Gasket making 21st century tools and follow on to thread about ladies watches

I am continuing from this thread as this is more of a watchmaking thing.

I have been playing about a lot with 134x quartz movements on the side and on the desk in front of my computer. I keep wanting to write this up, which should probably be a bunch of smaller threads rather than another megathread. Still after hours and hours of research megathreads are easier to write, although take more effort to read and study.



So what we have here are a bunch of quartz watches and cases. Now the dial arrived last night, but I got off on a tangent with an older case which is in the middle left. The case above it and to the upper right are quite similar. These are 196.117 and 168.202 respectivly. Both take plastic movement rings.

Now I was all exited about that beautiful 1345 dial I got which fit a 196.0189/396.0912 case. I just git the remains of the 1345. The dial fit perfectly.

Then I tried to case it but the back fit and the sweep pinion hit the crystal. I then noticed this.



Hell and damnation. The day dial is thicker on the 1345. I also forgot to notice that a 1345 case has the date set button on the side as well since the date does not set via the crown. (The day does set via the crown and that weird mechanical clutch.)

I had laser cut the ring for the dial blank (which is top center and looks like a snowflake.) This also fits nicely but the case can not close as it is too thick. So now I need to make a ring like @ErichKeane is proposing to do. And that only to get a 1342 movement to fit inside the case, so I am back to square one in all of this.

The acrylic spacer ring also is too thick and I cracked it even more swapping it.

I am getting quite a selection of parts screws case clamps and such.

I forgot I had the other bogus dial which clocks in at 29.6 where the dial inset in the 168.202 is closer to 28.5. moot point as that really takes a 1010/1012 according to the vintage site. It does however make me speculate if there was the feeling during the quartz crisis to make these movements interchangeable. Since the sentimental value is in the case. In the quoted thread someone had jammed a quarts movement into a cocktail watch.

The thing though with making gaskets or even dial blanks, is that just one can not be made.
Even with the laser it take some trial and error to get the scaling and kerf just right. I did make some acrylic guides, so could probably turn down the blanks with the lathe. A lot of dials are domed, so that means coming up with a way to spin them or stamp them.

This still remains a side project onto a tangent through a rabbit hole but it simply is so dammed interesting.

I did have more luck with movement holders for the 55x movements, but that is another thread. I think these were noted elsewhere in various comments and things. I also have some threads for restricting the electronics and such.

At the moment there is enough of legacy materials out in the wild so making new things is still a little on the early side. It also goes against the club collector spirit what drives the passion.

Stamping a dial doesn't seem too difficult, sheet brass plus a pair of dies in the lathe is pretty reasonable effort IMO.

With some mill work, and a little more design effort, something like a pie pan could even be done.

Gaskets at least there are rubber 3d print materials that are decent, or lasering out of sheet, but the one I have ends up being visible, so that doesn't seem right. IF I had a 3d printer I might consider trying anyway (or, casting silicone from a mold!).

I have a whole nother workroom what I rarely show. Well it is the downstairs kitchen. When my dad was convelesing I was working on film scanners and processing equipment to process the obsolete APS film format by cutting down the film. I also got into model ship building so t he other half of the table is covered with that stuff.

These projects invove a lot of gluing with everything from hide glue to fancy cryanacrilates. There is also a lot of epoxy and a bit of RTV. Both the caulk and catalyst based. I did have a small vulcanizing machine called creepy crawly (also made rings and things.) Oh those 1960s toys were fun. Would that I had it now and I would turn a die and make an O ring.

So yes you are correct that with lathe and mill work all of this can be done.

I have a bunch of those mechanical birdies, The ones in the 1960s and 1970s used rubber condoms instead of leather bellows. Ironically the zephyer leather made from intestine was used for the same thing.

So that is in effect what you are making when creating as gasket.

Some of my mentors were tool and diemakers what tolerate my abstract nature. There is a mindset though by people with this skill which does entail an attention to detail. This also makes it more profitiable to work for others.

The key word here is something called a draft angle. Surface finish also matters,

Lasering the sheet will cause all sorts of gasses to be emitted. (I simply plead ignorance.) My experiments though is one needs to have the thickness first, since attempting to hold the turned item. Cutting tools work with a lot of force and the work gets hot and changes shape.

looking at this image again

It can be seen where I stacked a bunch of the 1342 disk along with the guide plates The tricky part is how to hold it in the late to turn the edges. I have had problems with steady pins shearing. One would think sewing needles and dressmaker pins are tough. I think they are brittle as they are tempered to be hard.

I was also thinking of hand engraving some of the extra acrylic disks to make some sort of printing matrix. for a pad press.

This is a little block press I was making before my dad passed away to trim the leader of APS film. It also might be adaptable to make a dial pad press for dials as well. I just need to boil up some gummie bears or sweedish fish.



I need to finish epoxying it together, which will make it diffucult to take apart. I printed out a bunch of these.

Most of this involves sneaking up on the project. I was thinking that the 1345 dial was just what I needed to sneak up on the quartz projects. I also was building a corsi rosenthal box air filter for my dad. Now I am thinking It might be useful to make a cleanbox for some of this.

