The movement was measured anew and the case measurements made.
General head-on view of the case with main measurements
Aspects of the side profile, the case is manufactured to size so no movement ring is used. Visible are also the 'snap-on' lip on the case.
Here details of the bezel, with details of the snap on portion, and above the case body profile.
Here I check the plans before starting work on the case.
The case starts from a single billet of bronze.
I mark out one horizontal line through the center of the piece.
Then through a simple square object (here a watch anvil) I position the line horizontally.
Here it is vertical and the spindle is locked.
And a horizontal line is traced. Now I have a line that is centered and has appropriate coordinates
I trace the outer diameter of the case and bezel.
Now I trace another line that is slightly larger in order to give some leeway with the cuts.
I use a simple ruler to mark out the interior area to be milled out (the smallest diameter hole of the case and bezel).
I mark this out on the lathe by hand with the tool bit and hand turning the chuck.
The outer and inner extremities of the case are marked.
Here I am marking out the interior lug space.
The interior of the lugs marked out.
The exterior of the lugs is then marked out.
I check the centering of the case and lugs with a drafting ruler.
Here I trace the outer extremity of the case lugs.
Now I mark out the area of the lugs where they start moving downwards.
The billet is marked out an ready to be cut.
I mill out a series of holes so that I can keep try to reuse the same material from the billet for other parts of the case, such as the crown.
Holes are drilled an I will then use a small jeweler's saw to cut out the central portion.
Further milling.
The back of the billet ready to be cleared of the center.
The billet is placed on a vice to saw out the center piece.
Here with a jeweler's saw clearing the inside portion.
This piece will be kept to create the crown.
The center hole is turned to a perfect cylinder.
Turning.
Finished turning.
The billet ready for the bezel to be cut off from it.
I turn the billet around, and mark a larger diameter ring.
Establishing the depth of the piece to be parted off.
Turning the outer diameter of the bezel.
I keep the outer ring to use the bronze for the buckle and other parts.
A long process of hand cutting this, as a parting off tool is to thick. I need to make this cut .5mm wide.
Some progress after much time.
Continued in the Myford lathe.
After a few patient hours this first ring is parted off.
The case body is faced off.
The side of the bezel is then cleaned off.
Hand sawing the bezel portion off with the thin jeweler's lathe.
Making some progress.
The portion of the bezel parted off.
The billet for the case body is faced off.
The bezel is faced off.
In these next operations I will cut the movement seating on the watch case.
The interior is bored to the smallest diameter of the movement, which is the back plate seen when you turn the watch around.
Then the top movement seating is opened.
Here with the movement plate reversed, the top seating is checked.
After that the middle seating of the movement is turned, here after completing that, I check the required depth of the movement has to sit in the case.
A first look at the movement back in it's future new home.
A look at the three step seating for the movement.
Here I am turning the temporary glass seating for the back see-through crystal.
Checking the seating with a glass. The seating will be finished at the very end of the case manufacture.
Here the case is reversed and is placed on a chuck with 4 independent arms so that it can be perfectly centered when it is reversed. Here I am adjusting the bezel's concentricity.
Here I am turning the top of the case and preparing the snap on seating for the bezel.
Further turning. The interior lip has a particular thickness which will then be refined.
The outer diameter of the turned out ring is the outer diameter of the case.
Placing the bezel on the 4-jaw chuck and adjusting concentricity.
Marking the outer diameter of the bezel.
Turning the opening for the dial.
Not turned all the way, as the piece will be rotated so that a through cut can be made, as is now, the tool tip will touch the chuck.
Aligning the bezel for concentricty.
Further turning the inner diameter opening for the dial.
The inner diameter is further reduced to 31.5mm, which needs to arrive at 32mm.
Inner dial opening reduced to 31.5mm.
Here setting the depth of the bezel convex bevel.
A purposely shaped cutter to create the convex bezel.
The main shape of the bezel is obtained. Further shaping and polishing will take place.
The case interior lugs will be cut out, and rectified.
I start by cutting within roughly 1 to 1.5mm of final value.
Here cut the other side.
