A solid brass billet for the back snap on movement holder (back mounted 'bezel').
Staring to turn.
Shaping to a smaller outer diameter.
Quick drilling of holes to speed up the interior boring.
Finished drilling.
'Teeth' to be turned away.
Turning of interior diameter.
Further turning.
Outer diameter reduction.
Initial phase of the back bezel.
Further reduction to size.
The back bezel is ready to be worked on a smaller lathe.
Turning the outer diameter further down.
Near specs for fine turning of details.
Turning interior seating for movement.
Bezel transferred to an Acetal holder, made to size so that it the thin bezel does not warp during turning.
Turning step that will form the 'snap' on seat onto the upper portion of case.
Testing the seating of the movement in its back mounted bezel.
A look at how the movement will look from the back.
Parting the acetal holder in two parts, one for further fine turning of back bezel, the other for the case front.
One portion.
Creating an expandable inner chuck.
Acetal chuck ensures the brass won't be marred when gripped and worked on the lathe.
Starting the upper, and more complex portion of the case with a sold billet of brass (70mm diameter, 16 mm thick).
Initial drilling.
Guide hole.
Quick opening of the center for quicker boring.
Boring out the interior of the case.
Initial turning.
Side with a step left to initiate the turning of top glass seating.
Turning back of case.
Turning the bottom shape of the lugs, and initial clearing of bottom bezel seat.
Initial turning of the top angle, which corresponds to the 'ribbons' that comprise the lugs and cradle around glass.
More sketches to set out cutting angles.
Further facing of top of case.
Additional facing.
Cleaning out more material from back of case.
Areas that will be rough cut on the case.
Initial rough cutting with saw of case-sides.
First lateral cut on case.
Milling the sides to ca. 2 mm of final diameter.
Finished milling.
Rough finish on sides, curvature of case visible.
Cutting of inner portion of lugs.
Further rough cutting.
Finishing the rough cutting of interior lug area.
Milling the case sides square.
Further milling.
Rough finishing on case sides.
Case in intermediate stage, above a general 'squaring' grid.
Turning the interior to size.
Further fine turning of back movement holding bezel to size.
New holder being made for the case.
Case top holder to be used for fine finishing the case.
Preparing the lateral cuts for the case.
Etching the first cut for the lug.
Using a slit saw to cut the lug.
First rough cut.
Cutting second lug.
Profile of case after first two cuts.
Placed on measurement grid. The case requires many more cuts and operations.
Further cutting of lugs.
Previous to fine cutting.
Miscalculation of cut by .5mm resulted in ruining the case.
Detail of cut-through of case.
Starting a new case from scratch.
Slab of brass after parting, cutting centering hole.
First cut.
Opening case.
Opening the case further to hold in chuck.
Cuts to be made, an initial profiling of the case being done in a previous step.
Turning the circumference of the back of case.
Lateral cuts made.
Back of case after side cuts.
Cutting lug profiles.
Rough finishing.
Case next to master drawing.
Turning the glass area to create cutting reference points.
Cutting the slanted side profile.
Initial cutting of side profile.
Side profiles cut.
Measuring sides, slightly larger than originally planned.
Hand filing the sides.
Initial smoothing of sides.
Cutting the top of the case to have a deeper angle.
Profile of case.
Profile of case and lugs.
Drawing the case lug profile further.
Case placed on 'truing' drawing to ensure lugs are cut centered.
Further turning back profile.
Cutting out lug area.
Hand filing lugs.
Lug width finished.
Cutting the lug-end profile.
Lug-end profile cut.
Initial interior of lug shaping by hand-filing.
Further shaping of interior lug cut-away.
Right hand interior rough cut done.
Further filing by stone file.
First rough shaping done.
Sizing the back bezel.
Bezel turned to size, checking fit of movement.
Front side of watch with movement.
Making snap-on lip for back-fitted movement bezel.
Turning the snap-on back-fitted movement bezel lip.
Making a special cutter with indentation for snap-on lip, width is .40mm
Making an inside snap-on lip on the back bezel.
Bezel fitted.
Image of case sides, with ca. .5mm to remove from sides.
Creating a bevel on the bottom portion of case.
Turning the inner front bezel to size.
Fitting the movement and dial to case for the first time.
Sides of case have been thinned.
Another look at the movement with the dial (n.b., the dial is not perfectly aligned in this photo).
The thickness of the case is reduced by 1mm.
The front of case needs more work on the interior-lug area.
The movement sits closer to the 'glass' area. Hand drawn area to file out.
Turning glass sitting for back bezel.
Initial fitting of glass to watch (with the balance wheel bridge fitted to see how the movement looks).
Cutting a fluted bevel to the back movement bezel (it will be polished at a later point).
Cutting the glass seat on the front of the watch.
Filing the interior are of the lugs.
Starting to polish case sides by finishing through finer sanding grades.
Initial polish to highlight imperfections to be further sanded and polished repated.
The case dial opening is being enlarged.
The dial is opened from ca. 36.5mm to 39mm.
Another view.
Milling out a part of the interior of the lugs to expand the lug width.
Using the lathe as a mill to clean the interior of the lugs.
Checking the top of the lugs (bottom lugs have not been expanded yet.
Making the bevel for the glass.
Glass fitted but not through, will carry this out at the final stage.
The lugs opened, and now work on the sides has to be done.
Pushing the lugs to thinner points.
Working on the lugs.
Working on the interior bevel.
Checking the angles of the lugs against the lathe.
Not much very visible here, but I've marked the lower flange with ink to file away.
Now work on the bottom flange (this is after you suggested this).
Arriving at parallel lines with the top of the case.
Work on the right side of the case.
Polishing the case.
Moving closer to fine polish.
However, not fine enough as grain can still be seen, more work to follow.
Reworking the stem as I was not satisfied with the original configuration.
Threading the stem.
Using a purpose made cutter to mill out the 17 teeth of the stem.
Stem with teeth in the rough that will be cleaned.
A washer for the stem is made.
This is a washer that is .3 thick and will sit inside the case.
Reducing the thickness fo the washer.
Cleaning the face of the washer.
Another brass washer is made to compensate for the new stem.
Initial sanding of the visible end of the stem before being polished.
The new stem placed in the watch.
