8 ms·
Watchmaking: Machining a 0.6 mm Screw [video]
- amrb 4y agoFrom my talks with people who machine parts, precision can be super interesting, plus a bunch of equipment to measure from micrometers, calipers to indicators.
- barelyauser 4y agoPrecision is a marvelous thing. Every detail must be accounted for. I remember reading a brochure about surface plates (a reference of flatness), and the body heat of the person handling it would be accounted for.
- WJW 4y agoSome of the highest precision manufacturing in our country is located in extremely rural areas because nearby highways introduce too much vibration otherwise. Even relatively humdrum spindle assembly is typically done in clean rooms to make sure no dust gets in the bearings. Super high precision machining is even more extreme. It's a wonderful thing to dive into but it also makes me happy to be in software sometimes. (That said, my friends in machining are happy they're not in software so take that as you will :)
- dendrite9 4y agoIBM built some very isolated labs in buildings not far from the rail lines and highway in Zurich. When I heard about it I wondered if it might have been cheaper to build elsewhere. https://spectrum.ieee.org/ibm-goes-for-world-record-in-noisefree-labs- https://spectrum.ieee.org/ibm-goes-for-world-record-in-noise...
- gaudat 4y agoCheck out this classic text which is almost required reading for anyone working with precision mechanical stuff. It mentions ways to measure and machine parts down to millionths of an inch, and stuff like mills and lathes using temperature-controlled cutting fluid. “Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy” Wayne R. Moore – 1970 https://archive.org/details/FoundationsOfMechanicalAccuracy https://archive.org/details/FoundationsOfMechanicalAccuracy
- mjb 4y agoUsed copies can go for incredible prices, but the book is still available new from Moore Tool: https://mooretool.com/publications.html https://mooretool.com/publications.html Highly recommended.
- mhb 4y agoOK. But still $190!
- walterbell 4y agoThanks to Archive.org for historical machine shop books, https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22machine+shop%22 https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22machine+shop%2...
- ThrowawayTestr 4y agoMetrology is really fascinating.
- memling 4y ago> Metrology is really fascinating. It really is. I have some small experience with the industry, an acquaintance I didn't expect to have. The engineering that goes into metrology-grade measurement is incredible.
- bluenose69 4y agoWhat a lovely little video this is, from start to finish. Very skilful work, indeed!
- convolvatron 4y agorelated question - I learned on a long bed Logan toolroom lathe. cant _really_ cut threads on that guy because of all the slop, but I often do a prepass to get things started before I use a die. I've really been interested in getting a jewelers lathe with a goal of making smaller parts and particularly screws. but it looks very expensive and intimidating. many thousands of dollars for a few pounds of 100 year old steel with a lot of very fussy and foreign looking tooling. I really love to fix things up and learn, but would love some advice about how to start. anyone have a suggestion?
- skykooler 4y agoIf you don't mind having to spend some time on cleaning and oiling, it can often be worth it to get an old lathe from an industrial auction; often you can find them for a few hundred dollars.
- jacquesm 4y agoThat is an excellent way. Also, ask around if anybody is giving up their machining hobby.
- twothamendment 4y agoGiving up machining? For all the machinists I know I think that is called dying.
- jacquesm 4y agoYes, pretty much. But even machinists age and some of them move into managed facilities and then they have to leave their gear behind. It is super sad when it happens. And of course they really die as well... I know a fairly large number of hobby machinists and some of them are quite advanced in age. They still turn out quality work, doing stuff that they love. But you can tell that in some of these cases the writing is on the wall and they'll stretch it as long as they can.
- 4y ago
- maxbaines 4y agoSwiss turning is ideal for this, on a Swiss turning lathe the headstock moves rather than the tool, which improves accuracy.
- immmmmm 4y agoI am a Swiss from Jura mountains and approve your message https://www.museedutour.ch/machines-documents/ https://www.museedutour.ch/machines-documents/
- saiya-jin 4y agoOff-topic but I just finished hiking in Swiss Jura mountains (albeit in canton Vaud and not Jura, namely part of Cretes du Jura ridge hike), beautiful forests which remind me of nature back home in eastern Europe. One question - why did watchmaking industry started/thrived in those rather remote places up in the mountains? I get that not everybody wanted/could be in Geneva, but remoteness helps little when doing business, apart from driving costs down. You need very specifically skilled people to get to those remote places. Some small village(s) say near Yverdon les Bains would make more sense to me, in the past and now too. On the way back saw new big glass&concrete building of Vacheron Constantin literally in the middle of nowhere, in between 2 forests and small road.
- immmmmm 4y ago> In the early 1800’s the Lépine calibre was adapted to factory production by French watchmaker Frédérick Japy. This development favoured Swiss watchmakers more than it did the French as Swiss farmers and peasants would spend their winter months making watch components for firms in Geneva. As further technology was implemented for mass-production, Swiss watchmakers were able to produce watches at much higher volumes than their rivals. https://medium.com/watchmakers-ch/the-history-of-the-swiss-watch-industry-34734d7636c1 https://medium.com/watchmakers-ch/the-history-of-the-swiss-w...
- maxbaines 4y agoGreat images of some old machines. Spending my life with modern CNC machines I'm always pleased to see machines of yesteryear.
