Jump (excuse the pun) to our first second year test exam

This week we had our first second year test exam.; Winding and setting, barrel and gear train exam.  We have nothing too special to report back this Friday due to that we have been practicing the same exercises as last week in order to be fully prepared and more experienced for the real exam next Friday. Yi-Ting also brought an interesting hand wound pocket watch with fly-back retrograde minutes and digital jump hours to show everyone, she plans to restore this piece later in the course.

Yi-Ting's special pocket watch with fly-back retrograde minutes and digital jump hours. 

CJ practicing mainspring installation.

Yi-Ting working on wheels. 

Beginning of the Eyesight testing

This week, we started to practice truing wheels and put the jewels flush with the mainplate. These are the last two parts for our upcoming exam at the end of this month. Truing wheels is much harder than we thought. Our target iss not only make the bended wheels functional but also make them as flat as possible. We even tested our wheels under the microscope. Haha i think this is more about eyesight testing than watchmaking. Installing jewels is a little bit simpler than truing wheels. We just need to choose the right size of anvil and pusher. We dont want to damage the most expensive part of the watch. Next week we will practice more and will be well-prepared for the exam. Ciao.

Getting ready to make wheels flat.

Stan is checking the wheel.

Discussing with each other make us more easier to get the hand of  the skill.

Yi Ting is looking for the bent point.

That's the quality we want for flatness.

Oiling Winding and Setting Mechanism

We worked on assembling and oiling winding and setting mechanism this week and today spent a day and half introducing both theory, manipulating, and oiling about barrel and mainspring. Still, the most important thing is Cleanliness and well Organized.  

We start practice oiling from winding and setting mechanism of 6498 and several ETA caliber such as 2824, 2892, 7750 and so on.

We clean our table everyday when we start working as a habit, and during work also try to organize ourself.

And the rest is keep practicing and make ourself fimiliar with the mechanism in different caliber.

Flatness, Straightness and cleanliness are important in watchmaking. Stan is observing the flatness of the barrel. 

Always see something after oiling. In winding and setting part, we prefer more than less oiling.

This could become our Friday tradition. But we expect ourself lose as less parts as possible in the futrue. 

SIHH 2018, Visitor, shock absorbers, and Movement assembly

 Last week was SIHH 2018, and Yi Ting and Stan went there to join this big event for watchmakers and watchlovers. This is our first time to join this kind of event. In the SIHH, the more interesting section for us is some indenpendent watchmaker brand. For this small brand, they normaly  dont have as many as different calibers or models than the big brands, but they always show the amazing hand-finishing and unique innovative design for the movement. Hence, these indenpent brands more attract our attention. We will certainly come back next year.

    This week,We change to white coat as a real watchmaker,and we learned a lot new stuff. We learned how to oil the shockabsorber and disassamble and assamble the ETA movement. Both are new and challenging for us. By doing these things, we feel we are closer to the real watchmaker, and it feels great. Really excited for the upcoming challenges.

Felix practicing shock absorber manipulation

Disassembly, oiling and assembly of shock absorbers.

Practice movements for all.

We also got visitors, to the left Julien working for Laurent Ferrier  and his friend Maëlle (right) who is studying watchmaking in Bretagne, France, both super passionate about watchmaking and we wish both of them the best watchmaking experiences for the future. Its really cool for us to meet the real people in this industry we feel very lucky!

Taking notes about safety when using special screw disolving acids.

One click screw broke by over tightening it in the barrel bridge so we had to also learn how to cook it out with a special solution called vissin, this acid does not disolve the brass bridge but only the steel screw, genious!

The begining of the watch course!

We officially step into the watch course of this two year program this week. Starting from introduction of time concept and basic movement structure. Also, very important, like graver to lathe, before disaasemble movement we have learn how to maintain screwdrivers. Screwdriver is usually made from blue steel and should be properly maintained every day after daily work. If not, we may scratch the movement badly. Which is really not something you want to be doing.

This week is also SIHH 2018, some of the classmates visited the show and we will update some pictures next week.

We are finally using the theory room to learn some theory course. Sif looks fade out. haha...

CJ maintain his screwdrivers. We have to prepare 24 Henrik certified screwdrivers for later use.

Some of Sifs finished screwdrivers.

Yi Ting black polishing screws.

Stan black polishing screws.

Tripod from Stan, treated with black rhodium in main body and red gold in screw head.

Happy New Year!

We are back from Christmas holiday and the time has started to fly again, we feel like we just arrived back but already one school week has passed.
On our first week back we mostly continued our previous tasks while we settle back in to our routine. however many interesting tasks await as the second year curriculum starts next week.



 

beveling is one of the more satisfying jobs to do.

Stan making screws

CJ doing the frosting on bridges.

Christmas is coming

Time fly’s. It's almost the end of the year. We are on our way to our Christmas holiday so this is our last week before our vacation.

Before the end of the semester we finished our tools and plated them so they look nicer. Everyone had his/her own design for the outlook of the tools. They look really cool. In addition, we finished our final theory exam, and we are free from now. 

One of Yi-Ting's tools after finishing and plating.

Polishing tripods ready for surface treatments. 

CJ is doing the beveling

Early this week, we had a great chance to visit Urban Jürgensen which is a historic watch brand. In their place, we saw their amazing watches, finishing, and also how they polish the hands and do the Grenage on the dial. After the visit, we hope that if someday we could work in Urban Jürgensen that would be really cool. Thanks for the hospitality of Urban Jürgensen. 

Group photo in Urban Jürgensen

They are polishing the hands.

Everyone is amazed with the result.

Cool blueprint of a lever escapement. 

Historical document, Urban Jürgensen is more than 243 year old company.

After the visit, we went straight ahead to Mr. Simonin speech in Neuchatel at EPFL, microcity, he share his watch career on the event. He is really a living legend and dictionary of watchmaking. We could always learn something from him. It's nice to meet hime again.



In the last few days, we also got some tin bars, and we made our own tin plate for polishing. It's really easy to make one. We think we could use these tin plates for our entire watchmaking career.
Last, Merry Xmas for all KHWCC friends and alumni.