The Quiet Minutes

Introduction

Prior to moving to texas, I worked at a precision manufacturing shop in denver. It was one of the best and most STRESSFUL work experiences of my life. Here I completed my APPRENTICESHIP and gained promotion to machine operator lv. 1! Outside of covering the basics of machine operation, and how to hopefully avoid maiming yourself, the standards for education and training left much to be desired. Though i did work with some brilliant people, who are still close friends, i knew that i wanted a different career path.

It was around this time in my life that my curiosity for watchmaking really took off. a combination of highly romanticized youtube content and my own growing understanding of the complexity of some of the operations needed to achieve such precision drove me to look into how i could transition from my current role to one as a student of watchmaking.

Day one to Intermediate exam one

09.02.25, Tuesday

First day of the program!

Tour of the building and facilities
Met for group photos
presented our top 3 watches
pop-quiz on chapers 1-2 of the theory of horology
the lego project, where we designed our own watch face with… legos!

cohort 2!

My groups watch face.

aquatic motif.

we presented this in front of the class.

my class - with master sam

09.03.25, Wednesday

highlight of the day - the perfect square project.

ours was 27 mm with a tolerance of +/- 0.05 mm (it could have been 0.5, ten times easier!)

the square was constructed using a ruler, compass, calipers, and a mechanical pencil.

It was not as easy as one might assume, but i got it on my second try!

this was a good exercise for getting us used to precise measurement.

My first successful square!

Additional complications

Complications overcome!

09.11.25, thursday

Today we started on the nameplate project, aka the chocolate bar. it’s intended to be a showcase of skills.

Measuring (of course) as well as sawing, filing, drilling and tapping, polishing, and includes couple of INTERFERENCE-fit components in the flavor of steady-pin and brass bushing.

this progress shot is much further along thAn day one of the project,

one of my biggest hurdles to overcome was being super slow at sawing and filing!

09.16.25, tuesday

Today i made my own screwdriver heads! cut and filed all by hand, i was pretty happy with how these turned out, and happier still that i didnt have to restart any of them!

from largest to smallest they have an outside diameter of 5, 3, and 1 mm and a length of 30, 28, and 23 mm.

The hardest part for me was the flat section at the end of the shank for the set screw. Keeping these even and level was not easy on such a small workpiece.

09.17.25, wednesday

today i started on johnny’s triangle project. a 30 x 30 mm brass plate with a 20 mm triangle insert that must fit as perfectly as possible.

i didnt know it yet, but this would take me days to complete. not only because i wanted it to be perfect, but we also changed gears and started a new project right after this so it had to go on the back burner for a while.

09.22.25, monday

today was our first day with aluminum!

we all masked up and got cracking on our new favorite project, aluminUm anvils. it took me nearly the full day to cut the base rectangle out the stock material we were provided.

turns out sawing aluminum is a ghastly task :(

these progress shots represent a full three days worth of work.

09.24.25, wednesday

The anvil is finished!

well, it’s basically done here. I wouldn’t be able to finish drilling the through-holes until the last day of micromechanics.

09.26.25, friday

today i finished johnny’s triangle!

i also started the layout and initial cuts for my staking table. going back to working with brass was a real treat after aluminum, which is a great material but not so fun to saw and file.

10.03.25, friday

today i finished my staking table. I had been working on it for a while. Hand tapping the blind holes for the legs was honestly a bit of a nail-biter but i got it done and the screws go in (fairly) straight.

not too shabby, but there are some things i could have done better. I had one extra punch mark from where i layed-out my drilling locations, and the screw heads look shiny but the polish still has some scratches showing through. looks neat though!

10.09.25, thursday

i spent the day getting caught up on my backlog of projects and applying nicer finishes to what i already completed.

my file cleaner. i’m sure you can tell, it’s a screwdriver. i will never use it to clean the teeth of a file.

tim’s triangle project. I’m not sure which one i prefer. fortunately i was feeling a lot more CONFIDENT with the jewelers saw at this point so it took a lot less time to cut out the internal triangle!

this is how tim’s triangle started. everything cut from one piece of material.

pallet warmer. one of the earlier projects we did, and one that we will actually use for it’s intended function!

10.20.25, monday

I finished my angle gauge today. this would have come in handy if i had gotten it done sooner, but i don’t think i would have done such a good job on it. i even had time to apply a heat blued finish!

in reality sam applied the finish. about 7 minutes on a 300 degree celcius hot plate.

so happy with how this turned out. the edges are sharp and i bled for this one.

10.22.25, wednesday

thirty-six in class days and time for intermediate exam 1.

we had done a couple of practice exams before now, i’m glad we did because i was able to stay calm and manage my time well. my measurements were accurate and i didn’t omit any features. there were definitely things i could have done better, but not in the limited time we had to complete our work.

i passed with a 5.1 out of a possible 6. not too bad!

the only points i missed were on my chamfers. they measured less than 0.90. i did get one point for my polishing though!

we touched up our submissions after grading so they can be sent to geneva. i will never see this little guy again.

not too bad overall, but my engraved initials are atrocious.