Reply To: Old Watchmakers Drill

[david pierce]

Alan,
As far as material for a bow goes, a piece of inexpensive springy steel will do the trick. It does not have to be round but the finished bow should be fairly light in weight. A piece of thin flexable bamboo such as the tip of a fly fishing pole should work fine. When you are making a tool to use yourself, the only requirement is that the tool must function for that particular job. It does not have to be pretty nor does it have to be hardened. It only needs to work well enough to get the job done. Look at Bob’s videos and view the section where Bob shows how to make a flag. You can modify his process a bit by soldering the two pieces together instead of riveting. The soldering will not be as strong as a rivet but it will be strong enough to work well. As far as a Jacot tool goes, most of the pivots that were made, in the entire history of pivot making, were polished with a Dorington style pivot polisher and not a Jacot tool. The major difference between the two systems is the Jacot tool uses a file guide and makes the polishing process a little more foolproof. The lathe on your workbench should be sufficient for any polishing requirement that comes along. A Jocot tool is more specialized but not absolutely necessary to polish pivots.
david