More watchmaking

 

Barrel making on the Taig Lathe:

Double barrel (two) springs needed:

Jewels needed:

P.P. Thornton gear cutters needed:

Knurling tool I adapted to my small lathe:

 Watchmaking: First Screw Made

Taking a 3mm O1 (cool hardening) steel rod and making a very tiny screw from it. Here is what will be the threaded portion still on the lathe next to the screw die plate I threaded it with.

The plate can thread screws  down to 0.7mm up to 2.0mm.

Here is the screw (red arrow) held in a pin vise; the pin vise is in a larger vise.

The thin "string" is actually a jeweler's saw that I used to cut the slot on the screw's head for use with a flat bladed screwdriver.

A container of brass shavings used to even out the heat treatment. I heat blued this screw to give it a dark blue layer that protects and looks nice.

Here is the screw on a tiny USA 10 cent dime coin.

"I'm tiny too!" -Otto the Littlest Opossum.

Digital caliper battery eliminator taig lathe

So I have digital calipers on my Taig lathe to measure .00015" or .01mm and they take an LR44 1.5v battery.

The battery drains even when off so I found a 1.5vDC wall adapter and wired it up. Weirdly, under this very light current (amp) load it was giving almost 3v.

So I put a resistor on the negative wire. I tried a few and either got: nothing; all the numbers showing 888888; or almost zero but when I hit the "zero" button it would jump to .0005 or 6 or 7. I tried a bunch of resistors until the 51k Ohm resistor let me hit the zero button and the display stayed at .0000"  or 00.00mm. 

Since the 1.5v setting on the wall transformer was putting out 3.3v that means I can replace it with a less odd USB cable (although many are 5v). I'd probably have to change the resistor for a slighly higher value.

I works and no batteries needed.

2.8v or 3.3v we don't care, meows!

Watchmaking Machinery 2 DRO Cross slide

I ordered a digital caliper DRO (digital read out) for the cross slide of the Taig lathe off of eBay.

Well: it was stuck on its bracket with tape; the tape pulled the back caliper sticker off and the anchor point tape came off too; the bracket was some purple transparent 3D print stuff that was less rigid tha PLA; also the anchor bracket had a twist which caused the slide to bind.

The calipers had the measuring jaws cut off. That was the only good thing-other than the whole thing was a sort of inspiration template for me.

So I cut an aluminum block into a "C" shape with a drill press, hacksaw and jeweler's saw to connect the drilled holes.

Then i remembered I got my bandsaw running straight (by twisting the table and adding more tension). So I popped a bi-metal blade with tiny teeth on it to help with the rest.

I made the anchor point with a drill hole that was also counter sunk most of the way down. I didn't go all the way down so the part of the hole that narrows down would grab the head of the screw and keep it from pulling through when i tightened the t-nut (which is just a screw and tiny nut).

The Allen key wrench is on the screw in the photo. Then I bandsawed the top quarter of the tiny anchor off. I then drilled two screw holes in a bracket and the anchor pieces, paying careful attention not to go down the center so I wouldn't interfere with the Allen key wrench path.

When tightened, the two halves trap the end of the calipers. As the cross slide moves toward or away from the operator it pushes or pulls the caliper slide which measures the movement to .01 of a millimeter. You can also hit a button and it displays inches.

Anchor point is solid. The plate over the caliper slide end is raised, because it's acting as a clamp. Standing normally it isn't apparent to the operator, and looks pretty cool.

The big C-block is super sturdy. A screw feeds up from the bottom to a nut that is in that T channel.

A single screw holds it to the block. This allows it to pivot counterclockwise for installation and removal. It also allows me to make sure the slide is perfectly parallel to the carriage and slidebefore tightening the anchor point at the other end.

The C-block is most of a 1" x 2" x 4" bl9ck of aluminum. Much, much stiffer than the 1/4" thick 3D printed plastic bracket which visibly flexed.

My C-block doesn't move. Sliding out and returning to starting point gives me a repeatable readout of "0.00mm". You don't get much better than zero-hundredths of a millimeter.

Watchmaking deals with 0.3-0.8mm (tenths), which is much larger than 0.01mm (hundredths).

Meow² 

Watchmaking Machinery Part 1

 

Watchmaking Machinery Part 1

Here is my new Taig Microlathe II with a binocular microscope attached to it. 

The microscope is a Swift 2x/4x mounted on an arm that I made out of plate steel and aluminum tubing. It has an LED illuminator and almost the entire microscope is made out of metal!

Taig lathes are still MADE IN AMERICA and are extremely high precision instruments.

View through the microscope at 2x:

Actual size view:

The microscope is removable for safe keeping. I mounted the lathe onto a filecabinet drawer type thing and filled it with the accessories: milling attachment, tools, measurement devices, etc.

The initial order to Taig was for:

1017#3 Starter Set #3 - Base + 5C Headstock       

1096 Unground tool bit 1/4" square       

1170 Extra Tool Post       6             

1171 Back Tool Post        2             

1110 Slitting saw arbor                 

1232 1/4" Diameter Milling Cutter           

1230A 1/16 dia Milling Cutter    

1230C 1/8 dia.Milling Cutter      

1111 Hi Speed Slitting Saw          

1152 Die Holder for Tailstock     

1224 Fly Cutter

1210 Radius Turner        

1038 4 inch swivel joint tool rest (wood turners)

1190 Steady Rest            

1225 Milling Vice             

1173 T Bar Cutoff Tool  

1200 Top Slide Mounts  1220 Milling attachment              

300-82 (T-Bar Cutoff Mount)      

Tons of other tools, bits, bit steel to grind my own cutters, calipers, dial indicators, raw metal stock, etc. are on their way too.

The first learning goal is to take an existing watch movement and replace it piece-by-piece with pieces that I manufacture. Replacing steel with brass, until I've made a complete movement. See you in a few years...

The chosen movement is an ETA 6498 M03 that was introduced in 1950. It's a pocket watch movement. ETA's website is awful and always down for service. If you need the tech specs for this movement do a search for "'CT_6498-2_FDE_482480_08" and there will be a few results.