Week 32 Feb. 28-Mar. 5, 2011

This week I worked on both watches. I cleaned the W-01 and all the parts to see what kind of amplitude I was getting and it was not bad. I had around 275-290° in both horizontal positions which was fine, but only about 220-235° in the vertical. So I still have some work to do. It would be good if I could get it to about 250° but we'll see...

The balance is still horribly poised so I need to fix that as well as adjusting the escapement. Then all I will need to do is the final finishings. I also want to just add a little video about the vibrating tool that I tried to explain last week. You can see how it works a little better. Sorry for the lame video stuff, just testing out what iMovie can do...

The next thing I did was the regulating pins for the AMS1. Like I suspected this wasn't very easy. I had to make 2 pins that were 0.19mm in diameter and around 2.00mm in length. The problem with making pins this small is that you can't remove the material in steps. The pin will just wobble and/or break if it gets lower than 0.40mm especially at that length. So you have to fin the correct position of the graver, and make the whole pin in one shot. Another thing to note is that the pins needed to be slightly tapered because it would be near impossible to friction fit a pin that long through steel. So after trying many different methods (and about 20-25 failed pins) I found the right dimensions and finally got 2 pins that worked. Now lets hope they don't get bent or broken or I will have to do it again. I forgot to take a picture so maybe I'll have to add one later...

So after I had the pins in I was able to bent the flat hairspring to get my watch working. I had an extra spring that wasn't pinned at the right spot so I just used that for a first trial. I got it centered and put it on the balance wheel and was ready to try my watch out for the very first time. I wound the watch up and it started ticking just fine! It was a really great moment and one I am pretty proud of. At this point I hadn't oiled any jewels and everything was actually really dirty so it was pretty nice to see it working in that condition. I put it on the timing machine just to see what amplitude I was getting and I had 270° in the horizontal position, pretty sweet! I really should've taken a picture or video but I didn't so oh well.

So now that I had the watch running I was at the point where I had to clean everything up and make it start to look like a real movement. As you have seen from the photos before (and the next one) the watch wasn't a circle. This was because I had material to help align the holes I had to drill in the side for dial feet and the stem, and also to hold the movement down with screws and not glue. So I got rid of all the milling marks and then I had to do some perlage on both sides of the movement. I redid the parts I had already done mainly because they had turned a different color from all of the handling of the movement. 

After that I was ready to cut all the excess material off and turn this thing into an actual mainplate. Here is a photo of the milling midway through.

And after all the corners are gone it is now a circle! It looks quite thick but this is because of the extra room needed for the power reserve system. And I didn't need to add a module on top which is much nicer in the end.

And here it is after leaning the sides up in the lathe. Looks pretty slick I think! Now I have to be very careful with it and make sure not to get any fingerprints or scratches on it. Never an easy task when working with German silver.

Another thing I worked on this week was beveling the bridges. I had seven bridges I needed to bevel and 7 inner corners to make (the inner corners take more time, skill and patience). I wanted a 0.25mm bevel on all the large bridges. Having a nice large bevel makes them stand out much better and looks nice on a movement of this size. All the bevels were made by hand except the barrel bridge. So here is the raw bridge before beveling:

And then after the bevel. You can't see the bevel very well for the screw hole sink in the picture, but it's there. This is the 4th wheel/seconds wheel bridge. Note the sharp inner corner.

Here you can see the setup I use to make and polish a bevel. I found it makes it easier to move the piece in whichever direction you need, while being able to keep your hand steady and at a 45° angle (or as close as possible). All the bevels on the german silver bridges were cut with a steel file and the inner corners with the file and degussit stone. On the pallet fork bridge in the picture, I had to use a diamond file and degussit stone because it is already hardened steel and a regular file will not work.

Here is the center/third wheel bridge. A lot of bevels on one piece.

For the barrel bridge I used the M1 to pre-cut the bevels. Since there weren't any inner corners, it was just a matter of centering the bridge properly and then using a 45° cutter to make the bevel. It worked pretty good I think and saved a lot of time.

The bevels around the crown wheel, ratchet wheel and click are a little bit smaller than the other bevels. Mainly because it just wouldn't look right if they were the same size.

For the balance bridge I had to make a slightly custom bevel on the one side. The swan neck adjuster is flush with the outer edge of the bridge, so it wouldn't make sense to continue the bevel the whole length of that side. So the bevel has a break where the spring sits. You can see it on this picture from the top, and the following picture from the side.

Also note that all of the bevels are still in a rough condition. Each one still needs to be polished with several different grained pastes to make them into a mirror finish.

And here's just a shot of most of the pieces that are beveled.

Next I will need to polish the bevels of the jewel sinks so I can start setting the end shakes of the wheels. Might not get a lot done next week though as we are headed to ETA for training on quartz movements. Bye for now!