Assorted diddy engineering.

Umm, not directly. I believe a member of a very (very) long standing successful rock n roll group is a collector and customer of one of the dealers I do work for and so he likely has stuff I have worked on. And I also did some stuff on five near identical watches that were being presented as gifts to a well known band after an anniversary/come-back tour a little while ago.

Seth, I've done a fair bit of model engineering in my 53 years but never attempted anything as small as this, huge pat on the back for keeping this craft alive with your skill.

Thanks Rafftank Patience does help but can be worn down at times!

Rebuilda my dad did a bit of model engineering at evening classes and his father was also involved in making (casting) model train parts. I go along to some of the mod-eng shows occasionally, was at Ally Pally last week as they can be great places for picking up bits of material and rumaging for old tools.

yoeddynz Thanks for the kind words. You are right that most turning, certainly the higher precision stuff, is done by hand like wood turning. I do have a cross slide for more conventional turning but tend to only use it if there's a fair amount to come off something quite big/long. Using a graver by hand can provide a lot more feel and parts are often/usually made to fit rather than to any dimensions.
Neat little machines and lots of small storage bins is pretty accurate Though I don't have much in the way of machines, mostly the lathe and attachments for it. I'm always on the look out for tools etc, on Ebay and at the horological fairs I go to. Because there was so much division of labour in the old handworking trade as it existed in England, workers would often develop their own tools to make their little operation better so this means sometimes identifying what a tool might have been intended for can be very difficult. I recently bought a little thing I knew I'd seen a picture of in a book but still haven't found the illustration! And it is easier to make a tool sometimes than try and track down an original. Books are great too. I love reading 100+ year old accounts of how things were done and picking up tips you just wouldn't get in a modern publication.
Anyhow, here's 'a thing' that was printed in Time Out a few months ago.



Yeah, so like I said, neat little machines and lots of small storage bins..... and car models.

Cool little Time out article. I note that you don't work 'full time'... Me neither.

Mine would be like this..

"So Alex, tell us what a usual day of work would be"..

"Well actually I struggle to work. Usually I get up and go out into the workshop and procrastinate. I shuffle things about, tidy things and then just after starting a job I decide its about coffee time and sit in my lazy boy gazing out at the mountains. I don't make much money"

Hi Seth,

Hope you don't mind me asking on here but my Mum's been having a clear out and she presented me, (among other things), with this...





...It was my paternal Grandfather's.

I appreciate that the pic's ain't that great but I wondered if you might know if it had any significance and/or if it might be worth having you take a look at it for a service and to replace the minute hand.

I wound it a bit and it ticks away and the second hand goes round so I reckon it's serviceable.

What you think?

Thanks Seth, have replied.

Hope you don't mind, but think readers of this thread might appreciate this, youtube channel making a skeleton clock in a home machine shop:

Clickspring - Making a Large Wheel Skeleton Clock
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsETq9h35dgQq80Ryx-beOli

That's quite small but you need to get a bigger coin to photograph them with!

Current work...



That screw thread is 0.4mm diameter. Not sure of the pitch.

Fantastic work, as ever.