Summer quarter is in many ways a little more relaxed than the other three quarters of the year at North Seattle Community College.  Less of the general student population is present (most of the programs only run three quarters a year) so the campus is sparsely populated and the quarter is not as long either.  Coupled with that, you have the beautiful Seattle summer with long warm days full of sunshine and greenery.  While this did make it harder to buckle down and focus on the tiny gears before us, the whole atmosphere was also a little more relaxed.  In our class anyway.  In the second year class the summer quarter was dominated by the slow building anxiety that culminated in their final examination that determined who would become a certified Watchmaker and who would have to brush up on their skills for another year and take the exam again.

At the end of the third quarter, we were just finishing up the basic checks on the mainspring barrel.  Using that as a starting point, we would work our way through the power train, keyless works and dial train of the watch, learning about all the different checks and adjustments that might be necessary to ensure proper functioning as well as learning proper lubrication techniques in preparation for our third intermediate exam during the last week of the summer quarter.  Before we jump into the wheel train though, we have to learn how to properly install and lubricate the mainspring.

Removing a mainspring from the barrel is a risky procedure and one that will always result in at least a little distortion of the spring.  Putting the mainspring back in is likewise risky but if performed properly can be done without distorting the mainspring.  Unfortunately no one has yet invented a perfect mainspring winder so you often must overcome certain incompatibility issues when trying to use the various winders that are available.  That's half the fun.

You first select a winder drum that is slightly smaller than the barrel in which you intend to install the mainspring.  Each winder drum has an arbor associated with it and if you're lucky, the arbor that you need to use will even fit the eye of the mainspring you're using.  If not, you can sometimes select an arbor a size up or down and still make it work (sometimes) or else you can modify the eye of the mainspring to make it fit the arbor in question.  Of course if the eye (the innermost coil) of the mainspring already fits the arbor of the barrel in the watch, you don't much want to modify it to fit the darn winder but alas, it must be inserted mustn't it?  Hmm, a conundrum.  Suffice it to say that the process of learning to properly install a mainspring is fraught with pitfalls, many of which can only be conquered with practice.  I won't go so far as to say that our relatively brief exposure to this exercise made us proficient, but it did familiarize us with the challenges at least.

At this point, we were introduced to the varied and conflicting field of study surrounding lubrication of watch movements.  I won't even begin to go into the many endless debates that exist in this field as they are all but completely mindnumbing even to professional horologists.  Instead I'll just try to distill the basics as I understand them and in this way indoctrinate the kind reader to my particular leanings in the hopes of enlisting comrades in this never-ending war (Bwa-ha-ha-ha!).  From this point forward, everything that I say with regard to lubrication should be taken as indisputable fact, etched in stone for all future generations.

Basically it's like this:  Pivots need lubrication that will stay in place due to capillary action.  Capillary action (to watchmakers at least) is the result of surface tension on the surface of the oil holding it in a well defined space, in this case the space around the pivot in the hole of a jewel bearing.  Capillary action is particularly handy in jewel holes with cap jewels and can hold a significant amount of oil in place.  Thick grease is not suitable for these applications because it will not flow properly to take advantage of the capillary action and will eventually push away from all the critical surfaces entirely.  The faster the pivot turns, the lighter the oil should be so that it will create less drag on the turning of the pivot.  The more torque on the pivot, the heavier the oil should be so that its increased sheer strength will hold up to the increased pressure.

Sliding surfaces need grease because it will stay in place and not flow into other areas as readily as oil might.  Grease is appropriate for the keyless levers and winding stem and some other high-torque surfaces where drag is not much of an issue.

Where this becomes really confusing is in the case of some "special lubricants" created by Moebius specifically for watches.  These special lubricants have the properties of both greases and oils.  Moebius 8200 is one such special lubricant that is suitable for mainsprings, high torque pivots, keyless works and cannon pinions.  Moebius 941 and 9415 are special lubricants designed specifically for pallet jewels.  Sometimes known as "impact greases", they are reputed to have the stay-put qualities of a grease while liquifying on impact to offer maximum slipperiness.  Sounds a little too good to be true but they seem to work pretty darn well and are the industry standard for pallet stones.  Very expensive.  Marty, the second year instructor, was so fond of 9415 that he said he thought it could probably be used successfully just about everywhere in the movement if it didn't cost so much.  Just for kicks I tried it once (lubricating a movement entirely with 9415, from the barrel all the way to the balance pivots) and, other than feeling too light for the keyless works, it seemed to work just fine.

I'm a bit of a lubrication freak.  It's most certainly because I am experimenting with the many different substances and applications but I've currently got about 13 different oils and greases I'm playing with and I'm always looking for more.  One of my favorites is Elgin M-56b, a fairly light, all purpose oil that some studies seem to indicate has excellent properties of slipperiness, longevity and protection.  Unfortunately it hasn't been made for decades and who knows how good the little bottles you can find on the second hand market really are?  Perhaps like a fine wine it has only improved with age (bloody likely that).

