Completions

Here are some photos of those projects I talked earlier about. Still working on other ones and I'll post pics as I finish them.

Heating plate for bluing screws. If you don't know anything about blue screws then I will try to explain it for you. Basically the steel made for screws must be hardened and then tempered. When tempering, the steel goes through a unique range of colors according to the hardness it is. This color is due to a reaction with the air but that's not really important. What is important is the correct hardness which, thankfully for aesthetic purposes, is a really nice shade of blue. It is known in watchmaking that this bluing of screws and hands is a sign of extra care and effort. Some companies with less time and money will fake this color. Here are are two examples:

Real blue screws

Fake blue screws

Now obviously to the majority of people it is hard to tell. But once you actually blue the steel yourself and know what you are looking for, it's a little bit easier. The real blue screws have a deeper blue and the fake ones more of an 'electric' blue. It's much easier to tell from magazine photos but also the price of the watch can sometimes tip you off as well.

Anyways to get to the point, I made a table to blue these screws. The pattern of the holes was personal choice.

If you hadn't noticed, the pattern is made to look like the Swiss cross

And here are some pics of those other tools I talked about. Most people will just buy these tools from a company like Bergeon but it was pretty cool to be able to build these all by hand. Many hours were put into these (like 20+ each).

More to come tomorrow!