Laser Cutting in Horology

A resource we've just started to use in the degree course is the school's laser cutter, which is great for creating quick prototypes to test designs of things like escapements and wheels.

3D render using Solidworks

After creating a CAD drawing you can make a render to see what the parts will look like, but there's no easy way to simulate something like an escapement (that I know of, anyway!) so a physical model makes testing things like drop possible.

The real thing!

 By changing the drawing to account for the size of the laser beam, we can create physical items that have the exact measurements we designed them with. It's also great to see if fancy designs for wheel crossings are strong enough! Thanks to CAD, we can also scale parts for any use, like the display piece above, or the wheels below made to fit into our mini clock!

A selection of wheels, each with a students' personal crossing design.

 In the first picture you can see a laser cut escapement installed into a mini clock to check the two parts interact as they should.

It's going to be interesting to see how else this can help us with our projects!