sorry.

Yes yes, i know, ive been lazy writing new posts on the blog.

And well, now i have a few reasons to write something again :)

First, my old teacher/headmaster was on a course for teachers at the WOSTEP foundation in neuchatel, so we took the chance and met up ofc.
We agreed over telephone that i should come to neuchatel by train and should arrive 3ish, and that i did. But, i hadnt eaten very much that morning, so i was hungry as hell already at 3. He had been busy doing something else so he hadnt eaten either.
So, Situation : we were both hungry
Solution : Eat!
Problem! In switzerland, restaurants dont start serving food untill after 6'o clock at the soonest. But, both me and him had eaten at this really good pizza restaurants in the past before 6'o clock. We walk to this restaurant *MEEEEP* half past six they start serving food.... ok, what else?
we walk around for 30 minutes maybe. At this point i was having trouble containing my hunger-irritation, i always get very irritated when i get too hungry. But i managed to contain myself :P
After those 30 minutes, we decide to eat kebab, because all the kebabs ive eaten in switzerland have only been snacks, littly tiny things to tease your appetite, i thought that would do us good for 2 hours and then we could have a pizza.

*kaaPLAMOOoo* the biggest fucking thing ive seen since Borensberg. this kebab was enough to feed a hungry family for 3 weeks if cut up right. So, that scratched the pizza plans. oh well.

We talked allot about the education i got and what he wants to change in the school, it was really nice to see such fire in him.
But what was really important was ofc that he brought me my Ring(linky)
Had a few beers and some glasses of wine, all in all it was a nice evening.

I Have also _almost_ completed my first tourbillion, Its all polished and ready for final fine-tuning. Today i also completed my first movement. Ok, its just a movement travaille(a movement to put the tourbillions in to test and regulate). It was great fun to recognize the parts from premontage and to get a sense of completion to what im doing. I also got told what im going to do after X-mas, but im not telling you :P


And Rebekka took some awesome pictures of when it snowed a few days back

Ill try and be more active in my posting :)

David out!

Around we go!

Tourbillion : means Whirlwind literally, is an escapement device in a watch, its very delicate and very brittle. so this takes specialized tools and VERY strict guidance if you want to do this. Last but not least, you need the talents.

Lucky for me, my boss thinks i have all of these now(the tools i made, linky at top), the guidance i get from my boss and the talent i got somewhere else(mom? dad?).

Anyway, i am now in the process of making my Very first Tourbine cage, you pronounce the french cage similar to cache, but with longer a, like caaache.(or tourbillion cage(this is the english cage, like bird-cage), the complete thing is called a cage, beats me why). ive taken as many pictures as ive remembered to take, be cause, to be perfectly honest, im quite swept up in this work and easily forget to stop and take pictures.

Its great fun, especially since i can for the first time sense that im getting close to my first "product". Its very challenging though. Small brittle stuff that easily break or if i take a 100th of a millimeter to much here or there, it simply wont work and *woosh* back where i started on last wednesday( wednesday-ish atleast).

Other news :

Were going to IKEA again now on saturday, it sucks to have ALL your clothes in one biggish closet with 3 shelfs, that makes all my pants in one big pile in left corner of shelf, all my t-shirts in a big pile in the middle, some t-shirts spill over to the pants, some wander off to the sweaters, which also have a specific corner to be in. Now, add some pull-overs and polo(?) shirts and its all a big mess. this needs fixing.

My French is coming along, im almost able to totaly understand my teacher soon. this will hugely boost my learning capabilities(sarcasm intended) No, but seriously, my french is picking up and coming along nicely. Last word i learned was "fois" (which means "time" as in "Due fois par semain" = "two times per week".) Rebekkas french is, ofc, brilliant, she just doesnt get as much practice as i do.

Working on workphotos

Now that im finaly done with most of the pre-montage for the other guys in the attelie, My boss asked me to do some possages(dunno how to spell that, but its to put parts on for pollish and/or work in the lathe.) for a tourbillion. so that probably means that i will start working on the Tourbillion soon.

