DuBois operated continually under family control for six generations!
When the company celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1885, the newspapers proclaimed that they were already one of the oldest watchmaking companies in Switzerland.
#Karakurist figured out the mechanism for Light Yagami's watch!!!
Video is in Japanese but has English subs available:
https://youtu.be/fJt4nqPApU4
Since we're highlighting Canadian companies we like, I recommend an outfit I've used in the past to order clock movements and watch bands.
Don't know what the future holds vis-à-vis cross-border commerce, but I've always had good service from Perrin.
Take a look if you need tools or parts having to do with horology. Cool stuff.
Did you know you could buy a Patek Philippe watch in Bloomington, suburban Minneapolis?
I, frankly, did not. The big billboards advertising such just didn't sink in till now.
The claim in this column is that the big Swiss watchmakers are reticent to maintain relationships over ownership changes, so the store will go out of business when its owners retire.
What will become of the in-house watchmakers? and the Labradors?
“You walk in those double doors and, if you’ve never been here before, you can be kind of intimidated,” Hope said. “We might have beautiful, spectacular things, but we’re just regular people loving our dogs.”
Not a jewelry person but I found this story interesting.
https://www.startribune.com/ramstad-wixon-jewelers-a-destination-for-luxury-celebrations-and-petting-dogs-is-closing/601228106
While we often turn to #Switzerland when it comes to the craft of making #watches. Increasingly some really oustanding (and affordable) ones can be found in : #Germany, #Thailand and #France.
For example, founded in 1925 #Laco makes anything from dress watches to #WW2 flieger and #sports watches.
I will post more on interesting brands in the coming weeks.
Making a Mechanical Watch From Scratch Is Fine Work - There are plenty of hard jobs out there, like founding your country’s nuclear prog... - https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/making-a-mechanical-watch-from-scratch-is-fine-work/ #watchmaking #clockhacks #timepiece #timepiece #clock #watch
Here’s an introduction to make this new account look a lot less empty.
I’m @amd a fedi citizen from the Pacific Northwest of the USA.
This account is a general account covering all of my interests so you may find yourself looking at it for a lot of different reasons.
️ Learning #watchmaking
#3DPrinting #Voton #FreeCAD #OpenSCAD
#Cycling #MTB #CargoBike
#Photography #FilmIsNotDead
#Gardening #Beekeeping
#OpenSource #Linux #SelfHosted #Homelab #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant
"I posted a very long and detailed article about the early history of the balance spring cartel in Switzerland. I spent 6 months researching this (in old French newspapers, academic papers, and business records!) and thought it was pretty interesting.
...
But here it is if you want to read it:
https://grail-watch.com/2023/04/27/the-balance-spring-cartel-crisis/"
I’ve been on Fedi for a year now and have fallen in love with the platform, so here’s my introduction! I studied computer science with a focus on RTOS and FP/PL, but I’m about to start my final semester of law school. I’ll be practicing at a boutique firm that primarily handles IP cases once I’m barred. I foilboard and I play way too many rhythm games in and out of the arcade.
I contribute to open source projects where I can, and I write up my experience in my digital garden which I’ve been maintaining for over a year now. It’s also a good place to find usage tips for projects/tools that you might want to use.
My passion for tech also includes privacy, and I’m an advocate for minimizing your digital footprint. GenAI is a scam and its purveyors are causing real harm while they sell it as hard as they can.
Follow me for: #selfhosting #digitalgardening #privacy #lawfedi #section230 #copyright #patents #rustlang #gleam #haskell #RSS #neovim #NixOS #zotero #tmux #alacritty #linux #egpu #qemu #arch #archlinux #GNOME #watches #watchmaking #obsidian #obsidianmd #thunderbird #fpv #mechkeys #mechkeeb #mechanicalkeyboard #matrix #signal #fido2 #passkeys #dancerushstardom
Well… I said I would post when I screwed it up.
The hair spring is no longer attached to the balance cock…
I’m not sure exactly when this happened, it went through the cleaner with the full balance assembly working and attached to the base plate.
Perhaps during cleaning or perhaps when I just removed it to start reassembly.
I’m going to try reattaching it because why not, but I’m not confident.
Wanted to get the water off the parts so the next jar was 99% IPA
That also went smoothly and the IPA looked just as it did at the beginning.
I took the parts out and placed them on paper to dry briefly then back to the tray to await assembly.
I need a ‘clean’ tray and a ‘dirty’ tray…
/me warms up the printer…
The DI water was another story.
Completely clouded. I couldn’t see a thing to remove the parts and had to fumble around and strain the DI water through cheese cloth.
I really need to count how many parts go in the bath, and I need to work on a basket for inserting and removing them.
The SDS for the favored L&R chemicals show it is primarily naphtha.
So taking that and wading through some forum feuding, I went with a 3 jar sequence of 15 minutes in naphtha, 15 minutes in DI water, and 15 minutes in 99% IPA and the bath at ~55°C the whole time.
The naphtha went fine, parts went in, parts came out.
Off to cleaning it went.
I do not have a fancy L&R or Elma watch cleaning machine.
I do have a second hand ultrasonic cleaner and I can wade through some SDS sheets.
There appears to be zero consensus around the best way to clean a watch movement. It’s the great schism of the community.
Disassembly was pretty easy. I was a little more nimble with the tweezers than I anticipated and the set of Kong Yuen screwdrivers I bought held the screws nicely and pivoted smoothly and easily.
I got everything separated into compartments and ready for cleaning.
Started a service on my learner movement today, a Seagull ST36 ‘clone’ of an ETA 6497 movement.
I’ll post a few progress pics in this thread, and loudly proclaim any screwups I happen to make.
Is there a 3d printable filament that is chemically resistant to naphtha?
I want to make little trays for ultrasonic cleaning.
My guess is PETG or ASA, but I can't find much in the way of definitive data and some personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Today's project was a stand for a set of watchmaker's screwdrivers. I made two variations because I'm not sure exactly what height I prefer working at and I wanted to try both a low entry and a high entry option.
As I mentioned earlier, @FreeCAD 1.0RC1 was a delight today and made this super easy.
If you want one it's on printables: https://www.printables.com/model/1011931-watchmaker-screwdriver-stand
Last week Clickspring posted a video showing how to use ruby (synthetic #corundum) bearings in precision instruments.
Corundum bearings are hard (mohs hardness 9) and shaped and polished to be low-friction.
Designing my own watch - Timeless timepiece, both functional and comfortable
https://willem.com/blog/2020-11-30_designing-my-own-watch/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316598
* very cool; note the HN comments (made to order; similar products) ️
