Could anybody work on a screw this small?

[Bill2024]

I was in London recently and took the chance to visit the Clockmakers Museum which is now hosted at the Science Museum. It’s free and well worth a visit if you are in that neck of the woods. 

One of the exhibits was this screw made by Waltham. The blurb says you can fit 47,000 of them in a thimble

I assume it was used in a watch and they didn’t just make it because they could. It made me wonder though, how on earth anyone could work on something that small.

You can “see” it in the centre of the box in the picture; although you can’t really tell what it is. For all I know they cut a grain of sand in a half and put that in the box!
 

[nickelsilver]

The tiniest screws are usually ones used to hold down cap jewels or Geneva stud holders in small high end calibers. 0.30mm threads are sometimes seen here. Smaller than that I've only seen on really small balance screws. I've made 0.25mm thread balance screws; that required making an adjustable die with a 0.30 tap. I asked my tap supplier if they had a 0.25 tap as they didn't list one, and they said yes, then called back to say they do but they are reserved for one specific customer. I think that customer must be Nivarox. Luckily 0.30 and 0.25 have the same thread pitch.

 

Waltham made some amazing automatic cam operated lathes already back in the late 1800s, really the first of their type and the origin of the term "screw machine" which became what all cam operated lathes were called- up until the Swiss innovated with lathes where the workpiece itself moved, sliding in the headstock collet. These are called a- wait for it- Swiss Lathe.

 

Die is 8mm diameter like the old standard dies (which are no longer made, at least good ones).

Edited Thursday at 09:43 AM by nickelsilver

[mikepilk]

Have a look at this video, from about 8min 

 

[Bill2024]

2 hours ago, mikepilk said:

Have a look at this video, from about 8min 

 

That’s a great video - thanks for posting it. 

2 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

 

The tiniest screws are usually ones used to hold down cap jewels or Geneva stud holders in small high end calibers.

 

Sometimes to look forward too when I start looking at the ladies watch movements I guess. Although it’ll be a while before I get my hands on anything high-end I suspect. 

[mbwatch]

This 1896 book details a lot of the machinery Waltham had developed before 1900 https://archive.org/details/evolutionofautom00mars_0/mode/2up

Edited Thursday at 12:54 PM by mbwatch
better link

[rehajm]

Yah, the Charles River Museum has a few of those old Waltham factory machines including a screw machine or two they fire up from time to time, though I've never seen it run. I think the American Precision Museum in Vermont has one too....

[caseback]

7 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

The tiniest screws are usually ones used to hold down cap jewels or Geneva stud holders in small high end calibers. 0.30mm threads are sometimes seen here. Smaller than that I've only seen on really small balance screws. I've made 0.25mm thread balance screws; that required making an adjustable die with a 0.30 tap. I asked my tap supplier if they had a 0.25 tap as they didn't list one, and they said yes, then called back to say they do but they are reserved for one specific customer. I think that customer must be Nivarox. Luckily 0.30 and 0.25 have the same thread pitch.

 

Waltham made some amazing automatic cam operated lathes already back in the late 1800s, really the first of their type and the origin of the term "screw machine" which became what all cam operated lathes were called- up until the Swiss innovated with lathes where the workpiece itself moved, sliding in the headstock collet. These are called a- wait for it- Swiss Lathe.

 

Die is 8mm diameter like the old standard dies (which are no longer made, at least good ones).

If was lucky enough to find an almost complete tap/die set in a lot. The 8mm  030 dies are really tiny, but the small taps will also require a really (!) soft touch.. 

Edited Thursday at 05:23 PM by caseback

[nickelsilver]

The old Bergeon dies were actually pretty good. It's a shame they don't do them anymore. Also, you used to get in-between sizes, 0.35, 0.45 etc., which you do run across sometimes on old pieces. This is actually where the Martin screwplates can be useful, as they sort of bridge the gaps. I made some parts for an old repeater recently where one of my Martin plates was an exact match.

 

For making normal NIHS metric male threads nowadays the go-to is thread rolling dies from Habegger. Those and very excellent taps are available from Asco-Schurch (and both at very reasonable prices), the rolling dies are from page 27 at the link.

