Sorry for taking a couple weeks off from my schedule, but the last couple weeks were kind of hectic for me. I am reaching the end of the semester (next week), and have been pretty focused on getting my last watch finished up so I can move on to my final project (pinning and studding hairsprings).

My last couple of posts on timing and oiling are exactly what I have been doing in class since my last post. Oiling (and more specifically, greasing) has become a lot easier to do. I am still working on getting better with oiling the pallet forks through the movement, but it is getting better (in the sense that I don’t have to remove the pallet fork as many times as I was).

I have been learning a lot about inspecting parts when disassembling a watch. I have had jewels that were cracked that needed to be replaced, pallet fork pins that were bent, parts that didn’t get cleaned well enough that had some dirt in them (my fault for not doing a better job with the pre-cleaning procedure), etc. I still don’t know how to diagnose problems (we start with that next semester) with a watch yet, but hopefully by paying attention to how the watch is running, I can hopefully figure out if there are going to be any issues with the watch.

Once I start the pinning and studding next week, I’ll have some more posts about school.

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Now, about the blog. The blog isn’t going anywhere, but my update schedule will shift from Tuesday/Friday to Wednesday/Saturday. This will accommodate some schedule changes due to a new class on I’ll be taking on Friday as well as some changes with my “domestic” schedule (workouts/cleaning/cooking/family time 🙂 ).

In addition, my Saturday update will include a small section at the end that will summarize what I will be learning in my Applied Jewelry Practices course. While it won’t necessarily be relevant to watchmaking, anyone who will be applying at Paris Junior College will be taking the course, so it will be helpful for them.

After next week, I will be on break from school for a couple weeks, but I do plan on doing some updates while I am on break.