Greetings!

Winter weather couldn’t slow down activity at the Plumier Foundation in January. 

We held an experimental workshop on the design, setup, layout, and eventual engine turning of watch dials this month with the aim of developing a curriculum. The five-day class focused heavily on all the work that needs to be done before a single squiggly line can be cut in a rose engine or straightline pattern. 

Our students (or test subjects) began by machining their own “wax” chucks to hold the dial precisely. The tolerances of a watch dial required this fixture to be machined out of a rough puck of cast iron with a tolerances between the front and back faces of two tenths of a thousandth of an inch (+/- 0.0002”). A pocket was then bored out on the face with just a few thou of play to receive the dial blank, with grooves cut into the base of the recess to give a strong “key” for our wax of choice, superglue, to properly bond to. The blanks can then be faced off perfectly flat in the chuck, and work on the dial can begin. 

Students designed their dials using a selection of large printouts of classic watch designs. Each feature on the large dials were carefully measured and scaled down using simple ratios. Each student made a full, detailed drawing of their dial with dimensions, locations, and angles of each featured carefully recorded. 

Work then moved to the milling machines, where the students dialed in a rotary table with a two axis slide and indexing plate mounted on top. Once the whole stack was dialed in to the spindle of the mill using test indicators, it could be used to mill out pockets for the subdials. 

We then held a crash course in cutter geometry and grinding, arguably the most crucial skillset for successful engine turning. Each student ground their own brazed carbide tools including a flat tip cutter with a .050” width for chisel work, low angle points for engine turning patterns, and tiny radius cutters for line work on the rose engine. Any effort in engine turning without the ability to create and sharpen the whole range of custom cutting tools required will be quickly frustrated. 

The cutters were put to the test adding chisel-cut borders to the watch dials using low amplitude pumping rosettes on the Lindow Rose Engine. Further layout lines, numbers, and signatures were added using the Kulhmann pantograph with a dial layout jig. Some students also used the LRE elliptical chuck to create elliptical windows on their dials for their signatures.

Finally, it was time for some engine turning. Patterns were added to the dials using LREs and Plant straightline engines. Students experimented with both machines, learning different patterns and an understanding of the capabilities of each. A few also set up the straightline attachment on the LRE to better match their home shop capabilities. 

Most of the actual engine turning wasn’t done until Thursday and Friday, demonstrating how much time the setup work really takes and how crucial it is for success. We were very impressed by how well the students did. These were not simple setups, and most of the students had little experience in this kind of machine work prior to the class. With this success, we look forward to offering similar opportunities in the future. 

Watchmakers Michal and Vern Blaszczyk and their son Zack, a watchmaker in training, took the class together. The Blaszczyks own and operate House of Time watch repair in Gainesville, Florida.

Like the rest of the eastern half of the continental US, Saltsburg was not spared the harsh winter weather this month. After a week of single digit temperatures, the winter storm hit just after class was dismissed and our students made it out of town.

From the early morning of Sunday the 25th, to the late evening of Monday the 26th, Saltsburg received over a foot of snow. The area hadn’t experienced an accumulation like that in over a decade. Despite the atrophy in muscle memory, the town and the county handled the storm well. As we have consistently seen in our time in Saltsburg, just about everyone around is ready and eager to lend a hand to their neighbors. 

Delayed a day by the snow, the Plumier team packed up and followed the path of the storm and the wake of plows east to Boston.

David had been invited to give a presentation to students at North Bennet Street School on complex turning and the Plumier Foundation. While he was invited by Jamey Pope, head of the cabinet and furniture making department, the presentation was open to the whole school. Despite being behind on the week due to two snow days, students and staff representing every discipline packed into the classroom, which quickly became standing room only. 

David took the students and faculty members through the history of complex turning from the renaissance to early 20th century industry. He then presented the mission of the Plumier Foundation and the opportunities it offers for young craftspeople like the ones in the audience. Descriptions and slides doing no justice to the craft, David then demonstrated the functions of a rose engine with the LRE he had brought along. He made an ornamental bottle stopper while answering questions, then turned to the pen and paper chuck to further illustrate the variables at play. 

The presentation went well and we expect to see some of the interested students and faculty members make their way to Saltsburg before long. Consider contributing to our Scholarship Fund to enable us to provide more opportunities to these students who show this interest and the drive to back it.

Thank you to Jamey Pope and North Bennet Street School for having us!

After the presentation, the Plumier team was given a tour of the facility. North Bennet Street School covers 8 disciplines: bookbinding, cabinet and furniture making, carpentry, jewelry making and repair, locksmithing and security technology, piano technology, preservation carpentry, and violin making and repair. All of these programs stand out in their quality, and several are the last full-time programs of their kind in the country. The facilities and work of the students displayed throughout are nothing but impressive. The Plumier Foundation looks forward to more opportunities to partner with NBSS in our shared mission of preserving skills and supporting careers in lost craft. 

