Tag archives: enamel-watch

I've got the beginnings of a watch case but, as of yet, no dial that I'm prepared to drill a hole in. I'm not going to put a hole into the cloisonné enamel frog!

My starting point is to create domed dials, this is because enamel miniatures typically require several firings and a domed dial will minimize warping. From fitting into the watch point of view, a flat dial would be easier but in the long term a domed dial will far superior for enamelling applications.

Warping is less of a problem for cloisonne (although still an issue) since the wires and counter-enamelling give the piece a greater thickness and structure that help to control warpage. However, I found a domed surface gives more interesting light reflections, it's more difficult to bend the wires over a domed surface but I got plenty of practice when I made these set of enamel doorknobs.

I've been a bit worried about how to put on the strap for some time. I don't want to drill a hole all the way through the lugs and it seems impossible to get a drill access to put in a blind hole on the inside of each lug.

But, as with nearly all of this project, I don't want to think about it too much! I'll just do what I can and, by experimenting and making mistakes, the solution should present itself. It's rather like thinking with my hands.

The base fits snugly into the middle watch section but it's going to need some screws to make sure it stays fixed. I'm using the middle watch section to position the mill table, using the previous holes as guides and a wiggler to centre the spindle.

Now the ring is made it needs to be fit into the middle section.

In this case I'm cutting the inside of the ring first, to get this fully concentric, and clamping the outside. There is no particular preference or benefit of doing the inside or outside first since both should be near circular from the hammering.

I make a recess in the middle watch section to take the back piece. I'm cutting down 2.0mm into the back of the middle section to leave a 1.7mm thick shelf inside the middle section. This gives strength and acts as a border between the top and bottom watch sections but I think it could be slimmer in future.

The middle section wall thickness is 0.5mm, so it's important to make sure the middle watch section is properly centered on the lathe before making this cut.

The watch is going to need some sort of protection against water and dust. I'm not planning on making this a diving watch but some sort of gasket mechanism needs to be put into place.

To cut the ellipsoid shape into the top ring section I've programmed the ellipse in g-code so that the lathe table will follow this shape. The cut gets incrementally closer to the final cut. In the diagram, above, the solid white lines are the tool paths yet to be followed and the red ones are the paths already done.

On the final cut I increase the lathe spindle speed to give the finest finish.

Going back over the photo's I remembered that I'd forgotten to include this bit, apologies about the 'part 10.5' but it fits between the part 10 and 11.

I'd like the edge of the watch-glass shelf to have some curvature so that it doesn't just end abruptly with a square edge. I'm going to use the lathe and some cnc to cut the curve.

Let's get the top of the watch finished, it's getting to look more and more like a watch so I'm getting quite excited!

The top ring section is made in pretty much the same way as the centre section. I get a bar of brass and bend it into a ring and solder the joints. This technique is worth developing here because it can be extended to precious metals even though, with brass, the relatively inexpensive cost of the metal means the ring section could be machined from a solid piece of metal.