So anyway, placing four little dollops of 8200 on the mainspring and a small amount on the bearing surfaces of the barrel arbor (D5, a fairly heavy oil can work here too), you then wind the barrel up completely by hand a few times (using a monumentally handy barrel arbor grabbing tool, I bought several extras of these in various sizes I like them so much), pop it open and check to see if the whole mainspring has a light coating of grease on it.  If it does, you used enough grease. If not, try again.  In the case of the automatics, you also put a few small dollops of braking grease (we've got at least four or five of these to choose from: molybdenum, graphite, a couple flavors of "special lubricants) on the walls of the barrel to provide adequate braking/slipping action for the slipping-clutch/mainspring-bridle.

Now that we've got our barrels good and greased up, lets turn our attention to the wheels.  While I thought truing barrels was frustrating, I was fully unprepared for the mental taxation of truing power train wheels.  Truing wheels is something that shouldn't really ever be necessary unless you are making a watch from scratch or trying to correct some accidental adjustments performed by some other "watchmaker".  Unfortunately, with the relative thinness of these little brass wheels, such accidental adjustments are not at all uncommon.

To true a wheel you place it in a truing caliper and slowly rotate it while comparing its rim to the edge of a fixed arm on the tool and make minor corrections to the spokes or the rim of the wheel in order to bring it to perfect flatness.  What does or does not constitute perfect flatness being a source of endless confusion in the early stages of wheel truing and endless misery and frustration thereafter.  A wheel can look all but absolutely 100% flat in the truing calipers and be seen to wobble like the wheels on my old Schwinn 5-Speed when placed in the watch movement with the rest of the train wheels and spun freely.  A discrepancy of 1/100th of a millimeter can be easily spotted with some practice and with even more practice, corrected.  Absolute trueness of the power train wheels is necessary to ensure smooth power transmission and isochronism.  That's what they tell me anyway.

Like all the other tedious learning exercises, the way we learned to true wheels was to surrender our ten kit watches to the instructor, have her bend the wheels mercilessly (sometimes painfully obviously, sometimes slyly subtly) and then return them to us for correction.  Once you think you've got the hang of correcting errors in the brass wheels, you then learn that the Glucydur wheels used in modern ETAs are a whole other ballgame.  They are much springier and more resillient than brass wheels and require a lot more force to correct.  This process seemed to continue for an endless period of time but I can confidently say I now know something about truing wheels.  I don't enjoy it but I do know something about it at least.

From here we began working on understanding proper endshakes of the train wheels and barrel and how to achieve it by moving the jewels or bushings up or down as needed.  Endshake is the amount of vertical movement the arbors are allowed between their two bearing surfaces and is generally proportional to the size of the pivot in question.  That being, the largest pivots (the barrel and great wheel) get the most endshake (possibly 3-5/100ths of a millimeter or so) and the escape wheel and pallet fork get the least (1-1.5/100ths or so).

Getting a feeling for what these endshakes look like is at least as important at this stage as learning how to actually adjust them, especially as the Horia jewelling tool that came with our toolkit makes very precise and consistent jewel adjustments easy and repeatable.  The tool uses a variety of stumps (the bottom portion) and pushers (the top portion) for different sizes of jewels or bushings and the movement of the pusher can be controlled very precisely with the micrometer adjustment on top of the tool.  I think this is my favorite tool.  No, more than that.  It's my best and only friend.

The thing about endshakes is that you are not only concerned with getting the appropriate amount of freedom in the wheel you are examining, but you are also trying to make sure that it lines up properly with the pinion and wheel that its wheel and pinion interact with.  As all the wheels in the train interact with each other at least indirectly, you can sometimes make one adjustment only to find that it requires several more adjustments to make everything line up properly.

We then focused our attention on the keyless levers and dial train and properly lubricating them.  There are many sliding surfaces in the keyless works that must be lubricated for smooth functioning with minimal wear and our instructor favors Moebius 8200 for these applications as well as for the intermediate handsetting wheel post, the minute wheel post and the cannon pinion.  I personally prefer Moebius 9020 (a medium-light weight oil) for the intermediate handsetting wheel and minute wheel post.  As these wheels are in motion during the running of the watch, it seems to me that a lighter lubricant is desirable to minimize drag on the power train.  Our instructor believes that the heavier 8200 offers more protection during the high-torque handsetting procedures.

From here we begin to focus on adjusting cannon pinions.  In practice, a cannon pinion need only be tight enough to carry the hands without slipping while loose enough so as not to damage the handsetting wheels or power train when setting the time.  To help us find the correct amount of tension, we were taught to also make sure the cannon pinion was tight enough to allow us to stop the movement with reverse pressure on the power train during handsetting (the improvised hacking method used by many watch enthusiasts to accurately set the time on a non-hacking watch).  Using a variety of techniques to loosen or tighten cannon pinions to correct for the "adjustments" inflicted upon them by our instructor, we also gained an understanding of how lubrication factors into the functioning of the cannon pinion.

