That would work with light cuts, the cases are typically about 44-52mm in dia so i bore all the seats, and cut a dome or angle on the outside. Then it has to be parted, flipped and the back under cut angled etc, then threaded groved etc.
so the disk ends up being 60/70mm dia. I need a good bite. On the smaller lathe i just grab from the inside and go, but thats a 5" chuck.
What I probably need are machinable steel jaws. Or mandrels for each case chucked in the collet.. or a small 4 jaw. Which was why i was thinking to make a adapter for the L0, but not sure how to cut the key way.
It really depends on volume and value-per-each. Ten years, I had two parallel environments.
1) My Mfg div would be handed off several hundred cases each year with partial bands, cut to lie flat, all sorts of dial faces, each with hands set at ten minutes of two, NO works inside.
These were the maker's samples the catalog plus brick & mortar parent firm we manufactured for had selected from and photographed for the catalog. You are probably aware that a decent grade 5 Ebel 17J movement was under twelve bucks, those days, bought raw packed, trays of a hundred or more?
So in between holiday panic and overtime rush, we had our watchmakers install movements and our other worker-bees put on bands.
Ths wasn't really ABOUT shaving pennies. It had to do with not seeming to be a one-size-fits-all mass discounter. The watch styles NOT chosen for the catalog then served to round-out the display cases and give folks a far wider choice.
NO NEED of any work to those cases.
They had been made for stock Swiss movement sizes already. All we had to do, and even than only RARELY, was use one of the many factory-made bushings they had available to adapt from 2 or 3 other movements.
2) The watches we actually DID "make" also utilized stock Swiss movements, but.. came from folks such as Fibo, in Italy in gold or platinum. Those were "jewelry", not timepieces. My lead Diamond setter cut the fit for the movement with a Foredom and burr, than set the diamonds and corundels, pave'd the band or bracelet.
As much as $26,000 in 1986 or so US dollars for the featured "leader" each year, 1974-84.
You are doing "neither of the above", of course.
So we are back to what amount of investment in "store bought" tooling, "shop-fabbed" tooling, or NO "real" or"bespoke" tooling at all makes best sense vs the price - or savings/NOT savings of your own TIME.
All this in a world where folk don't much wear watches.
If our yellyphone or our "puter dasn't know the time of day?
We usually don't actually give a damn.
2CW
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