Assorted diddy engineering.

Thanks jrevil, Grizz.



Yeah, well I know there's quite a few engineer types hanging out here so thought it might be of interest. A lot of what I do is fairly samey but now and again I get something more interesting and now I've got the facilty, want to try and build a photographic catalogue of jobs so might throw the odd one up here.

I like to think I could turn my hand to most things but this seriously impresses me!

You haz top skillz!

Loving your work.

How on earth do you start to learn skills like this?

I'm extremely envious of your skills!

Thanks Scruff, tickman.

Plastic modeling (and detailing) through my teens and a bit later certainly helped introduce me to working with small stuff. In fact I scratchbuilt the injection for this a rather long time ago out of plastic with ally trumpets though I can't remember how I formed the bellmouths on those!



Patience is probably the most valuable attribute to have. Its also sometimes just a matter of getting stuck in to something new too, which once successful breeds confidence for the next thing. For example I wasn't 100% sure that the silver tube would stretch into the bellmouth shape without splitting so just had to try it to find out.

The rectangular block of the cufflink is 16.5 x 9.5mm so not that teeny tiny compared to other stuff I sometimes do.

Lovely. Looking forward to seeing what you have in mind for the other wrist.

Blimey, that's some amazing work there Seth!

The tolerances you must be working to must be incredibly small!

I find working with small things incredibly frustrating, I wish I had some of your Zen-like calm!

_{(Even though I’ve known you for a little while now, I have only just this moment realised why you have a Smiths clock as your avatar...!)}

That penny looks massive, just make the job even more impressive!

Nice work as always!
Thanks for the scale photo
John.

After that distraction I've got on with some more actual work Here's something I was doing last week.

The watch was running OK, but not quite as it should be. The balance is the circular object that swings to and fro and regulates the time keeping of the watch - it is a sort of sprung pendulum if you like. Anyhow, the balance in this watch wasn't swinging as well as it should have been. When I had a close look it was clear that the balance staff, ie. the balance's "axle", was a pretty crude replacement. Presumably the original had broken at some point as they are quite fragile. So I decided to strip it down and make a new one.

Here's the balance assembly in bits. The small shaft towards the bottom is the staff. As well as the wheel, there are two other parts that fit to it, the hair spring and the roller, just to the left of the staff.



Here we are part way through making the new one. The 16 on the collet refers to the size; 16 tenths of a mm, ie 1.6mm dia, The pivot on the end is in the order of 0.1-0.2mm. Not measured but turned/stoned/polished until it fits the jewel hole.



Here it is ready for initial fitting compared to the old one. You can see how the old one has not been "finished" at all well, indeed the larger diameter has been left raw and the hair spring seat which should be parallel is a big wobbly taper. Also, there is no oil sink at the left hand end, the reverse tapered section just in from the end. This "catches" any extra oil from the pivot and prevents it spreading to the hair spring. (I had to get an even bigger 1p )



I could then fit the balance (which is a close fit on its seat and riveted on) and start getting it to fit the watch by adjusting the lengths of the pivots which I normally try and make a bit too long. Here I've added arrows so you can see there's not much room for leeway with the vertical position of the balance, nor run out caused by sloppy fit of the jewels or eccentricity between the ends.



Once sorted so that it spins freely with a minimum of endfloat its time to fit up the other parts. The roller (which is what engages with the rest of the movement is a slight press fit on the taper below the wheel.



And the hairspring has a slightly sprung split brass collet and is pushed on the top. Its rotational position with regards to the roller is important so the collet allows this to be adjusted to the right position while keeping it tight enough not to work loose while running.



And there we go all fitted up and running.



With the old staff the balance was rotating about 90 degrees each side of its central point and now it is going pretty much 180 degrees each way. A definite improvement.

I hope you find this drivel interesting.

awesome work! that takes fantastic skill and patients! i cant even find my tools let alone putting them bits down!

can you clarify if that model ran? i get the impression it did lol