Btw, before i can start working on the tourbillion, i have a 7 page how-to, just step by step, without any theory on how or why(thats a few books of material). and i needed to make 7 possages to hold different parts for specific steps(or what the hell you call it, things-to-do-before-its-finished).

Even if the tourbillion is really not many parts at all, it is the beating organ of any watch its put into. and being handmade. everything becomes very touchy-touchy. if i dont keep my tolerances while doing the pre-assembly on the tourbillion, the finished product will be a bitch to get right.

Im really looking forward to this. i havent been in a rush getting here though. ive been savoring the feeling of anticipation, and knowing there are more, better things to come then pre-montage. i think that every step of building my own watches(the ones i get assigned at work i mean) will be very fun and very interesting work for me.

Im growing quite confident in my skills now, at the same time i am starting to realize the amount of stuff i have yet to learn, and that amount gets bigger and bigger for the day. "Learn the answer to one question and have two more questions" kind of thing.

In closing, i need to talk to my boss before i add more pictures, i want to get a permanent deal so that i can just keep posting without being afraid of being sued or something for leaking industrial secrets >.<

And here is a slightly hazy picture of a Tourbillion in a watch for those who didnt know what that is.

Some work examples

I have really told all the story on the picasaweb website, so just check it out. there is a description on what i did today and monday. Its typical pre-assembly work, just finishing parts, making them straight etc. when i have some other nice piece to work on ill post more pictures :P (and according to what im allowed to show ofc ... )

new watch!

i couldnt resist, i had to have one of these

thats officialy my first compulsive buy ever i think(atleast in watches). so look and like it :P

Dutchies!

Me and Rebekka had three friends from holland here on visit the last weekend. It was _great_ fun, we went to Saut-de-daubs, Neuchatel and drove around some in the area. The area is really nice, i hadnt seen so much of it before and it is awesome.

We had lots of food, beer and fun, Theire son(Daniel, 2.5 years old) is such a sweetheart he kept asking me what i was doing and when i told him, he would always say "okey" in the cutest voice :)

I would love to go and visit them someday soon, probably will after X-mas :)

for pics check out jp's album


Work work work.
Almost a month done soon, and im getting more and more comfortable with the ppl at the company, even if my french is mostly still point and grunt(with nasal sound effects, it sounds french atleast).
This friday i started mirror polishing, it didnt work out at all, even the guy showing me wasnt able to get it right, we have to figure out what is wrong, if my tools are defect, my paste(the polishing paste) or if the piece itself is the base of the problems. well, i wasted a whole day on it anyway, so the things my boss gave me to do before he went on a small holliday will guaranteed last me now...
Oh well, c'est la vie.

I also found out that my employer will pay for my french lessons, so im starting those after x-mas i think. to avoid a 2-3 week break in the studies. Thats 600 francs i save, so awesome :P

p.s. Freddie! have fun with your boys!

/David out

Second week, starting badly

I caught a fever and went to work yesterday with it, i thought id better show up, feel how it is and go home if its bad. It turned out to be bad, but if i had gone home after showing up, i would have lost plus-hours. so i struggled through the day with fever and headache, something im not doing again, the whole day was error ridden and mistakes were being made a lot(at least according to me)

Riveting wheels with wrong punches, cleaning the same wheel twice and leaving others dirty etc etc, i just was not able to focus the whole day.

BUT

We are gonna pull our forces together and work like horses and finish the order we have before x-mas AND do more then that(for a nifty bonus). so that means the odd Saturday at work and a few more plus-hours.

I start most mornings at 7.30 and work till 1700, that gives me 1 plus-hour a day, thinking of trying to come at 7.00 and staying till 1700, thats 1.5 hours a day. but we'll see about that, maybe its easier to just go to work at noon on saturdays and work for a few hours. atleast that way i still get 2 sleepy mornings.

I would like to talk about what im doing at work, but im not sure what kind of secrecy i have on me, so ill ask my bosses how much i can talk about without getting in trouble :P

other then that, check my new pics for our appartment

thats it for now,

p.s. everyone can now leave comments, no need to register with anything or anyone, so please do :)

/Davíð