exciting visit since at Renaud et Papi they make some of the most exclusive and exotic watches on the planet for many prestigious brands.