However, upon making the second cut I realized I had forgotten to drill the guide holes to be able to cut the metal more easily.
These holes allow a right angle or other stronger angle to be made without damaging the saw blade.
First hole drilled.
then I drill holes on the outside of the lugs.
Arriving at the other side of the case.
Holes drilled, ready for more cutting with the jeweler's saw.
Starting to part off the interior area of the lugs.
First portion of the lugs cut off.
Moving to cut the second set of lugs.
Again, going towards the parting cut.
Second piece is cut off.
Then the rough cuts are smoothed out with the milling machine.
Further cutting.
Other lugs receive the same treatment.
Then I place the case back on the vice to manually file the interior of the lugs.
I use a triangular shaped file that allows me to create the interior contour of the lugs.
The interior of the lugs is filed to within ca. 0.5mm. Further finishing will be done once the lug shape is given.
Working on the second set of lugs.
Both lugs interior areas are finished.
The case sides will be cut.
I start making rough cuts as they will be corrected with the milling machine.
One side is ready.
The other side is cut. Cutting bronze is slow going as it reacts better to slow cutting than fast (the same with drilling- it takes very slow drilling speeds instead of faster ones).
Halfway through the other side.
A rather disproportionately looking case, ready for the milling machine.
Creating a purpose built case holder for the milling machine.
Checking fit with the case.
Further cutting of the movement holding cap.
Center drilling of the cap.
It will have a screw that will fasten it to the milling machine table.
The rotary table where it will be fastened to.
The case is fastened and sides will be milled.
Milling begins.
The milling of the first side leaves a finish that will be hand polished.
Case milled.
The case will need to be further worked.
A soft holder is made from Acetal (which is a rigid plastic).
Checking the fit.
Parting the holder.
The holder so that the interior of the case is not marred by the lathe chuck.
Ready for mounting on the lathe.
Shortening the lugs.
Lugs shortened, and ready for the profile to be cut.
Cutting the lug profile with a specially formed cutting tool.
The rough lug profile (top portion) is turned.
The case top profile is finished in rough stage, hand polishing and more detailing of sides where bezel fits need to be worked on.
Checking the centering of the threading tool on lathe. The threading tool is reversed for this operation.
The lathe is fitted with change-gears to change the imperial thread to metric.
The case ready to be threaded to accept the bezel.
Threading the case.
Bezel is screwed on instead of snap on. I have chosen this as the bronze is quite soft, and prone to marring when removing, and during testing I remove it quite often.
A view of the case with the bezel on.
Here I am making a soft jig to hold the bezel.
Further turning the seat.
I cleaned the interior rehaut of the bezel as there were some machining marks.
Turning the area of the case base.
The back bezel area is turned.
A view of the space for the engraving to be made.
Finishing the sides of the case with a diamond grit-grinder.
The sides of the case will then be hand finished to remove these marks.
Cutting out the major parts of the area between the lugs.
Testing the pantograph with a GHA pantograph chuck.
However, this is not a viable option as the chuck cannot be adequately centered on the engraving table.
Creating a centering plate to hold the movement on a cross table taken from the optical comparator.
Threading the center hole to hold the watch case.
Placing on the optical comparator cross table.
Creating a centering pin for the dial test indicator - which will allow to center the case holding plate on the cross table.
Placing the centering pin in the milling head chuck.
Creating a centering pin for the case holder to double check results of centering with the dia-test indicator.
The case holding bar is center on the rotary table portion of the cross table. This guarantees that the letters engraved will be properly aligned around the perimeter of the movement.
Produced a set of brackets to attach the cross table from the optical comparator to the pantograph table.
Creating new holes as the centering was still not adequate.
After more trials, I realized they were too short, and a new pair were made.
Here are the new holding brackets in comparison to the first pair.
Drilling the holes to fasten the brackets to the engraving table.
Machining the test piece of bronze to try out the engraving.
Testing the engraving on the pantograph.
A view of the work surface.
First results.
The test piece with the indications of degrees to turn in order to transfer a linear text onto the perimeter of the case.
Some views of the watch assembled.
