Workshop Hints
Caring for your Tweezers
By W. R. Smith, FBHI, FNAWCC, CMC, CMW
When you start loosing parts from your tweezers, it is time to check the condition of your tweezers! Having spent at least the first two years of my watchmaking life on the floor searching for lost parts, I feel that I qualify to comment on the problem. There are three major reason why parts snap from tweezers--the tweezers are too stiff, which limits the worker's ability to feel the part; the inside of the jaws are too slick from long use, and the jaws have been bent enough to form a V with the apex toward the worker when a part is picked up. Any one of these can cause a problem.
There are several tricks that will greatly lessen the number of parts lost by being snapped from tweezers. First, one must address culprit of tweezers stiffness, which prevents the user from feeling the part as well as is desired. In the 10-man watch repair shop where I worked as a young man, every watchmaker used Dumont 3-C tweezers and ground their legs in the region of the joint to weaken them so the parts could be felt better.
To do this, lay the flat portion of the tweezers leg near the joint on the face (the curved periphery) of a bench grinder stone and grind all the way past the joint to the very end. Do this carefully to keep the thickness of the blade equal on each side. When properly ground, the user will be able to feel the part being picked up much better and apply far less pressure.
Another trick of great help is to open the tweezers and slip a fine India stone inside them. While holding one jaw flat against the stone, stroke it to and fro to flatten the inner surface of the jaw and to remove the polish there that occurs from use.
Lastly, when tweezers become open at the end, their points can usually be bent back together without breaking them by pressing each against a piece of wood while held in a position that will close the point.
Hope this will help some users of tweezers.
W. R. Smith, FBHI, FNAWCC, CMC, CMW.
Gateway Clocks
7936 Camberley Drive
Powell, Tennessee 37849, U.S.A.
Phone: 423-947-9671
WRSmith2@AOL.COM
Bill has also written three books: How To Make A Grasshopper Skeleton Clock, How To Make A Lyre Skeleton Clock, How To Make A Skeleton Wall Clock and Clockmaking & Modelmaking Tools And Techniques, all available in America from the above address or in England from John Wilding, Wheelwrights, Hillgrove, Lurgashall, Petworth, Sussex GU28 9EW.