Mostly though there are not enough hours in the day since what starts small tends to snowball into a Sisyphean task. Here it is already 3:30 PM and I was up till 1:30AM last night trying to sneak up on it. I have not even been up for breakfast. Now it is also suppertime. And I am still working on my six impossible things.

I look forward to what others can do with second quarter 21sts century manufacturing.

Re the turning of the dials: light cuts plus an arbor that holds by "squeezing" is often best. So usually a threaded rod/arbor turned with a nut to keep it close.

Heat can be dealt with by either using coolant, or limiting tool pressure. Sharper tools can limit tool pressure too.

If you're ok doing 1 at a time. Super glue arbors work amazing for thin stock.

It is all part of the plan.

I have not had much luck with 'super glue.' Has no torsional strength, So joins break with twisting. I have seen the vids were it is used to hold stuff to the arbor.

Burnt shellac works really well, but for the local bans on solvents like alcohol.

I know tool sharpening is important. Feels like makework. Was much nicer when I was on the Penensula and there were walk in stores that sold the stuff in person so one could see what it looked like. I also have like a dyslexia for numbers, so I can not add or subtract them to calculate the surface speeds and such. I have no issues with the more abstract maths, like trig and geometry. No problem reading so go figure.

I have hobby equipment so cooling is awkward. When I did have stuff in an industrial space there was a mist cooler. I still have drip fittings and things. Eventually I would like to get back to some of that. Much easier just to go to the local makerspace and cut the 2D stuff with the laser.

They did get a plasma cutter, but the person setting it up lost interest. I brought my vacuum former in and it also sits while I lack motivation. This seems to happen a lot. There is also the EDM machine what Derick Pratt inspired me too. Needs dialectic. I lost contact with Derick. So it sat in storage for years. Seems to happen a lot. Great plans then stuff fizzels out till the next maker faire is at hand.

Mostly though I have really bad time management. I sometimes feel I wasted the last 25 years. There are simply too many interesting things in this world. And I like shiny complex things like Omega watches and self playing pipe organs.

At the moment I am dissapointed my 1345 dial was the wrong one, that I did not think it through. Or doble check that the case was 1342 and not tall enough.

Now I have an idea for something like a 3d printer, where a tube or syringe could sqeeze out a beed of calk material. This would be either an XY table, or perhaps a rotating table with an axis. The Arduino controller could then use it to make rings of differing diameters. A cake nozel could control the bead size. Not sure though how they would connect at the start/end point though. There are plenty of different silicone caulks which could be tried.

A lot of this would be chemistry, which is not one of my strong points. Especially catalized polymer chemistry. I did do a deep dive into injection molding. That though uses thermal heating to soften the materials, which then get forced into the mold. The commercial stuff uses fluid dynamic simulations, since they want to make as many as quickly as is proffitable. Again my lack of numneric skills makes it difficult to do these estimates quickly.

Meanwhile I just ordered a bunch more rusted 55x parts -- simply becouse I could do that with out a lot of effort.

So yesterday the Makerspace had a demo of a Keyence 3D scanner. I think the list price is around 70,000USD. Be nice If they were able to get a grant or donation though. This company seems to make some nice stuff.

We were told to bring something to scan. I had one of my rusted movements with me which I wanted to experiment with on the fiber laser.
The setworks were impacted in the plates. Even after a month or two sitting forgotten in a shot glass of evapOrust I could not get the stem and clutch out. I could use Alum. Wanted to see If I could save the clutch as these do not turn up much on auction sites for cheap. The winding pinion differs slightly between date and no date models.

The watch was loaded onto the scanner.



This is about the limit of what the scanner can handle. We tried first with a 1342 stepper motor which was too small. the device could not stitch it.

The results are a STL file.
I do not have a cad model to compare against. Nor have I loaded this into the CAD yet. The system was not calibrated so the holes are not all that well defined. I did notice that the broken screws stand proud which can affect some of the hole centers. The stitching also did not completely remove the clamp fixture. This was a fairly quick demo. The AI stuff is more of a marketing point. There is not a training data set for watch parts.

Due to the reflective nature of the metal, they had to use an anti reflective spray (calcium carbonate.) which is supposed to evaporate. I did get some new center jewels for it as the old one is fractured from attempting to remove the canon pinion.

Structured light is better at capturing flat surfaces then a laser cloud which has a lot of scatter. I am including the STL in case anyone wants to play with it. I made a movement holder hand entering photos from the data sheet. This might also work as a model for creating case rings.

In theory I could use this model to set the fiber laser up for cutting out the stem. Or the broken screws. I did not bother to do that. I used the tin I cut some dial blanks as a fixture.



Was a bit tricky as the setup spot was hard to locate precisely onto the end of the stem. Especially the part where the winding pinion sits. I did manage to nick the plate a bit. I wanted to see If I could get the pinion and clutch out. They do seem pretty solid rusted together.

The results are encouraging.




I have thought for the last 35 years that this is the future of watchmaking. Things are not quite there yet. Getting closer though by the week.