Watchmaking - Making a Watchmaker's Faceplate for the Sherline Lathe - Part 1

foreign Chris here and welcome back to clickspring for the sort of work that many of us do in the home shop a small lathe like this is pretty much indispensable the working envelope is often a bit limiting but for small components its light feel makes it well suited to the job and maybe most helpfully of all it's an affordable way to get started in Machining this particular model of Lathe a shoreline is one of the more customizable small lathes on the market and the company offer a large range of additional fixtures fittings and add-ons to extend the capacity of their machines but there is one addition that I need for future projects that they don't currently offer and that's a watchmaker's style faceplate now to be fair this machine isn't marketed as a watchmaker's lathe so that's not surprising and they do offer a general engineering style of faceplate that'll do the job in many cases at the requirements for watchmaking are fairly specific and so a dedicated tool with some particular features is called for because there are many watch components that are not the typical cylindrical Turn part but tend to instead be more flat with precisely formed recesses and holes like for example a watch main plate work holding of an expensive and easily damaged component like that is often a challenge especially when the holding method needs to provide for convenient and accurate centering on an already existing feature a watchmaker's faceplate is uniquely suited to helping with that sort of issue and I'll demonstrate exactly why that is at the end of this build series now ideally of course this sort of work will be done on a dedicated watchmaker's lathe designed and constructed to be better suited to the task but I found this little light consistently delivers a high standard of accuracy and I found it to be an excellent platform for expansion with shop-made tooling an example of what I mean is the screw head polishing tool attachment that I made some time ago I based the design on the traditional hand operated watchmakers tool that's used to achieve the so-called black polish finish often found on the Fasteners of a high-end watch movement it mimics the action of the antique tool and works as a reasonable substitute for the genuine article but at a tiny fraction of its cost so I'm going to take that same practical approach with this build of a watchmaker's faceplate and we'll see what we end up with okay so ignoring the draw tube and centering shaft for the moment the basic architecture of the tool is this a true running plate with three toe clamps that hold the workpiece offset from the plate surface there are three holes that permit inspection of the work piece from the rear of the plate and the clamps travel freely within slots for repositioning as required to securely hold the workpiece now before we move on with the build a quick word about the central Arbor share lines sell blanks that fit their spindle taper either directly via the Morse taper or with an adapter sleeve that accepts a watchmaker's collet profile either could be made to work but as it happens I'm going for the adapter sleeve option it makes including the centering feature a little more convenient and it also gives me a chance to show a simple way that the machine can be tuned for even better performance every machine tool is built to specify tolerances and this small amount of spindle run out is well inside what share lines specify for their machine for the vast majority of my turning needs it has no consequence at all but of course adding the adapter sleeve that I showed a moment ago isn't likely to improve things and this is a fairly typical run out for my machine with the collet adapter sleeve installed it's still not a problem for most of my turning work but for some of the more important tasks it's a little more run out than I'd normally choose to accept fortunately there's a really easy way to almost completely neutralize this error [Music] very light skin paths down the inside of the adapter sleeve shows what we're dealing with now if that cut is taken all the way to Fresh metal then the small error is eliminated and we now have a true reference surface relative to the lathe [Music] the small penalty is that to get the best out of this process we have to locate the adapter sleeve in the same rotational position each time that we use it which is easily done with the help of a small witness Mark adjacent to a known feature on the spindle if care is taken to properly align the sleeve each time that it's installed the net effect on spindle run out is a dramatic and repeatable Improvement and I use this basic idea regularly across each of my machines whenever the accuracy of the outcome really matters I'll generally find some way to make use of the lathe's natural ability to cut its own true spindle reference and so create the best possible starting condition for whatever operation comes next and certainly in this case we have a reliable starting point for both making the tool and also its future use okay so we'll come back to the arbor formation in a moment for now let's make a start on the main plate it could be made from any number of metals but I've decided to use aluminum bronze it's reasonably hard for a copper alloy which is helpful for a tool that'll likely take a few knocks through its life and I really like the way that it cuts [Music] foreign the first step with this plate is to remove as much of the waste stock as possible and also to leave behind some well-sized holes to use for later reference [Music] foreign slots is always a bit of a challenge for my little benchtop Mill it's just not rigid enough to resist the tendency to Waddle Under The Cutting forces but it's fairly straightforward to manage by cutting the slot undersize accepting the poor finish for the time being and then gently widening out the slot to final dimension foreign [Music] foreign s could be opened up all the way with appropriately sized drills or end mills as available but another option of course is to use a boring head it's a really enjoyable way to get the hole not only on size but also to leave behind a great surface finish for later reference [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] ly I need some visual guides to indicate where to start and end the curved slots when I come to Mill them out later foreign [Music] [Music] foreign so that's some of the features started and we have what we need from that Central ball to cut the main are the profile