I finished up my regulator key project on Thursday right before lunch. I have to say, if I am ever in the position to where a key needs to be replaced, I would hope that I would be able to order a new regulator as opposed to replacing the key. Going through this box of regulators

and these boxes of keysis not a task that I really relish doing again. As I said in my last post, trying to match the height, widths, and post thickness was difficult. Learning how to create a rivet is good skill to have, and I am glad that I went through this. I had the opportunity to do some filing (my final key that I used need to be modified a bit), so that was a good experience as well. Some takeaways from this project:

• When you have the right size key, make sure the post isn’t too long after you insert it into the regulator. If it is too long, the rivet will be too big and can mess with the regulator pin rivet
• When hammering the rivet, make sure you are holding the regulator as straight as possible. It is possible to deform the tip of the key and have it bend down and touch the pin.
• When forming the rivet, you need to use the top and bottom of the face of the hammer, as well as rotating the hammer around the rivet to get it shaped properly.

Once I got done with the key project, it was time for me to move on to the 16-Point Check System. The 16-Point Check project is designed to simulate being in a shop environment and dealing with clients watches. There are 16 basic steps to be followed that range from checking the condition of the case components, the movement parts for wear and tear, cleaning, oiling and regulating. Over the next few weeks, I will be getting a bunch of different watches that I will need to follow the 16-Point check system on before I can turn them in for a new one.

Since all I will be doing over the next few weeks is the same thing over and over, I am going to do something different for my blog updates until I am done with this project. I am going to keep to my Wednesday/Saturday updates, with Saturdays being a breakdown of all the watches I “serviced” each week. I will document each watch, the problem(s) they had, and show before/afters of cleaning and timing. Wednesdays are going to be something related to watchmaking, but not necessarily something from school. Each week will be something different, but I want to stay in the habit of doing twice a week posts.

Here’s the first watch I’m working on
At the end of the 16-Point check project, I will have to create my own 16-Point check that I will follow based of the two templates I received in class. As I work on this, I’ll include my ideas/refinements with my Saturday posts, as well as my final draft at the end of this process.