 

I saw recently on Instagram that Michael Chung, who makes the really nice watchmaker lathe, is producing normal cutting dies in watch sizes. He doesn't have a website so you have to message him over IG to find any info, but I think I'll write to see what sizes are available and pricing. If they are as good as his lathe they are at Swiss pro level. In some cases the rolling dies just aren't applicable, and you either have old stock cutting dies, or have to make one.

Edited Thursday at 05:57 PM by nickelsilver

[caseback]

46 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

The old Bergeon dies were actually pretty good. It's

This set has some bits branded "Bergeon", but I believe the actual manufacturer was Engelkemper.

 

Edited Thursday at 06:29 PM by caseback

[Neverenoughwatches]

I wondered if these were any good. What's the idea behind them  ?

[AndyGSi]

1 minute ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I wondered if these were any good. What's the idea behind them  ?

I think it's so you can start with a lighter cut and then close them up as you progress

[RichardHarris123]

Sorry about the crap photos, it's been a long day.  Photo one, no magnification on a bergeon mat, photo 2, 30× magnification on the same mat, or vise versa   I haven't measured it .

[Neverenoughwatches]

12 minutes ago, AndyGSi said:

I think it's so you can start with a lighter cut and then close them up as you progress

Thanks Andy. Similar principle to the taper and plug taps.

[caseback]

16 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I wondered if these were any good. What's the idea behind them  ?

Very nice set. I agree: adjustable tool.

[rehajm]

Oh man that Chung lathe is amazing. Unrelated: if anyone needs a kidney I know where one can be had….

[Neverenoughwatches]

3 hours ago, caseback said:

Very nice set. I agree: adjustable tool.

Thanks cees, it looks veey much like the same design made by Wiru, also has the tap set to match, starting at 0.4mm.

[CYCLOPS]

that type also allows removal of broken bits easily....

[VWatchie]

On 5/15/2025 at 11:59 AM, mikepilk said:

Have a look at this video

From the 1850s to the 1930s, the U.S.A. was a world leader in watchmaking, especially in industrial innovation, precision, and reliability — and was very much considered a producer of some of the best watches in the world at that time.

I wonder if that industry will ever come back to the U.S.A. Perhaps the Trump tariffs will stimulate initiatives in that direction. Probably not, but it would be nice to see more competition.

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

I wonder if that industry will ever come back to the U.S.A. Perhaps the Trump tariffs will stimulate initiatives in that direction. Probably not, but it would be nice to see more competition.

The Swiss have worked very hard at destroying our watch industry I doubt they would let it ever start it up again.

 

On 5/15/2025 at 1:54 AM, Bill2024 said:

screw made by Waltham

Thinking of Waltham is an interesting machine

 

[mikepilk]

3 hours ago, VWatchie said:

From the 1850s to the 1930s, the U.S.A. was a world leader in watchmaking

 

And before that, Britain was a major player :

In 1800 Britain made around half of the world’s watches; around 200,000 pieces a year. By 1900 the quantity produced in Britain had declined by half, despite the worldwide market for watches having risen into the millions.

The problem lay in the hand-made nature of English watches and the heavy reliance on skilled workers who were reluctant to adapt to the changes in technology. The Swiss and the Americans were much quicker and more successful in adopting mass production techniques.

A lot of the parts were made in Lancashire, where I grew up* - and I never heard of any history of watch making.

( * @Neverenoughwatches : I was born in Yorkshire, but in the 1974 county boundary changes, the town I lived in was moved from Yorkshire to Lancashire. You can imagine how popular that was  )

[RichardHarris123]

Which town was it? 

[mikepilk]

4 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Which town was it? 

Barnoldswick - famous for Roll Royce aero engines and Silentnight beds. And apparently the largest town not on an A-road.

[rjenkinsgb]

57 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

Barnoldswick - famous for Roll Royce aero engines and Silentnight beds

I've worked on machine tools at that RR site - finding the town like going along farm tracks for what seems like miles! Very strange place to get to, I think the town was just to house the Rolls Royce site workers originally.  It's a "Static turbine" manufacturing site, or was when I was there; making the non-rotating blade discs that direct air into & between the rotating compressor discs.