and bring its boss to size using the ball to confirm the fit foreign foreign to put the final surface finish on the back and perimeter surfaces of the Arbor [Music] and the plate can then be returned to position and held with super glue for turning its outside diameter to size foreign it's best to just let the glue Wick itself into the join while holding the plate tightly in position generally means less time waiting for the glue to dissolve later compared to being more generous with the glue on the inside surfaces [Music] foreign while the assembly is still glued together the mounting holes and threads can all be formed at the same time with the center axis of the plate identified relative to the table so the holes go where they should relative to the already existing features foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign okay so these two parts can now be separated after a soak and some acetone to break the super glue Bond [Music] foreign [Music] now we get to make use of those well-sized holes that I mentioned previously to locate the curved slots I've turned up a simple plug gauge that's a close fit to both the reference hole and the rotary table subplate and it also has a separate diameter that's a close fit on the holes this will serve to bring the holes onto the axis of the rotary table and of course if there's any doubts about how well that's been achieved a quick sweep can show where things need to move for correction [Music] the point marks made earlier served to identify the beginning and ends of the curved slots and then there are conduct in much the same way as the straight slot [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] ER looking thoroughly mustachioed and surprised we can move on to styling the inside perimeter of those inspection holes the commercially supplied face plates tend to have a nice curved profile which looks like a great opportunity for a custom form tool it doesn't need to be anything too fancy just a secure shank to hold a concave cutter with the aim that it all be held in a standard lathe tool holder for the cutter this small slice of o1 tool steel will do the job and for the shank I have a length of mild steel from the scrap bin that's been patiently waiting for what looks like quite some time to be put to good use again the super glue approach makes easy work of the location issues for holes and threads [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] and once that's sorted the cutting phase can be formed with an End Mill gently worked into the correct position to provide a suitable cutting profile [Music] foreign heat quench followed by a temper to medium straw and the cutter needs only a final sharpen to be good to go [Music] so to complete the tool the end of the shank needs to be ground to shape for clearance within the hole and in the cutter sharpened for final use foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] best to hold the main plate while making these cuts well my go-to option for this sort of thing is generally the sacrificial aluminum face plates it's not strictly true for this particular use but generally they're another instance of what I mentioned earlier about turning reference surfaces in place to neutralize the small errors of these machines other than the main mounting boss of the bag I treat every aspect of this as a consumable item to be turned or machined away as required to give a true surface whenever I need it for example the central brass Rod can be continually released pushed forward and then a reference boss turned as required and over time the plates tend to pick up all sorts of cuts and holes depending on what they've been used for in the past this one already has a couple of tapped holes from a previous job and I can make use of at least one of them for this job these other plates have all been sort of half consumed for whatever reason in the past and can still be called into service by fitting to the main mounting boss if they should better suit the job at hand and of course it's easy enough to bring in a new plate if a problem can't be solved with one of the existing ones now in this case I don't really need the consumable center so that can go in fact what I really want is a recess right here that I can use to give the cutting tool room to move as it forms the interior curves thank you and I need some additional tactiles to accept the clamping Hardware [Music] now speaking of clamping Hardware standard cap screws are fine but I'd prefer to play it safe with a surface finish on the inside of those slots during the next operation so I've taken the edge off the threads to minimize the chance of them doing any damage and the same thing applies to the washers I could probably get away with a commercial washer but a larger set of soft brass washers removes any doubt about injuring the part from the clamping Force [Music] [Music] oh foreign that plug turned earlier gives a general location for the hole that's about to be shaped and any small error in location can be taken out with the four jaw Chuck [Music] foreign the case the setup and preparation work takes up the majority of the time while the cut itself is over in no time at all [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign the outside perimeter of the main plate also generally has a light curve to it although this requires no special cutter in fact it's a good opportunity to break out the Graver and have some fun shaping it by hand it's also a good time to face the plate true to the axis of the lathe on which it'll ultimately run first by holding the part with super glue as before and then by reversing the plate and using the Fasteners made at the start of this video foreign [Music] foreign [Music] now I expect that the main plate is going to pick up a few bumps and scrapes over the rest of the build as I test fit the toe clamps and so on so I've left a little bit of extra material on both faces for a final facing cut at the end of the build to leave the best possible finish for the final tool for now it's enough to give the plate a quick deburr in preparation for that test fitting the Fasteners however can be taken to their final Blue State now with heat applied over a bed of brass chips and that's the first components complete for now in the next episode I'll make a start on the toe clamp assemblies thanks for watching I'll see you later foreign [Music]

Channel: Clickspring

Views: 360,328

Keywords: watchmaking

Id: FHE4zMfEZ2Q

Length: 29min 19sec (1759 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2022