The Plumier winter storm tour continued even further north-east with a visit to the shop of legendary complex turner and tool maker Fred Armbruster in Maine. Fred gave us a tour of his shop and his unbelievable collection of work done by himself and members of the complex turning community. As always, Fred was extremely generous with his time and hard earned knowledge of everything to do with complex turning. 

Fred introduces Christian to his multistage geometric lathe from the Swiss mint

There was particular interest in his current project. He is building out a full lathe around the orphaned headstock of a very early Holtzapffel rose engine. The headstock is unnumbered and has a completely different construction than other Holtzapffel rose engines like Plumier’s No.1636. Like all of Fred’s work, this rose engine is shaping up to be a stunning machine. In addition to the brass headstock, what is likely the original rosette barrel will also be used. It will be great to see this interesting piece of complex turning history put back into service in a suitable way. Fred has been sharing updates of the project on Instagram and on the OTI Facebook page. 

Fred's complete reproduction of the famous Studley tool chest

Layered box by Fred

From Maine, we began our meandering way back west with a stop in New Hampshire to visit members Denis and Heidi Carignan of Carignan Watch Company.

Denis gave us a tour of his shop and shared what he has been working on. Largely self-taught, Denis is like a MacGyver of watchmaking. Whatever the problem is, he will engineer a solution. His shop is full of these solutions in the form of extremely sophisticated home-built machines and processes. He embraces technology in new and exciting ways while using his extensive experience in traditional methods and hand skills to back it up. Denis’ mad-genius tendencies are kept in check by his wife Heidi who runs the business and customer-facing side of the operation. Carignan Watch has found a particular niche in the extremely difficult job of vintage watch dial refinishing. 

Denis gave us a close look at this antique egg watch that he had just finished restoring in collaboration with Plumier member Steve Franke, who spent a week with the Carignans learning from Denis and lending his perspective as a clockmaker to the project. See the before and after pictures along with more of their work on the Carignan Watch Company Instagram. 

From the Carignans’, we continued west over the Connecticut River into Vermont to visit the American Precision Museum at the old Robbins and Lawrence Armory in Windsor. The armory, built in 1846, was a part of a revolution in precision that took place in the Connecticut River Valley, resulting in the “American System’ of manufacturing with interchangeable parts. 

The Robbins and Lawrence Armory in the 1860s

Bridgeport #1

Gunstock copy lathe first invented by Thomas Blanchard in 1818

Today, the museum houses an impressive collection of early American precision machine tools. There is also a focus on interactive learning, with activities and workshops aimed at getting children interested in engineering and potential careers in manufacturing. The museum is currently under construction to expand to a second floor later this year. Learn more about the museum from their website. 

Miniature machine shop

No Plumier tour of New England could be complete without a stop at the home of Frank and Patty Dorion. A delicious dinner with friends and some time in Frank’s shop was a perfect way to end the whirlwind tour before heading back to Pennsylvania. 

Christian inspecting the Pudsey Dawson geometric slide rest

Always eager to help a fellow craftsperson in need, Frank presented David with a unique hardware set that should help him get out of any machining trouble of his own making. 

There was a particular piece that stood out while touring Fred Armbruster’s collection during this visit.

This stunning pair of dividers, or compass, was made by the incomparable Warren Greene Ogden Jr. as a faithful replica of an historic example. The late Warren Ogden, a previous owner of 1636, author of The Pedigree of Holtzapffel Lathes, and a prolific contributor to the complex turning community, maintains a significant presence at Plumier. Without the work of dedicated (frankly obsessive) enthusiasts and practitioners like Ogden, much of our knowledge of complex turning would not have made it to this century. This pair of dividers demonstrates the calling of craft at the highest level of skill along with an appreciation for our collective craft history that Plumier seeks to carry on from Ogden’s example. 

The inscription on the dividers is an excerpt from an early writing on toolmaking by the German poet and scholar Hans Sachs in 1568. It was engraved using Ogden’s Kuhlmann Pantograph, the same pantograph in the Plumier workshop that we just used in our class. The verse translates to this: 

I make various kinds of tools, 

Delicate compasses and the like, 

Many kinds of pliers, profiled and smooth, 

I turn iron, and etch iron in many shops. 

For the woodturner, coppersmith and cabinet maker, 

Candlemaker and barber, 

I also make many artistic pieces, 

Cleanly engraved, smooth and finished. 

These simple lines and their inscription on the original compass by the toolmaker demonstrate pride in one’s craft and pride in the ability to enable the craft of others—Ogden’s inspiration to copy that tool demonstrates pride in the history of craft that carries on these skills in an unbroken chain of craftsmanship up to the present moment. Whether it is by making something beautiful with your own hands, or enabling others to do so with theirs, it is our job to get up every day and forge the next link. 

Sincerely,

David Lindow

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