Custom watchmaker's trays

When you need a thing, make a thing.

If you walk into any jeweller or watchmaker’s shop, you’ll find a wide array of storage systems. These interlocking trays seem to be nearly ubiquitous in watchmaker’s studios. They have a nice clear case (which conveniently can have paper sheets slipped into them), and their colour coded key system is great for locking together up to five trays along with the lid. They’re also reasonably inexpensive, and because of that I’ve got dozens of them around the shop. But they’re also very limited in the available internal storage layouts. Enter the 3d printer. As I’m currently turning cases for multiple watches, I wanted to keep them organised and secure between operations. Once assembled I’ll need to keep cases together with dials, hands, buckles, straps, screws, and movements for a complete watch.

To that end I modelled an empty version of the case which is compatible with the original lids, keys, and trays. This is the foundation for modelling custom tray layouts for each stage of making and assembling the watch. These were printed in PLA on a Prusa printer. They take around 8hrs to print, and are roughly half the price of the original trays. But really cost savings wasn’t the goal here. The only thing I may do for the trays with finished parts is pad or flock the insides in order to offer some protection for the parts.

If you use this tray system and want to make your own customised trays, I’ve published the empty tray over on Thingiverse. The original trays are available from many suppliers. Here is a link to Cousins UK's page for them.

I've been modelling a bunch of things for 3D printing lately, and several might be useful for other people. I'll keep posting about them here, and sharing them over on Thingiverse.

Inside The Studio

Having a job like mine can be both a blessing and a curse when you meet people for the first time. The blessing is I have an interesting answer for the first thing most people ask; what do you do for a living? The curse is answering what follows…

Everyone I've met asks me, in some form or another, one or more of the following questions: You can make a living making pens? How did you make that? How did you learn to make that? The first and third are easy to answer (mostly, I'm an autodidact). It's the innocent little question in the middle which causes me the most problems. How do you distill years of knowledge, hundreds of hours of experimentation, and tens of hours of making something, into a single serving answer which will leave people satisfied? The simple answer is you can't.

The third of Clarke's three laws states: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. While that is very true, I'd also suggest combining a number of primitive technologies together is indistinguishable from magic. You see most of what I do, and the techniques I use, are very primitive. Mankind has known about them for centuries if not millennia. Sure we have fancy kilns and precision tools, but they don't fundamentally change the techniques; just make them more repeatable, and faster. Unfortunately most of this knowledge has been kept away from the general public. It's been safe guarded by the guilds who made a living off of it. So while most people have seen videos of how their car was built, they can't tell you how their wedding ring was made.

All of this is a long winded way of introducing the latest feature on my site: Inside the Studio. It is the home for some of the answers to the second question. You'll find details on the materials, techniques and tools I use to make my art. I hope it provides a useful reference to anyone who isn't satisfied with the single serving answer. It will never be complete, but I intend to add to it regularly.