Week 10 Sep. 27-Oct. 2, 2010

Bonjour! Ca va? Ok my French sucks so that's where I'll stop that. Anyways, this week we had a practice exam for the escapement adjustment section of the course so there isn't as much to show about my school watch. We had the test on Monday and it was basically to see where everyone was at and if we could do the official exam. Needless to say we have some work to do! We were all quite slow and didn't finish in the 4 hours we are allowed. But we did get better as the week went on. I'm not sure when the test is yet but until then I have been doing a few things.

One of the things I did for my watch last week was finish the pallet fork bridge. I made the bevels polished and circular grained the top. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

It took me a while to get the graining correct. I still need to go over it again because there are still some straight marks from the previous graining. At first I tried using the M1 to do the graining but after about 10 different tries with different grains and speeds I realized that just turning the M1 by hand was the right way. It was turning too fast before and not leaving a nice grey finish like in the picture below.

Here is a pic of the interior corner I talked about in the last post. I think it turned out pretty nice being the first one I've done. It might not be "perfect" but I think it is good. You can see in the pic the difference in finish from the side (flank) of the bridge, the top, and the polished bevel.

Just a close-up of the jewel and bevels from the top.

And lastly here is a picture of the purpose of this piece! Looks cool with the escape wheel and bridge in. Obviously the banking pins still have to go in so it isn't functional per se. Also you can see I started beveling the escape wheel bridge as well. I don't think the bevel is quite big enough, do you? I suppose it's hard to tell from these pics...

The other thing I started last week was planning for the swan neck. After drawing it out on the CAD program I discovered I made a pretty big oopsie when I made the regulating arm. It isn't thick enough to have the screw from the swan neck hold it in the middle. So now I have to remake that part as well. Prototyping ain't easy! But it makes for a bigger bevel on the jewel sink so that is ok....

Cya next week