Balance Staff & School Watch Project

For the last 2 weeks I have been working on turning out a balance staff.  It was a largely trial and error process, and I needed to expand on my techniques from my previous efforts to achieve a finer level of finish on the staff itself.  I found that using a very low speed on the lathe and a carbine insert cutter provided the best cutting results.  Then I was able to polish and burnish the surfaces to a fine finish.  After many, many attempts I have a working staff which is quite nice. 

There are only 2 weeks of class left this year and during this time I am going to start (and hopefully complete) my school watch project.  The goal here is to create a 3/4 plate for a 6497 movement from scratch.  I will upload pictures when it is complete.

The balance wheel after I cut out the old staff

Lathe work with the carbide cutter

Apparatus M, pivot burnishing machine

New staff riveted to the old wheel

A graveyard of failures