Busy Week!

 

Week 35

 

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A+B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Mun, Nine
    Craig, Dunham, Ivan, Louis, Sheikh, Varun 

     This week Art and Nine continued working on pivot gauges. Art finished his 0.15mm pivot gauge!

    This week Daniel, David and Miguel started their practice exam for the final exam! Next week they be very busy servicing their 5 movements.

David preparing his bench for the practice exam.

Miguel's bench set up with the documents for the exam and the boxes for the 5 movements.

 

    This week Ivan, Louis and Varun started their hairspring course. This week they learned how to rivet the balance staff, press fit the roller table, do static poising and pin the hairspring into the collet.
  

    This week Sheikh learned how to flatten wheels and how to correct the end shake and side shake of the barrel.

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Bench Test!

 Week 34

This week we had a bench tester, Mauro from Connecticut, USA!

Here is learning how to black polish screws!

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A & B

Students:

Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Nine & Craig and Dunham

This week Art and Nine continued working on making pivot gauges.

Here Art is using the lathe to part off more blue steel blanks for pivot gauges.

    This week Daniel and Miguel continued to work on their 7 movements. They need to finish servicing them before the final exam.

    This week David serviced his own Seiko 7s26 movement.

    This week Craig took his winding stem exam and passed, Congratulations to him! Now he can move on to learning how to make pivot gauges.

    This week Dunham machined his barrel arbor, ratchet wheel, crown wheel, and all the pinions of his school watch.

Here is dunny's completed barrel!

Here is the steel bar with his ratchet wheel blanks

The completed pinions of his watch.
Top to bottom: Escape wheel, 4th wheel, center wheel and 3rd wheel.

The escape wheel pinion is very small! compared to Dunham's finger. The pinion is only 0.8mm in diameter!

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Back to school!

 

Week 33

We are back to school after summer break and it is scorching hot in the workshops!

 

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A & B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Nine & Craig

     This week Art and Nine started learning pivot gauges! 

Here Nine is turning the cones for the ends of the pivot gauge blanks.

Art is parting off segments of a blue steel bar to make the pivot gauge blanks.

Here Michael is teaching them how to glue their pieces in the carriers and seat them in the Jacot tool.

Close up of the carrier and blank in the Jacot tool before turning the pivot.

    This week Daniel and Miguel continued to service their 7 movements. Daniel finished the 2801 and 2824. Miguel is working on his 6498 and 2801.

    This week David made a new date wheel!

On the left is the original which was missing a tooth. On the right is the new one that David turned on the lathe.

He finished it by round graining with sand paper and then plating it in white rhodium.

     This week Miguel also made a custom Horia anvil to support the roller table of his 2801, 2824, 2892 and 2671 when pushing on the hairspring.

Here it is along side another custom anvil that Miguel made but this one is for the roller table support of the 6498.

    This week Craig took his winding stem practice exam! He passed, but there is still some room for improvement.

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

SUMMER COURSE - HAIRPSRING WEEK

HAIRSPRING MANIPULATION AND VIBRATING

Everyone successfully completed the hairspring course!

Marcus from Sweden doing vibrating.

Praveen doing hairspring manipulation

 

 

Nacho doing hairspring flatness and centering

 

 

Anastasios manipulating the hairspring

Calvin doing hairspring manipulation

Fran manipulating hairspring

Manel vibrating hairspring

Students exchanging contacts on the last day.

It was a wonderful experience to teach the hairspring course. We gained so much throughout the week by sharing our knowledge with one another. Thank you all for your enthusiastic participation and patience!

- Michael

Surprise Reunion!

 

Week 28

This week we had a nice surprise when Henrik's previous student Brian from 2006, and his friend Michael came to visit!

From left to right:
Brian, Henrik, and Michael

 STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A & B

Students:
Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Mun, Nine
Craig, Dunham, Ivan, Louis, Sheikh, Varun

    This week Nine took her practice exam for winding stems and it turned out great and Art took his real winding stem exam and passed!

Here Nine is polishing her winding stem with diamond paste.

    This week Michael taught Daniel, David and Miguel about how to make the calculations to form a Breguet curve on a flat hairspring.

Here Michael is showing them how to center the bridge in the profile projector

The image centered on the jewel

Then using the reflection setting of the profile projector, you can use it to measure the distance to the regulator.

Here Michael is explaining how to read and use the Philips curve book.

    Daniel, David and Miguel have now also set a date for their final exam!

    This week Daniel serviced 2 of his 7 school movements the 6498 and P.7001.

    This week Miguel worked on finishing the timing of his 7 movements. This week he finished timing the 6498 and has started on the 2801.

    This week Ivan, Louis and Varun took their real escapement exams!

    Louis passed his exam last Thursday and Ivan and Varun took their exams on Friday and are waiting for the results! 

    This week Sheikh started his lesson on the winding and setting mechanism for the 6498.

 

COMING UP NEXT... 

 

Summer is fast approaching and we will be on break starting next week!

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!

Manufacture Visit!

Week 27

 This week we were grateful to have the opportunity to visit the manufacture of Laine!

 He showed us around the workshop and explained their different workstations.

Here is their media room. The inside has photography equipment and a small studio for taking professional photos. There is also a 3d printer that they use for making custom tools and other useful items.

The next room was where they kept the rose engine and straight line machine.

 

Mr. Laine demonstrated how the rose engine is operated and explained how its functions and features.

He also demonstrated a rare piece of machinery, a straight line machine! It is a similar machine to a rose engine, except that it only makes straight lines while a rose engine works in circular patterns.

 

Here is their assembly room where they do the final assembly and timing of their watches.

    

He showed us their small oven that they use for heat treating, tempering and for firing enamel items!

Here he is demonstrating how to operate their profile projector. It is used for precisely measuring the dimensions of items.

This is the main work area. It is where they have the lathes, polishing, and finishing stations.

In the back is where they keep the 3 CNC machines they use to make their own parts, pinions, wheels, and other essential components.

It was a very enlightening experience for us students who have goals of making their own watches, to see how a workshop is run, what essentials are needed and what are the problems and challenges we will face when operating our own workshops.

We are very grateful to Laine for granting us a good learning opportunity!

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Workshop A+B

Students:
    Art, Daniel, David, Miguel, Mun, Nine
    Craig, Dunham, Ivan, Louis, Sheikh, Varun

 

    This week Art and Nine did more practice tests for winding stems.

    This week Daniel, David and Miguel finished their chronograph course! Michael also taught them how to use breguet tweezers and how to form breguet curves.

Here Michael is teaching them how to properly use the Breguet tweezers. You must align the cylinder properly to hold the hairspring in place for bending.

    This week Miguel worked on servicing and restoring an EMKA Geneve Ladies watch.

Here is the dial out of the case. There is a lot of dirt and tarnishing on the edges where it is close to the case.

Here is the dial after some cleaning. There are still some very hard stains from tarnishing.

Miguel also made a case tube for the watch. Here it is fresh from the lathe.

After plating it with white rhodium to match the silver case of the watch.

        

Here it is after being installed in the case of the watch.

He had to use the milling machine to open up the top of the case tube because of the way it is design to put in the movement.

     This week Mun started his gear train lesson. He is currently learning how to oil and service the parts of the winding and setting.

    This week Craig finished his first winding stem!

 

Thank you for reading!

Hope to see you again next week!