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I’ve just finished working on this Waltham for the day and I remembered to photo my index pin cleaning method, no gents, it isn’t international index pin week 😆 but my memory is better..
I use a little floss bow to clean between the pins and all around the base of them. Use the un-waxed type if possible, if not the waxed kind work..
I love these overdone demaskeened late 1800 Walthams, great eye candy
Chris:
Unfortunately, it’s difficult for we in the US to find the non-waxed version, so I used the Chicago School Of Watchmaking’s version of the same thing. Clearly, we’ll need sewing thread without wax as well. Anyway, I was able to build another tool without much effort.
Later,
TomAn ere I was finkin I was be in cleva
I gotta take that book on vacation with me and read it!
Nice job Tom, have you tried flossing with it yet 😆
Well, if you think about it, dentist work on the same micro level as watchmakers. I have many tools that are actually dental in origin, surgical steel picks, drills and burrs, the floss and I use a water pick for cleaning in plate holes and that part under the balance screws by the arms, and of course, a variety of toothbrushes 😆
The thing that makes the floss better than other material, like cotton for example, is that it doesn’t leave any fluff. Cotton tends to leave fibers behind as it wears, the floss doesn’t.
You can also use the waxed type as the wax is impregnated into the material and doesn’t leave a residue, it only acts as a bonding agent to keep the fibers together, and in actual fact, we want the fibers to separate so they encompass various points as you can see in the close up photo.This is another failure, IMHO, of cotton, thread. It is woven and not in strands like floss, so it doesn’t overlap both sides of…. An index pin for example.
I do really like your bow Tom and the bends you’ve made are perfect, how did you make such nice loops?
Again on the personal side, another reason I prefer the pick is that, it is plastic and will not scratch, mark or damage anything due to my concentration being so focused on a tiny point when I tend to sometimes waver off course.
In fact most of my assembly tools are of the none marring type..Nothing worse that seeing a scratched up movement or chewed up screw heads or a nice big, long gouge where somebody has dug in their metal tools OUCH 🙄
@Chris Mabbott wrote:
Well, if you think about it, dentist work on the same micro level as watchmakers. I have many tools that are actually dental in origin, surgical steel picks, drills and burrs, the floss and I use a water pick for cleaning in plate holes and that part under the balance screws by the arms, and of course, a variety of toothbrushes 😆
The thing that makes the floss better than other material, like cotton for example, is that it doesn’t leave any fluff. Cotton tends to leave fibers behind as it wears, the floss doesn’t.
You can also use the waxed type as the wax is impregnated into the material and doesn’t leave a residue, it only acts as a bonding agent to keep the fibers together, and in actual fact, we want the fibers to separate so they encompass various points as you can see in the close up photo.This is another failure, IMHO, of cotton, thread. It is woven and not in strands like floss, so it doesn’t overlap both sides of…. An index pin for example.
I do really like your bow Tom and the bends you’ve made are perfect, how did you make such nice loops?
Again on the personal side, another reason I prefer the pick is that, it is plastic and will not scratch, mark or damage anything due to my concentration being so focused on a tiny point when I tend to sometimes waver off course.
In fact most of my assembly tools are of the none marring type..Nothing worse that seeing a scratched up movement or chewed up screw heads or a nice big, long gouge where somebody has dug in their metal tools OUCH 🙄
I used beading pliers that I got from a Catholic rosary making supply company years ago. I may not be very good at watchmaking, but I can bend a wire loop like nobody’s business.
@Chris Mabbott wrote:
Well, if you think about it, dentist work on the same micro level as watchmakers. I have many tools that are actually dental in origin, surgical steel picks, drills and burrs, the floss and I use a water pick for cleaning in plate holes and that part under the balance screws by the arms, and of course, a variety of toothbrushes 😆
The thing that makes the floss better than other material, like cotton for example, is that it doesn’t leave any fluff. Cotton tends to leave fibers behind as it wears, the floss doesn’t.
You can also use the waxed type as the wax is impregnated into the material and doesn’t leave a residue, it only acts as a bonding agent to keep the fibers together, and in actual fact, we want the fibers to separate so they encompass various points as you can see in the close up photo.This is another failure, IMHO, of cotton, thread. It is woven and not in strands like floss, so it doesn’t overlap both sides of…. An index pin for example.
I do really like your bow Tom and the bends you’ve made are perfect, how did you make such nice loops?
Again on the personal side, another reason I prefer the pick is that, it is plastic and will not scratch, mark or damage anything due to my concentration being so focused on a tiny point when I tend to sometimes waver off course.
In fact most of my assembly tools are of the none marring type..Nothing worse that seeing a scratched up movement or chewed up screw heads or a nice big, long gouge where somebody has dug in their metal tools OUCH 🙄
You have convinced me my friend. How about this?
Have you had any success with brass screw driver blades?
Thanks!
Tom
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