*My first photo in The NY Times! The interview with Mr. Offerman is worth a read or listen and is available on the Ezra Klein podcast.*

Another week evaporated into the ether. Contrats on surviving with me if you’re reading this. I feel as though I’m either the least productive person or have a skewed view of my own productivity. Thinking about what happened over the past seven days it seems like not much at all. But if I break it down I wasn’t a complete inactive blob.

Aside from getting published in the Times I did the following:

1) Started a design and build project on an apartment kitchen and bathroom in a brownstone. Taking what I learned working with my carpenter friend in Vermont I’m going to attempt to not fuck this up too badly.

2) Got a new gig playing doorman at a mostly regulars bar my pal Brendan owns in Park Slope. It’s a nice reminder of how much I don’t miss drinking. Which is in no way a judgement of those of you who imbibe. From my observation post at the door I’ll tell you that it appears that there’s a careful trajectory which should be followed with drinking. It’s a trajectory I rarely followed but given some perspective and hindsight I have a suggestion. My recommendation is that you gulp or sip just enough ethanol to give your GABA transmitters free rein, increasing your tolerance for loud music and small talk. Once that euphoric status has been reached, stop and maintain as long as needed. Your brain is going to want you to keep paying 9$ a drink as the happy drunk arc continues up and it’s tempting arc to follow. However, as you’ve probably observed in others, the booze rainbow soon drops calamitously and you end up being an annoying miserable collection of graceless tissue who’s going to wake up feeling like a turd. And someone like me will have to help you into a cab. And everyone outside the bar will see your underpants and think to themselves, yup, that person should have stopped about six drinks ago. In short, know your limits. But also do whatever the fuck you want.

3) Found, rescued, bathed, carotted and rehomed a bunny rabbit. Found the little bastard down the street from my apartment and he looked decidedly abandoned or lost. So he came home with Zeiss and I and got himself cleaned up. Posters were hung, some calls were fielded from tire kicking rabbit parents, one of which wanted details on the bunnies emotional state. Ma’am, I replied, it’s a street rabbit, you think it’s going to show its emotions to a stranger who’s just stuck it in a bathtub? First rule of the streets is to never show weakness. After a couple of days of bunny ownership he moved on to a animal rescue where I have no doubt he’ll find a loving and emotional supportive parent.

And Now for the Watch Building Updates…

*Freshly made brass bushings which press into the laser cut hands and allow them to be mounted to the watch movement.*

I started my membership at the MakerspaceNYC and it’s definitely a big step up from the shop in Vermont. The tools are better and more complete but still not exactly the cream of the tool crop. They’ve also been beaten and abused and will take some finesse to get acceptable results from.

The best part of the space so far is a gentleman named Phil who runs the show. He’s got a German last name and when I walked into the space I immediately noticed some helicopter cyclic bearing assemblies and learned that he is a former photographer with several decades of experience in machine prototyping and design. He’s currently making helicopter parts for an Israeli company and has a thorough knowledge of equipment and techniques which is a resource that’s one I’m looking forward to mining. I’ll be heading in there tomorrow to get his advice on the mini milling machine that has been the focus of my time for the past week. Mostly in the acquisition, research and design phase.

I got the linear slides in and have been tearing those down and rebuilding the bearings, replacing the motors and re-lubricating and assembling them. One is up and running and on the first power on with the new motor and a very crappy control unit it was able to move in 2/10,000th of an inch increments. Which isn’t awful at all for something scavenged from eBay for $22.

*The crappy Chinese cnc router which I’ve used to figure out the software I need and to machine some parts for the new CNC mill that I’ll be building using the linear stages found on eBay for $22.*

Researching the components for the new mill has been time consuming and I have the tendency to spend more time that I should trying to find a cheap solution to a problem which would be better solved with a more slightly more expensive fix. Too often I forget to factor in the time spent and don’t tally up the components that I could use to assemble a tool. In the case of this mill, the spindle is the biggest hurdle to overcome. It’s the part which holds and spins the milling bit which cuts the metal. Kind of like a drill press except that the drill diameter is the thickness of paper which requires that it be held most precisely in place and that it’s spun at 30,000 revolutions per minute. This necessitates perfect balance which means finding bearings ultra precise bearings. And those are difficult to manufacture and thusly, very very expensive. Around $300 for a pair of bearings that are less than an inch in diameter. Shit.

My attempt around this is to go the used route and I’m attempting to find a surplus spindle from another machine which I can rebuild and repurpose. New these units can go for well over $5k but they do pop up on eBay for a fraction of that and by buying rather than building I’ll get back to watchmaking sooner and likely be cheaper than a DIY in the long run.

*A quick sketch for the new CNC mill design.*

I hope next week I’ll have more physical progress to report on and show. I’m going to be working on the chassis for the mill in the next few days and with any luck I’ll have the machine working by next Sunday. Then we can hopefully get back to making a watch, and not making things that make a watch and cost too much.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Giles

Part IV - I Made The Times!