At this point we were prepared for our third intermediate exam which involved checking and adjusting the trueness, endshakes and sideshakes in the barrel, truing the wheels and adjusting the endshakes in the power train, lubricating the keyless works, adjusting the cannon pinion and ensuring that the whole movement was held to the strictest standards of cleanliness.  It was a four hour test that we prepared for with a couple of practice tests and took the exam the week before the end of the quarter.

The last week of the quarter (after the exam) we spent assembling and lubricating a plate of various capped jewel settings.  It included 12 Incabloc settings, 4 Duofix settings (non-shock-protection cap jewel housings) and 2 different sized sets of 2 Kif settings.  After learning the appropriate amount of oil that should be observed in the assembled setting, we first went through the plate using an automatic oiler and than again without one to experience the different ways that oil can be applied to these settings.  Of course the strictest standards of cleanliness was demanded during this exercise as well.

At some point during the quarter (it's all a bit of a blur), we took a break from the above mentioned schedule to play with some hairsprings.  Our wise and experienced instructor had observed that many students fairly crack under the pressure of manipulating hairsprings for the first time and reasoned that if we had some exposure to them before these corrections became critical, it might save us some mental anguish in the long run.  More accurately, it would spread the mental anguish out over a longer period of time.

A perfect hairspring is a work of art.  It is a study in symmetry in several planes that provides for excellent timing performance when coupled appropriately with the proper balance and should not be taken for granted despite its relative resilience and unflagging performance.   When disturbed from this ideal state, it becomes the mother of all pain and suffering and woe be unto he or she who accidentally disturbs it.

Hairspring corrections are sometimes necessary to correct for flatness, and sometimes necessary to correct for roundness.  Both of these corrections require specialized ways of thinking about the manipulations necessary and much practice and experience to perform the manipulations without compounding the problem (or problems).  The quick and dirty explanation is that out of round corrections must be performed on the portion of the hairspring that is exactly 90 degrees from where the distortion is most apparent and out of flat corrections must be performed on the portion of the hairspring that is exactly 180 degrees from where the distortion is most apparent.  The real challenge then lies in determining exactly which coil to manipulate to make the correction and in what way to manipulate it.  After playing with haisprings of different sizes with one or two errors introduced in varying degrees of difficulty for about a week, we were delighted to get back into the tedium of wheel train adjustments.

If we finished certain portions of the program early, a few of us also got the chance to perform some repairs.  One interesting repair that I was treated to involved making a new pallet arbor for an old fusee pocket watch.  Seeing the craftsmanship exhibited by the construction of the pallet lever was quite awe inspiring.  The pallet jewels were perfectly fitted into slots in the black polished steel lever that completely covered the stones from above and below.  Replacing these stones should they ever chip or break would be most daunting.  Thankfully they did not chip or break while I worked on the new pallet arbor.

While we struggled with our remedial first-year challenges, the second year students wrestled with chronograph adjustments, advanced repairs and studying up for the theoretical/written portion of the final exam.  Three representatives from WOSTEP came out to oversee and grade the exam which consisted of a 2 1/2 hour written exam and a practical examination of 16 hours including the servicing of a quartz watch, an automatic watch and a chronograph including multiple corrections and adjustments within the mechanism (including but not limited to hairspring and pallet stone adjustments in addition to resetting all the eccentrics in the chronograph mechanism itself).

After the examinations were over, the second year students cleaned out their benches and the first year students swooped in like vultures to stake out their territory for the upcoming year.  We then hosted an open house for the incoming students and their families and got a chance to talk to the WOSTEP representatives and meet some other supporters of the school.

The most grueling part of the process for the second year students though was not knowing whether or not they had passed and would receive their diploma and certification until the graduation ceremony itself.  While this apparent cruelty is partially the result of the tests only be graded directly beforehand (to minimize the length of stay necessary for the representatives from Switzerland), the reason they could not at least call any students that didn't pass beforehand is lost on me.  It left a bitter taste in my mouth to see the one student who did not pass face the news in such a public way, especially as his family was present for the graduation ceremony.  Apparently this unfortunate occurrence was the result of some misunderstandings.  In Switzerland, the graduation ceremony is very low key with no family or friends present and now that the different situation is understood, it will not happen this way in the future.

The graduation ceremony included a banquet style meal, a slide show and speeches by representatives from North Seattle Community College and WOSTEP.  Amongst the pictures of the educational facilities in Neuchatel and elsewhere, slides showing the breakdown of the final examination grades were shown so that the students' performance in each different section could be seen.  The overall scores on the written portion of the exam were the highest Mr. Simonin (the director of WOSTEP) has ever seen outside of Switzerland but he encouraged them to strive for greater degrees of cleanliness and care in handling of parts, noting that was where their performance was weakest.

Oh yeah, then we went on vacation for five weeks.

_john

For more information about career opportunities in watchmaking, check out the Watch Technology Institute at North Seattle Community College.
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