Stopwatch

“ Then he said, "She is four minutes slow—regulator wants pushing up." I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. ”

“ What we do insist upon, however, is a "safe and sure draw" for a lever pallet which will hold a fork to the banks and will also return it to such banks if by accident the fork is moved away. We are well aware that it takes lots of patient, hard study to master the complications of the club-tooth lever escapement, but it is every watchmaker's duty to conquer the problem. The definition of "lock," in the detached lever escapement, is the stoppage or arrest of the escape wheel of a watch while the balance is left free or detached to perform the greater portion of its arc of vibration. ”

“ But if the watch had the power to grow small to fit a small pocket, or large to fit a large one, to become luminous by night, and to correct its own time by the sun instead of being regulated by outside interference, what should we have said—that it was proof there was no watchmaker? ”

“ That watch had been given him by his father when watches were watches long ago. It had given the law to house-clocks, stable-clocks, kitchen-clocks—nay, even to Hamley Church clock in its day; and was it now, in its respectable old age, to be looked down upon by a little whipper-snapper of a French watch which could go into a man's waistcoat pocket, instead of having to be extricated, with due effort, like a respectable watch of size and position, from a fob in the waistband? No! Not if the whipper-snapper were backed by all the Horse Guards that ever were, with the Life Guards to boot. ”

“ For furniture-in-motion we have the detective's pencil. For trappings and inventions in motion we have his tapping shoe and the busy clock pendulum. Because this scene is so powerful the photoplay is described in this chapter rather than any other, though the application is more spiritual than literal. The half-mad boy begins to divulge that he thinks that the habitual ticking of the clock is satanically timed to the beating of the dead man's heart. Here more unearthliness hovers round a pendulum than any merely mechanical trick-movements could impart. ”

“ Undoubtedly "the detent," or, as it is usually termed, "the chronometer escapement," is the most perfect of any of our portable time measurers. Although the marine chronometer is in a sense a portable timepiece, still it is not, like a pocket watch, capable of being adjusted to positions. As we are all aware, the detent escapement is used in fine pocket watches, still the general feeling of manufacturers is not favorable to it. ”

“ But if I yield to it, the moment my eyes rest upon the dial I am filled with a mysterious apprehension - a sense of imminent calamity. And this is the more insupportable the nearer it is to eleven o’clock - by this watch, no matter what the actual hour may be. After the hands have registered eleven the desire to look is gone; I am entirely indifferent. Then I can consult the thing as often as I like, with no more emotion than you feel in looking at your own. Naturally I have trained myself not to look at that watch in the evening before eleven ”

“ The motive power in the watch is derived, not as in the clock from weights, but from a spiral spring [ 78] called The Mainspring, set in a drum or barrel, and any inequality in the pressure of the spring is fatal to regular time-keeping. A highly tempered and finished spring is a primary requisite in watch-making; in order to provide for the uniform transmission of motive power from the barrel throughout the train to the escapement, the fusee and chain are used, the fusee being a hollow-sided cone, and the chain round it. ”

“ Fog, mist, bright moonlight, coal black night, with phosphorescent sea; all are dangerous conditions so far as visibility is concerned. From three to five in the morning; at the tail of the mid watch, and for the first hour of the morning watch, when vitality is low, and the senses of man lag with the coming of the dawn; then is the time that the officer of the watch should key himself to a sense of complete responsibility—helped out by black coffee if it can be had—and every steamer should provide this at the change of watch, and oftener if need be. ”

“ Now let us suppose a case, and imagine a full-plate American movement in which the ingress or entrance pallet extends out too far, and in order to have it escape, the banking on that side is opened too wide. We show at Fig. 64 a drawing of the parts in their proper relations under the conditions named. It will be seen by careful inspection that the jewel pin D will not enter the fork, which is absolutely necessary. This condition very frequently exists in watches where a new pallet stone has been put in by an inexperienced workman. ”

“ Then clocks operated by weights and pulleys were introduced; and, finally, after the time of the Dutchman Huygens, the pendulum clock furnished a timepiece of great reliability. But the mechanism operated by weight or pendulum is obviously ill-adapted to use on shipboard. Portable watches, in which coiled springs took the place of the pendulum, had indeed been introduced, but the mechanical ingenuity of the watchmaker could not suffice to produce very dependable time-keepers. ”

“ She must needs come trundling down before me, astride a broomstick, with a black cat upon her shoulder, and sail up to the fire which I had left, for a space, to make a round on my watch—for you may be sworn a strict watch I made of it, going even out of my way to explore the more hidden and perilous lurking-places where one might suspect an enemy to lie. ”

“ When the spring is wound up its force is of course greatest, for the chain is then acting on the smallest end of the fusee. The proportions of the barrel to the centre wheel, and the size of the teeth in that wheel, have all to be carefully planned, and adjusted to one another, and these all again to the moving of the hands upon the dial.
The Escapement is one of the most important parts of the mechanism of a watch. ”

“ Watches are always expected to be in first-class condition and such features as close fitting pivots or dirty oil will prevent any dependable timing. It is also advisable to time them closely before the test is made, as too great mean time variation may confuse in estimating the error, especially if the time is not taken in each temperature exactly at the end of twenty-four hours. ”

