Double Flee A

school update

I guess it's been a while.

Ok, at school we're tearing down the ETA 7750 (automatic chronograph calendar) for the first time, the watch that will be our test watch for the AWCI final in July or whenever. So that's kind of exciting. It's a hockey puck and is the guts for watches that can cost quite a bit. Like, can I afford to pick one up to work on kind of thing. The lift angle on the 7750, it has just been worked out, is 50 degrees, not 52 as has been thought for the last thirty years. Funny. There's slightly less frustration at Breitling and other watch houses these days, I would guess.

We just got done fixing up and timing a rolex 1535. I was happy with the system of microstella and meantime screws instead of the etachron regulating pins. Free-sprung breguet overcoil is definitely the way to go. The main difference between the two that I've found working on timing and poising them is that on the wheel with microstella and screws poising and timing happens at the same time. On the stupidchron, you have to poise and then timing happens seperately. I like just getting it overwith simultaneously. My delta was 3.6 seconds in all positions, meaning it keeps great time. The printout from the M1 (a four or five thousand dollar timing machine) and the b200 (a more reasonable model that does the same thing if you know how to use it) both made it to my fridge. When we got these watches they were very wrecked. I think someone was using these watches to teach people how to staff. Either they were children, retarded, retarded children, or monkeys. Retarded monkeys couldn't have, because there's no such thing as a retarded monkey that someone would give a watch to fix.

The B200 is a blue machine that gives you a couple of lines to look at. When you hook it up to a gradoscop (spelling correct, thanks, Europe) you get amplitude, too. It's a reliable box of solid state electronics, which is about half the reason the B200 I share with another student is called "blue state". Blue state hits the pressure paper so hard it makes great tape that can easily be read from a little farther away than some machines'.

posted by dale @ 8:57 AM