Watchmaking and Lunation Moon Phase Gears Update

 Watchmaking and Lunation Moon Phase Gears Update

Albrecht 0-3mm drill chuck for using the tiniest of drill bits (1/64 ; 0.33mm ; .4mm ; etc.).

Watch I'm making from scratch. Here is the 58mm main plate with 1 mm lip around it. I cut in a 0.25mm ledge for the dial to sit on.

Here is operation #4 on my  lathe: putting in the 0.25mm lip that is 0.5mmm deep:

Finished main plate:

Main plate and slightly smaller (but thicker) piece that will be the bridge:

Lunar moon phase gear train mock-up model. The red lines are the axles. I can use any size/pitch/module gears as long as each set that touches each other match. 

The 9, 9 and 35 must mesh to each other only.

The 11 and 40 must mesh to each other only.

The 17 and 71 much mesh to each other only.

So, the 11 and 40 could be tiny little gears that cellphones use to vibrate when they ring, while the 17 and 71 could be huge gears out of a car's transmission--or vise-versa. 

The center bore holes of each gear doesn't really matter. With the lathe I can make an axle that is as thin as a toothpick on one end and as thick as a baseball bat on the other.

So, I'll be searching through my random supplies for gears.

 Watchmaking Machinery 4: Rotary Table and Indexing Head with Plates

This is a 6" Rotary Table with  a 3-slot plate. Normally 4 slots are better, but I'm using the bore hole. The bore at the center of this takes MT2 (Morse Taper #2) inserts. I have (not arrived yet) an MT2-to-ER32 collet holder. 

Table MT2 > ER32 Collet Holder > ER32 Collet (various sizes) > Mandrel > Blank I'll cut into a gear.

This is one of the division plates. The holes are used to index the rotation of the table to a certain number (or multiple/division of non-Prime numbers). You hand crank this and go one-by-one.

This is a photo of the hand crank. It's in my milling machine because the slot was about 0.8mm too narrow to fit over the shaft it has to mount on. So I milled it larger (0.3mm off one side and about 0.5mm off the other to try and center the slot). I went slow and got it fitted nicely.

The only other issue was the pin that retracts and then pokes into the holes. It was very scratchy and binding. I took it apart, wiped off the thin grease, cleaned out some grit(?) and then it seemed to work 90% better. I think the spring binds a little since the tolerances inside are so tight. I could get (make on my lathe) a different spring but I'll see if this wears in better.

WHAT A PAIN!!! But the table was cheap and shipped (and arrived) in less than 20 hours...during a blizzard! The table rotates buttery-smooth. Totally worth it.

Gear Generator dot com! You can put gears attached to each other on the same axle. Very useful for lunar gear trains.

It was so cold and windy and slushy and snowy that this squirrel came to dry off in the blue jay nest by my side door.

BY THE ZOMBIFIED HORNS OF ISHTAR (VENUS)!

BY THE ZOMBIFIED HORNS OF ISHTAR (VENUS)!

(Okay, I know this isn't Ishtar, it's a bust of Nefertiti I'm restoring).

In my last post I mentioned that Mercury and Venus go through phases like our own moon. Here's a video Venus in about a half, but horned crescent phase that I took with a cellphone through a telescope back in April 2012. I mumbled the word 'Venus' into the microphone: 

The Mesopotamians/Babylonians/Assyrians knew that Venus (Ishtar the Queen of the Night) had horns sometimes. That's pretty astute viewing that ancients accomplished. 

In many ancient texts Venus/Ishtar threatens to raise all the dead so they can eat the living! High up, a changing, mysterious glowing god-menacing doom, destruction and devouring. 

Kitty would devour all the living, but she can't find a chair tall enough -meow!