Hi

[AlanB]

Hi!

I've been fascinated by things that go tick for as long as I can remember, starting with a clock I made as a school project with dubious wooden gears divided by pencil and compass and which jammed with great regularity. Since then I have become slightly more competent with machine tools and made parts for watches and clocks although it has never been my profession (I am a mathematician by trade as it were). I've made most of the usual things - balance staffs, stems, pallet staffs, pallet jewels, wheels, pinions, regulators mostly working on an 8mm lathe with some assistance from a high speed drill and a jig borer. But I confess I've never made a spring detent for a chronometer and I'd like to do that some day (although I am sure it will turn out to be an exercise in extreme frustration) and my biggest problem is that the finish I achieve never quite attains the level that I would ideally like - even on something as simple as a screw, so plenty to work towards (and I have read many articles on finishing). Also I'm very slow - really amazed that people manage to do these jobs economically!

Alan

[Nucejoe]

Welcome to WRT forum.

[watchweasol]

Hello and welcome to the forum

[Michael1962]

Welcome to the forum Alan.

As a fitter and machinist, I can assure you that some machining jobs take longer than others. Quite often, when I was an apprentice, certain machining jobs went to certain machinists for the very reason that some people were better at some things than others. Everyone could it, some just quicker.

Practice.

[grsnovi]

Thanks for the intro @AlanB, welcome to the WRT forum! I'm also relatively new and I'm in the middle of my first service of an Elgin Grade 313 movement.

I find it amazing that screws of the microscopic size used 100+ years ago were made in quantity on machines when mass production was still in its infancy!