“ The weight is moved up by the action of the person who has it in his pocket, and in falling the weight winds up the spring of the watch. On the face is a small dial showing the number of hours for which the watch is wound up. As soon as the hand of this dial points to fifty-six hours, the train of levers which wind up the watch disconnects automatically, so as to prevent overwinding the spring, and it reconnects again as soon as the watch has run down eight hours. The watch is an excellent time-keeper, and a walk of about a couple of miles is sufficient to wind it up for twenty-four hours. ”

“ The 15-tooth escape wheel locks on a spring detent and gives impulse to the balance in one direction only, being a conventional chronometer escapement. The intermediate wheel and pinion, balance wheel, and balance cock have been adapted from a Swiss bar movement of the time.
The second fault is in the ratio between the time of one revolution and the number of revolutions necessary for a day’s run. Three turns of the spring are, of course, required to run the watch for an hour, since the barrel and train revolve three times in that length of time. ”

“ The difference between the typical public clock and a watch out of order is obvious. Every prudent man knows the peculiarities of his own watch, just as he knows the peculiarities of his own wife and children; and he is consequently prepared to make allowances. But the clock on the street corner persists in thrusting false information upon you. The man who consults his watch does so with a purpose, and is naturally on the alert. But the cheating clock confronts him in moments of unsuspecting security, and throws him into a condition of the wildest alarm. ”

“ Although pocket watches with duplex and cylinder escapements having balances compensated for heat and cold and balance springs adjusted to isochronism gave very good results, careful makers were satisfied that an escapement in which the balance was detached and free to act during the greater proportion of the arc of vibration and uncontrolled by any cause, would do still better, and this led to the detent escapement. ”

“ The hairspring then reverses it and swings it until the jewel-pin again starts the lever in the other direction, releasing the escape-wheel from which it receives another "impulse" and so on as long as the mainspring is kept wound. A watch in perfect time ticks five times to the second. That means 18,000 swings of the balance every hour, or 432,000 in a day. And in that time, the rim of the balance travels about ten miles.
A clock is essentially only a larger and stronger watch, just as a watch is a clock made small enough and light enough to be carried about conveniently. ”

“ The secret of it is that you have a second basin, with a pudding in it, concealed in the palm of your right hand. At the critical moment, when the handkerchief flares up, you take advantage of the excitement produced to substitute the one basin for the other. The watch from which you extract the works is not the borrowed one, but one which you have had concealed between the third and fourth fingers of the left hand. You show the empty case of this watch to the company, before wrapping the watch in the handkerchief and handing it back to its owner. ”

“ In all soundly-constructed lever escapements the safety action is only called into use in exceptional cases, and if the watch was lying still would theoretically never be required. Where fork and pallets are poised on their arbor, pocket motion (except torsional) should but very little affect the fork and pallet action of a watch, and torsional motion is something seldom brought to act on a watch to an extent to make it worthy of much consideration. In the double-roller action which we shall consider, we shall adopt three-fifths of the pitch diameter of the jewel-pin action as the proper size. ”

“ The glass should never be opened in watches that set and regulate at the back. One or two other directions more, it is of vital importance that you bear in mind. On regulating a watch, should it be fast, move the regulator a trifle towards the slow, and if going slow, do the reverse; you cannot move the regulator too slightly or too gently at a time, and the only inconvenience that can arise is, that you may have to perform the duty more than once. ”

“ There has been some lying in the bargain anyhow,” I said, after another look at the watch, “for it is an ordinary English lever, not a chronometer. Is the man with you yet?”
“No; but, good gracious! you don’t mean to say that there’s anything wrong about the watch? It’s not—not a stolen one?”
“I don’t know, but there was one exactly like this stolen that time that Anderson was killed.” ”

“ But the dial would not do the work of the watch in an age when people no longer travel by the waggon-load or with pack-horse, but are whirled fifty or sixty miles in that time and have to reckon their engagements not by the day, but by the minute. The world no longer 'wags' in jog-trot style, but speeds at steam-pressure and sends its messages by lightning-conductor; it consequently values its time more highly and measures it more carefully. ”

“ A good motion is to be considered as one of the results to be expected in overhauling and putting a watch in good order and it should not be understood that it is particularly to be associated with adjusting only, nor should any watch be slighted in cleaning and assembling with the idea that adjusting will correct it in a few minutes' time. ”

“ One workman who has read Grossmann or Saunier, or both, would insist on all watches being made to a certain standard, and, according to their ideas, all such lever watches as we are now dealing with should have club-tooth escapements with equidistant lockings, ten degrees lever and pallet action, with one and one-half degrees lock and one and one-half degrees drop. ”

“ For a pocket watch it will be necessary to employ a small balance, with a nut attached to its axis and communicating with the fusee, the continued vibration of which will, by winding the watch, give it nearly all the advantages of a perpetual prime mover. Should the time-piece be placed in a fixed case it will require a communication between the joint of the door and the fusee, and this may likewise be readily applied to the case of a hunting watch. ”

“ Passe-partout drew out his great watch. "Twelve o'clock," said he.
"Nonsense. It is fifty-two minutes past nine."
"Your watch is slow," replied Fix.
"Slow, my watch slow; why this watch has come to me from my grandfather. It is an heirloom, and does not vary five minutes in a year. It is a regular chronometer."
"I see how it is," replied Fix; "you have got London time, which is about two hours slower than Suez time. You must take care to set your watch at twelve o'clock in every country you visit." ”