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I haven't been doing much watch wise, but lots of work on watch tools. I ended up needing to make a bunch of parts for a lever action tailstock for a small Schaublin lathe. I have the factory main casting and quill (the critical parts) but all the auxiliary bits are missing. The lathe is a duplicate so fortunately I had a set of parts to copy from. First is the tailstock drawbar. Toughest part was it’s a 11.75 mm metric buttress thread. For those not familair, look at the collet; the flanks are 45 and 5 degrees vs every other thread that is symetrical. It took longer messing about grinding the tool than cutting the thread, but it worked out well – its for a W12 collets Next up, is the tailstock lever. Not particularly difficult, but man, it was a lot of whittling! Files and die grinder mostly after roughing to shape in the mill. The turned portion I did by measuring the existing one, making grooves every ½” to the right depth, then roughing and finally finishing by hand turning. I stuck the dull end of a 1” boring bar out in front of the work grabbed a large radius nose tool (maybe 1.5” radius, ½” tool bit) in a pair of vise grips and went at it as you would with a graver in a watchmakers lathe. Paint is sprayed via airbrush, with talc in it to reduce the gloss. In the last pic, I have some touch up to do….the quills were slightly different dia so I had to grind a bit out of the inside so it would fit. Its watch tool related, but for a sure little different for this site so thought you might find it interesting....now back to the salt mine!

That’s what around 30 years’ experience does for you.

You are truly amazing with all your knowledge of timepieces.

That is a French timepiece and they are normally 8 day duration. The hands are a style called fleur de lis. The dial looks to be porcelain. On the back of the clock movement there is a number. If the pendulum is the original, it will also have the same number on it. The movement is in need of restoring. It is made of brass and should be polished.

There are various threads about timegrapheres if you take the time to use the search function. I will pin up the best one as that's a FAQ. I definitely recommend the 1900 over the 1000.

Movements are not made for a given crown or date position, they are all the same and just rotated. Of course for uncommon date positions like 6h, or even 4h with horizontal lettering, then a special date ring is used. If the date wheel or the hands wheels height are different the original ones are used on the new movement, requiring it to be partially or completely disassembled and reassembled.

Thank you people. My next planned step is to wait until the chap confirms he has my application and then ask via email if there's any tips he can give me to help prep for the numerical/problem solving test. I'm currently assuming this is an 'iq' test, but you know what they say about assumption. Will certainly keep this thread updated, would be a pleasure.