Sandblasting

25 February 2011
I haven't been able to work on the watch for a while now due to school work. However, I have been wearing it for a week and it works fine, and I've had a lot of time to think about how I want the finish. I have decided not to over-finish the watch since I like the raw look, or as an enthusiast would say, tool watch look.
My brother helped me with some photoshopping to help me see the different colour combinations, and we both agreed on having dark bridges (black rhodination), blue or purple steel details, and brass gear train wheels. I wanted to have a matt finish on the bridges so I decided to try sandblasting. We have built a makeshift sandblasting box, it looks like MacGyver has been in the building, I don't dare to show a picture of it, but the important thing is that it works, even though there is a lot of cleaning up to do after the operation.
For some reason I have saved all my old rodico, not knowing what it would be good for, today I was thank full that I had saved it. It turned out that the rodico is very resistant to the sand and was extremely good for masking the parts that were not supposed to be blasted.
I have also removed material from the gear train bridge to show more of the movement.

I managed not to blast through the original rhodination, and the colour looks surprisingly good, so I'm not sure about the black rhodination any longer, I'll have to try it first on one of the test bridges.

Styling

14 February 2011
The watch is running properly, so I can start with the styling. I don't have a clear picture how it will look, so I'll be testing and experimenting. I drilled out the crown wheel, minute wheel and the hour wheel in the schaublin.

I blued the ratchet wheel and the crown wheel just to see what it would look like, but I can't help thinking that too much is happening between 12 and 4 o'clock. I have been sceptical to using blue because of this reason, however, I will create some more action around the second hand that might compensate for this.

I was in contact with a goldsmith, he recommended against filling the hole with gold, apparently it is not so easy to get the gold to merge nicely with the steel because of the high temperature required. So I made a plug, with the shape of a mushroom, and hammered it into place and then polished it. Feels good now when there isn't a hole straight into the movement any more, rodico has done the job until now.

Case

9 February 2011

Assembling the movement went fine with only small adjustments. I used hands from a pocket watch, these will be replaced later. I think red gold plated sword hands, without lumina would look good. Otherwise I am quite pleased with the machine-look, works for now anyway. The film shows the function of the stems.

Now I could start with the caseing. I started with the winding stem, chose a red gold crown. This hole was the easy one. I measured and drilled for the tube and fitted the winding stem.

The setting stem required some tricky measuring, but after a few control measurements I dared to drill.

This is the result, it turned out that there only was one red gold crown, so I changed to gold. The crowns are at different heights, something that was impossible to avoid in this build, however, this gives the watch some life. I also decided to change the flat mineral glass to a domed plexi, this also added some more character to the watch.

I tried to get the balance at six o'clock and the ratchet wheel at twelve o'clock, however, these are not in perfect line with the centre...

The hole for the old winding stem is still left to be filled (now at nine o'clock), the tube is removed, I'm thinking of having it filled with gold and then engraved, it would be a circle with a diameter of 8mm.

I'm pleased with the result so far.

Minute wheel

8 February 2011
Finally the last detail is in place, the minute wheel. Drilled and threaded for M0.6, the bridge is very thin so I had to be careful, otherwise a quite small job. I made a makeshift screw out of an old setting lever screw, haven't decided yet if the screw needs a head or not.

Spent the last hour of the day with cleaning the movement from all the metal cuttings and oil. Hopefully I will have time over tomorrow to assemble, adjust and test the movement.

After I get it working (if I do), the plan is to start working on the case. And later, continue with the finishing.

Construction site...

4 February 2011
The intermediate wheel has to be twice as high to reach the minute wheel, I decided to solder two together. I started with removing one of the inner corners on both wheels, then pressed them into a brass tube, this held them in place with the teeth lined up thus creating a groove between them. I could now easily heat the whole tube and apply filler metal in between the wheels. This worked surprisingly well, the new wheel could be pressed out after cooling the tube down.

To hold the new wheel in place I drilled and threaded an M0.8 hole in the bridge and made a steel tube as a distance, so that the screw presses against the tube and allows the wheel to turn free.


The new setting lever spring is filed out from an original, my first spring broke, probably because of the tempering failing. However, the second one works fine. To the left the setting stem is in, and to the right it is out.

Here you can compare the new setting lever spring with an original.

The mechanism is starting to look like a construction site, or that it's been in a fire, but everything works like it is supposed to and I'll have to work on the finish later.

Drilling and soldering

3 February 2011
I drilled and threaded two M0.8 holes in the barrel bridge to hold the setting lever spring in place. The setting lever spring will cover the yoke to hold it down, and one of the screws will hold the new yoke spring in place.

The winding stem needed support, so I soldered in a piece of brass tube that I had filed in half. Otherwise the stem would bend under the setting lever and wouldn't work. I suspected that this would be an issue, but easily fixed. I also removed the Breguet teeth on the sliding pinion.

Setting mechanism

1 February 2011
Started the day by drilling the new hole for the setting lever screw in the balance bridge, then set the movement in the lathe. Here I turned out the space for the intermediate wheel and the yoke, pretty tricky.

Next in turn was the milling, to create room for the setting mechanism. This was done in a drill, since we don't have a real milling machine.

This is the result, to the left the setting stem pulled out and the sliding pinion working with the intermediate wheel. To the right, the stem pushed in and the sliding pinion out from the intermediate wheel. I have also made the screw holes deeper and the screw heads thinner to make room for the milling. There's still a lot of work to be done here, making a spring for the yoke and adjusting the original setting lever spring.