BHI Automatic Watches Course

 Over the Easter break a number of students from second year visited the BHI for a week long (four days for us due to good Friday) course on automatic watches, which looks at both Swiss and Japanese movements. We had John Murphy as a tutor, a very knowledgeable watchmaker who was an excellent (and patient!) teacher! Here's a few photos from the course.

AHS Turret Clock Day at Big Brum

The 'Big Brum' Clock Tower

The Antiquarian Horological Society's Turret Clock Group meet four times a year, and this Spring was held in Birmingham so that members and students could climb the Big Brum Tower in the centre of Birmingham.

Making a Recoil Escapement

This term's project for the second year Applied Studies module was to make a recoil escapement to fit to the mini clocks we made in our first year.  Follow after the break to see the process I followed:

Omega f300Hz service

The Omega f300hz is a tuning fork watch, a technology which preceded quartz. Unfortunately quartz was much cheaper to produce so tuning fork watches were produced for a relatively very short time. I recently acquired one that wasn't working, and so needed to service it. 

Workshop Wednesday 12/03/14

While Jon and Jeremy are busy meeting and interviewing potential students for next year, we have been busy in the workshop!

This week, first years are mainly focusing on their first clock overhaul which had to be a strike mechanism of some kind. Some had a few initial problems with their clocks and Simon is now a 'Re-pivoting Expert', but most are now ticking away and have been for a few days. Second years are either working on portfolios or their pallet project which are to be finished before the Easter holidays.

Workshop Wednesday 26/02/2014

Here's another Workshop Wednesday to catch up with what all the students are doing

Free Astronomy Course

Since the birth of horology, clock and watch makers have attempted to recreate the heavens in their creation. Astronomy and horology have always been linked and in fact a show and free book at Salon QP 2013 covered this subject beautifully: https://www.hautehorlogerie.org/en/the-foundation/events-exhibitions/s/salonqp-2013/https://www.hautehorlogerie.org/en/the-foundation/events-exhibitions/s/salonqp-2013/

Top picks from SIHH 2014

Salon International de la Haute Horology, better known simply as SIHH is a chance for high horology brands to show of their latest and greatest fine watches. It happened January 20-24 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Here's a look at five of my favourite watches from the event: