Double Flee A

Last week in watch school we dealt with guard pin and horn clearance in a ETA 6497 and in a little zodiac calendar. The people who hadn't yet smashed their hairspring studs did so on removal, so now we need about two dozen balance completes, which are on order. My only spare is the one I vibrated myself, and that one ain't going anywhere but my wrist. I learned that the frictional coefficient of rubber cement makes it perfect for checking fork clearances on the end of a narrow, broken (oops, but I have a backup) cutting broche. It sticks to the metal enough to move it without slipping off.

Friday I gave a presentation which came off relatively unpolished when I got sidetracked and left the methodical approach I had originally designed. I did hit my main point, though, which my instructor followed up on later, which was about the perception of the tourbillon compared with its technical advantages and disadvantages.

The highlight of my week happened the last ten minutes on Friday before I left for work, which was when I fixed a watch for a woman I work with. It's an old mickey mouse watch with a six o'clock second hand and hasn't run for ten years. I took it apart, took the wheels out, cleaned them up a bit, and then tried to put it back together. Nope. It's a French Ebauche, a notorious movement, not made to put back together. The rotor is steel and because of the watch's mechanism, is in a powerful magnetic field that makes it go anywhere but where it's supposed to. So I filed two access points into the bridge either side of the rotor, then slowly located the pivots of the gear train, screwed down the bottom part enough to flex the metal, then located the rotor through the holes I'd filed. For some reason when I turned the watch on it worked. I was thrilled. The lady I did it for was happy too, she was wearing it when I saw her yesterday, even though the bracelet isn't secure and the tail goes flying around. I wanted to get her a rubber band or something, but that's her problem.

Friday we had a quiz about clearance and draw, and recoil and functions of the escapement (which doesn't technically include the balance wheel). I'll be interested to see how I did.

I love amarok for ubuntu. It has a dynamic playlist function that gets to know what you like listening to. I bet the itunes people have had this for years.

posted by dale @ 7:53 AM