Reply To: Pivoting Attachment for Watchmakers Lathe

[arutha]

You are always better off posting questions on the general discussion forum as I think a few of the forum users forget about this section.
To answer your question the 3 main ways of polishing pivots is
1.By hand on a block of hardwood using a pin vice – This is the cheapest way but does take a bit of practice, to burnish well you do have to use a fair amount of pressure with the burnisher and if you slip while polishing a delicate pivot you can bend or break them.
2.In the lathe – You can get pivot polishing attachments for lathes (Bob shows you how to make some in his videos) which are jacot drums but they are quite expensive to buy.
3.Pivot polishing machine – These come up on rare occasions on eBay but you have to have plenty of spare money to even think about one of these.
“Carbide-impregnated-polishing-wheels-for-Clock-Repair-Pivot-Polishing” These may polish pivots but I cant see how they would burnish them. Burnishing work hardens the surface of the pivot helping it to withstand wear and last longer, polishing the pivot will make it look nice but wont harden the surface at all and using one of these wheel will only polish a pivot.

The best material for pivots is hardened or “blued” pivot steel, brass certainly wouldn’t be hard enough and wouldn’t last very long. What type of hardened steel are you trying to cut? If you cutter is too low it will just be burnishing the steel and if your cutter is dull it definitely wont cut it.
Paul.