Website Updates: Reactions, Permalinks, and Smart Summaries ⚡

Some exciting updates to the site this week!

• 🔁 Reactions: You can now react to blog posts — quick way to share a vibe or show support!
• 🔗 Permalinks: Each post now has a clean permalink. Sharing specific moments just got easier.
• 🤖 Smart Summaries + Nostr: We’ve added an automated system that uses ChatGPT to summarize each blog post and auto-publish it to Nostr. No more double posting!

Bit by bit, the site is getting more connected and streamlined. Watchmaking meets automation ✨

Trying Out Micro 100 Tools 🛠️

I've noticed that HSS tools wear out quite fast, especially at the micro scale. So, I’m giving Micro 100 a go — excited to test their high-quality carbide tooling for turning.

Here’s what I’m trying:

• BT-6 (Box Tool): Ideal for creating accurate shoulders and flat faces in confined areas. Great for tight workspaces and forming box-like geometries.
• PF5-050150 (Profiling Tool): A fine profiling tool with a 0.5mm radius, perfect for tiny contours and detailed turning operations.
• GR-018002 (Grooving Tool): Designed for making ultra-fine grooves — this one's got a 0.018" width. Precise, clean groove cuts!
• T-100 (Cutoff Tool): A solid carbide tool for parting off tiny components. Rigid and sharp — ideal for micro-scale cutoff tasks.

Hopefully, these will hold up better than HSS and bring cleaner finishes to the lathe work. Time (and testing) will tell!

Sharpening, Turning, and Chasing Precision

This session was about slowing down and listening to the work.

I manually sharpened my HSS tools using both India and Arkansas stones. No machines. Just me, the edge, and the feeling of steel against stone.

To confirm cutting direction, I studied the old masters — especially T&T&T’s YouTube videos. Watching their moves, the angles, the confidence — that gave me clues I couldn’t learn from CAD or cam simulators.

With my newly sharpened tools, I cut half of a balance staff. The finish? Beautiful. The dimensions? Still oversized — I left too much material. But that was the plan: test control, feel resistance, and watch the chips curl cleanly.

What’s next? I need to dial in G54 more precisely, and set tighter offsets for tool 2+ on my gang-style lathe. That’s the only way to achieve the repeatability and control I’m after.

Every small improvement feels like a step toward mastery — and I’m still happy to fail along the way.

Learning, Trying, Failing… but Happy

This week, I hit an unexpected behavior while setting up my gang-style tool system with Mach4 and Fusion 360.

Here’s the layout:

• Tool 1 is positioned manually and sets G54.
• Tool 2 and beyond use XYZ offsets relative to Tool 1.
• Fusion 360 doesn’t emit Y moves for tool changes in lathe ops — it assumes only XZ movement.

So far, so good... until I discovered this 🤯:

After a tool change using M6, running G0 Y0 still uses the previous tool’s Y offset!

What I mean is this: (M6 macro)

This happens because M6 internally calls setCurrentTool, but Mach4 doesn't apply the Y-offset until after the macro finishes. That means if you issue any move (like G0 Y0) immediately after M6, you’re still running with the old offset. Yikes.

My solution: I created a custom macro: M200.

So then, I modified Fusion 360’s Mach4 Turning Postprocessor to call M200 immediately after each M6 command.

how you may be wondering, well like this: (this is in the mach4-turning postprocessor downloaded from Autodesk website)

And M200 looks like this:

It does three things:

• Moves Z up 5mm
• Moves Y to 0 (now under the correct tool offset)
• Restores Z

Now every tool change is reliable and precise — no more misaligned cuts or offset confusion. It’s a small fix, but one that makes the difference between frustration and confidence on the lathe.

Mach4's quirks taught me a lot this week — and solving them made me enjoy the process even more.

Balance Staff G-Code: First Try!

Today I added the tool to the Fusion 360 library and generated my first G-code for the balance staff.

No idea if it’ll actually work — the staff is incredibly tiny — but still, it’s super exciting to be taking these steps forward!

Every day feels like a leap into precision and patience 🔍

🔩 Building a Gang-Style Tool Holder with the Jet-12 Drill Press

Hey everyone! 👋 Just wrapped up a fun and super practical project: I made a custom gang-style tool holder for my lathe using the trusty Jet-12 drill press 🛠️.

And made a youtube video about it!

The idea was simple: take a solid aluminum base (of 6061) and add four holes — three threaded, one milled — to hold different lathe tools in place. Perfect for quick swaps and consistent positioning 💡.

Using the Jet-12, I drilled the holes manually 🌀 and then tapped three of them for screws 🔩. The fourth hole? I milled it with G-code on my CNC for precise dimensions. Mixing manual and CNC machining is always a fun combo — and it worked great! 😎

The result is a simple but super useful gang-style holder that boosts efficiency and repeatability, especially for small precision parts like the ones I make for my watchmaking projects ⌚️.

If you’re into lathes, tooling setups, or just like geeking out over shop-made solutions, I think you’ll enjoy the process. I’ve got a video showing everything — check it out! 🎥👇

Stay sharp and keep building cool stuff! 💪⚙️

👉 https://fzl.watch

First Steps in Toolmaking: Grinding HSS Bars ⚒️

Today I ventured into a new territory: sectioning and grinding HSS bars. I cut them to size and shaped them with a 45° angle—my first attempt at making lathe tools! 🛠️

After that, we ran some tests on the lathe to see how they performed. Still a lot to refine, but it’s incredibly satisfying to start using tools I shaped myself.

Onward to sharper edges and cleaner cuts!
I'm still experimenting and not an expert — just learning and having fun 😊

👉 https://fzl.watch

Exploring the Bitcoin Complication 🪙🕰️

Today I started trying out an initial layout for the Bitcoin complication. The concept is simple but exciting: a visual element that circles every 10 minutes—in sync with the average time it takes to mine a new Bitcoin block. ⛏️

It’s still very early in the design phase, but seeing it take shape inside the movement layout is incredibly motivating. Can’t wait to share more as this idea evolves!

Back After a Rough Flu—And Big News! 💪✨

Wow—apologies for the delay in posting! I was knocked down by a nasty flu, and even ended up with a bilateral pleural effusion (fluid around both lungs 😷). It took a bit to recover, but I’m finally feeling good again and super motivated to get back to the bench!

During this downtime, I also received a new fixture for the Elara that properly holds 3mm brass plates. My previous one was for 1/8" (3.175mm), so I had to use Loctite to fix the stock—definitely not ideal, and it was causing precision issues. Now everything fits snugly and cleanly. Much better! 🎯

And… wow, BIG NEWS: I finally got the Incabloc springs!!! 🥳 This is UBER exciting—these are one of the few critical components I simply can’t make myself, so having them in hand is a huge milestone. Now the only part left to source is the hairspring... and that’s a whole journey in itself. 😉

Back on track and more inspired than ever. Let’s go! 🛠️

Balance Staff Update with Help from Incabloc 🔬✨

The fabulous team at Incabloc ran some simulations based on my setup and came back with a few recommended changes for the balance staff. Super grateful for their input!

I worked on those adjustments today. The new design makes the balance a little smaller, but during assembly, everything looks and feels good so far. 🎯

That said, I also realized I haven’t quite finished work on this guy yet—it’s a very small staff, and I’ll need to figure out which jewels to use and adapt the design accordingly. Another puzzle to solve. 🔍

Exciting to see things becoming more refined with every iteration. Big thanks again to Incabloc for their support! 🛠️❤️