Back view, with hand written text to get an initial idea of how it will look.
Another view with the restored ratchet gears.
Here after measuring the depth of the hole and the center line, I mark it on the case.
Placed in the milling machine.
And the initial bore hole is located.
I then proceeded to turn the crown.
Here I drill the hole for the stem.
And very slowly thread the stem. This operation is very delicate as the tap can easily break in the stem hole.
The case hole is enlarged to final diameter.
Then I turn the the outside of the stem portion.
Crown ready to be given the grip.
After making sure the cutter is at center height I fit the crown.
I index 30 cuts around the crown.
This is what the grip looks like before being reduced.
Turning down the crown grip.
I leave a stem on the outside of the crown so that I can grab it in the smaller watchmaker's lathe to finish the crown.
After parting off.
And then I will finish the stem diameter to fit the case very snug, and then proceed to cut the outside of the stem.
The case tube on the crown is turned down furthe to a snug fit.
The fit is checked again on the case.
The outer pip to hold the crown is cut off (instead of turned off so that no lateral forces ruin the grip on the crown).
The face of the crown is machined flat.
Then with a special shapped cutter, the internal bevel is cut.
The first pass at how it looks after cutting.
The concave area is polished.
A second crown is turned as the original had a problem with the spacing of the grip lines.
First was drilling of stem hole, now tapping so that it is threaded.
Now turning the crown tube that will go inside the case body.
Cutting the ribbed grip area of the crown, each cut is indexed, instead of knurled.
Having cut the grip on the milling machine.
Back on the lathe, the outer conical contour is given.
Placed in the lathe again, the holding pip is cut off and the concave center machined.
Checking for fit.
Profile of the 2nd crown.
The problem with the 1st crown, you can see that two lines of the grip are too close to each other in spacing.
The new crown.
Profile of the new crown.
The 1st crown on the left, 2nd on the right hand side.
Polishing the bezel, first a slight cut is made with a special graver that is round.
Then the different parts of the bezel are polished.
The polished concave portion of the bezel.
Starting to brush the sides of the case.
Further brushed finish, this is done on the lathe with a cilinder and 400 grit adhered to it.
For the curves from the case to the lugs, a smaller diameter bar that fits that curvature is used.
Finishing the top of the lugs with the brushed circular grain.
The top of the lugs are finished.
The interior of the lug area is finished with a belt sander fixutre.
Now that the case is finished, I move to engraving the back of the case. In order to do this, I have to use a profile projector micrometer cross table so that the engraving is center.
Further checking if the table is centered to the spindle.
Placing a holder for the watch case to be supported on the cross slide.
Turning a brass blank to test the results one more time before proceeding to the case.
Setting up the blank and the cross table on the pantograph machine.
Fixing the concentricity of the blank.
Test engraving.
Starting to engrave on the case back.
The engraving finished.
Off the cross table.
Having taken out the blued surface to show how it will look.
Milling a recess on the case for the mainspring barrel, as it protrudes slightly from the bottom diameter of watch (and approaches the top of the movement's diameter).
Drilling the time setting pin hole.
Drilling of hole.
Opening the hole to diameter with a successively bigger diameter bit.
I turned the push pin by hand.
The watch with the push pin and crown in place.
Marking out the holes for the strap spring bar.
The holes drilled.
Checking the fit of the straps on the case.
Now on the smaller lathe with an independent 4 chuck jaw (which allows more precision than a 3-jaw chuck), I center the bezel.
Further testing of the concentricity of the bezel.
The seating for the sapphire glass and gasket is turned.
Pressing the sapphire into place wiht a specially formed acetal pusher.
The glass is slowly pressed into position, and it finished.
The first look of the watch with the front sapphire on.
Drilling some movement retainer screw holes.
Milling out the seat for the retaining screw head.
Re-drilling to correct depth the screw hole (this is subsequently threaded, not pictured here)
Fitted the back glass, the black dot on the middle was to check clearance with center pinion before pressing the sapphire into place.
The watch in it's protective sleeve and strap I spare strap that I use to test watches.