- Animats 4y agoThat's how to make a single screw as a one-off, using basic machine tools. That's not a production process. Screw making was automated by 1871. Here's an early automatic screw machine.[1] The video says 60,000 screws a day, but that must have been the whole shop, not one machine. You can see that the cycle time is about 10 seconds per screw. Who needs computers? We program with cams! Complex cam-programmed industrial machines were what made manufactured parts cheap. Here's synchronized thread rolling using a CNC lathe.[2] That's a more modern one-off approach. Thread rolling squeezes the threads into the screw, rather than cutting out metal. Rolled small screws are stronger than cut screws. Needs a specialized tool. That's not the full speed modern production process. This is.[3] A relatively simple machine turns out small screws at about one every 250ms. Over 100,000 screws per shift. This screw rolling machine can go down to 0.6mm, so it can do the job in the original video. Here's a larger, slower, bolt rolling machine, so you can see the process.[4] It's very simple. A round piece of metal is rolled between two file-grooved die plates, and the threads are pushed into the metal. This is why screws are cheap. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCmnUP5gx78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCmnUP5gx78 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eWghSLN3ng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eWghSLN3ng [3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HWmu4gxmois https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HWmu4gxmois [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlfq_Pbh6PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlfq_Pbh6PQ
- gaudat 4y agoThe third video with that rapid-fire machine sound.. It's my fetish now.
- WJW 4y agoThat high speed machine is wild. Some of the most common parts in the world are crazy accurate but since they are produced in such huge volumes they can still be cheap. Screws and ball bearing that you can buy for $10 a pack are order of magnitude beyond what even a king could buy in the middle ages. I'm not even going into how you can buy processors/memory with features on the order of nanometres for single digit dollar amounts these days.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
- ezequiel-garzon 4y agoAll of a sudden those expensive timepieces feel underpriced.
- jiggawatts 4y agoEven the hand-made watches use some mass-production techniques. Those thin gears for example are often made dozens at a time from a single block of metal that is then sliced up. Or conversely, layers of metal are pressed together and then the teeth are cut into every layer simultaneously.
- WillAdams 4y agoHad a customer recently make a watch, and its movement using one of our machines (and a couple of other machines, and a bunch of jigs/fixtures): https://community.carbide3d.com/t/watchmaking-on-the-nomad/43259 https://community.carbide3d.com/t/watchmaking-on-the-nomad/4...
- 752963e64 4y ago[dead]
- KaiserPro 4y agoFor those who want to learn how to do lathe and machining, there isn't much better than Blondihacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Dnmd3lDzA&list=PLY67-4BrEae9Ad91LPRIhcLJM9fO-HJyN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Dnmd3lDzA&list=PLY67-4BrEa... << this is the lathe one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyuG-B95PQs&list=PLY67-4BrEae9m8v20LNARIRl9Pd9bdFRZ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyuG-B95PQs&list=PLY67-4BrEa... is the one for the small vertical mill.
- immmmmm 4y agoalso highly recommended is This Old Tony: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisOldTony https://www.youtube.com/@ThisOldTony
- userbinator 4y agoI thought he was going to do single-point threading.
- Awelton 4y agoI have my own hobby machine shop and have been working with metal since I was old enough to see over the bench. This is still insane to watch.
- ghjl 4y agoThat sounds fascinating. What exactly goes into one's hobby machine shop?
- jacquesm 4y agoAt a minimum: a lathe, a mill and a way to cut off metal from stock. Tooling. Lots of tooling.
- Awelton 4y agoI have a manual lathe, a manual mill, a shear, a few welders, a cnc router, a cnc plasma cutter, a few band saws, a couple chop saws, a surface grinder, a couple hydraulic presses, a cutting torch, and more money than I ever care to think about in tooling. It is definitely a hobby where you accumulate things over the years and not something I would recommend buying all at once. It's funny because I get stereotyped two different ways: People that I make parts for at home think I am computer illiterate, and machinists that I model parts for at work assume I have never seen the inside of a shop.
- hilbert42 4y agoI don't have to make really small screws very often so I don't claim great experience. That said, I've found that it's fine to turn down the stock on the lathe but using tiny dies, <1mm, on the machine is a pain (I have to relearn the 'feel' every time). My solution is to clamp the die and use a pin chuck and do the operation by hand. This way, I've some tactile feedback and I don't wreck either the die or the work as often. Of course, that's no solution if one needs hundreds of them.
- tomcam 4y agoWait, you’re going to leave us hanging? What do you make all these tiny screws for?
- hilbert42 4y agoI don't make many, especially nowadays. I had to make them occasionally when repairing instruments, meters etc. It's a fiddly business if you don't do it regularly and I'm often impatient (it's not something I like doing, it's just a means to an end). Moreover, trying to figure out what the threads are is often pot luck (thread gauges down there are nigh on nonexistent-in my world anyway—and you need a microscope or thread viewing metrology stuff which I don't have). British instruments before, say, 40 years ago usually used BA (British Association), US—UNF and European and Japanese—ISO metric, but then there's also the pre-ISO metric to contend with on old stuff. Surprisingly, when they're that small it often doesn't matter. Guesstimates combined with brute force and ignorance usually got the job done. It's fair to say I'd rarely tackle anything below 0.8mm although I once filed a smaller one by hand. Fortunately, most of the time I scavenge screws from old instruments, clocks, watches and laptop PCs (these however are larger, usually between 1 and 3mm). I never throw away old stuff without disassembling it for the screws. Nowadays, it's not a problem because it's easy to get packs of just about any size screws one wants, it wasn't so 40 or so years ago. Incidentally, my grandfather was a watchmaker and jeweler and my father a mechanical engineer so I saw watchmaker's lathes at a very young age. BTW, my fulltime profession is moving electrons about (or trying to). They're somewhat smaller than those tiny screws so I can only guess where they are by proxy. ;-)