Watchmaker

“ A watchmaker sends out very few defective watches: why? because he makes his watches on a preconceived plan. Even when an improvement in watch construction is introduced, he can draw up his plan beforehand, and at the worst, waste only time and paper, instead of metal and far more time. ”

“ For man can much more properly be compared with, and has much more affinity to, a perfect watch in full activity than to a mere piece of metal, or drop of oil. But the watch is even more in the right still, for its maker, man, virtually has the cogged wheels, springs, escapements, oil, &c., which the watch's conception has been supposed to attribute to him; inasmuch as all these parts must have existed as distinct ideas in the human watchmaker's mind before he could actually construct the clock formed by him. Nor is even this all, for, by the hypothesis, the watch thinks. ”

“ The author trusts that the experienced successful watchmaker will read the book with interest and also with profit and that the novice will be enabled to foresee that there is something more to the art of watchmaking and repairing than that of merely assembling a watch and making it "tick." ”

“ It is important that every practical watchmaker should thoroughly master the theory of the lever escapement and be able to comprehend and understand at sight the faults and errors in such escapements, which, in the every-day practice of his profession, come to his notice. In no place is such knowledge more required than in fork and roller action. ”

“ A very clever watchmaker once told me that a watch may go perfectly well for years, and at length stop suddenly, in consequence of an organic defect in its construction, which only becomes perceptible, even to the eye of a watchmaker, when this effect takes place ”

“ I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating—come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by trains,
I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner ”

“ A celebrated watchmaker of Paris in the 18th century. About 1770 he introduced bars to take the place of a top plate, omitted the fusee, used a cylinder escapement and supported his mainspring barrel arbor at one end only. He attempted to establish a watch factory for Voltaire at Ferney but with no success. He is sometimes credited with making the first thin watch.
Le Roy, Julien—1686-1759. A French scientist and watchmaker. He invented the horizontal movement for turret clocks, a form of repeating mechanism. He constructed the first compensation balance. ”

“ Whilst he exercised his occupation of a watchmaker in Maiden-lane, he was on some occasion or other in his shop at a very early hour in the morning, expecting any thing but a customer. An old man, of very mean appearance as to dress and person, presented himself, and desired to see one of the most valuable watches in his possession, and one that without any consideration of price, he could conscientiously recommend. ”

“ If Paley's watch calls for a watchmaker, a system or arrangement of nature which has been likened, not to a simple watch, but rather to a watch (or a sundial) which makes all other watches, and these watches of a constantly improved quality and increased complexity, cannot permanently be regarded in any other than a teleological light. If the whole process should prove to be mechanical, the evidence for design is seen even more strikingly in the complex machinery itself than in the product. ”

“ In Fig. 85 is a typical example of a brass engraved watch clock face and dial, which has a perforated hinged cover and is exceptionally well engraved.
Old Watches.
Watches were costly in the days when so much [340] time was expended on their manufacture. Those were the days of good workmanship in which watchmakers excelled. They put much labour into the ornamentation of the works, "watch-clocks," and dial plates, so many of which were beautifully engraved, tooled with great skill, and cleverly perforated. ”

“ And so the hair-spring was slowly adopted by English watchmakers with a number of minor improvements.
Other inventors, of whom presently we shall hear more, worked out better methods of escapement, and the watch movement developed slowly toward its present form. It became possible to tell time more accurately and to make arrangements and plans more closely as the watch became a better time-keeper. The pace of life was speeding up, and people were realizing the value of minutes—even of seconds. ”

“ The contents of these chapters can be worked out in practice by almost any workman who is capable of holding a position as watchmaker and it is substantially necessary that they be mastered before finished results are to be expected. ”

“ Both the first success of the chronometer and the later efforts toward improving it had a great influence upon the next few generations of watchmakers; the final improvements were made in the days of the American Revolution. It was at this latter period that a man named Thomas Mudge worked out the kind of escapement that is still used in our watches. ”

“ The most common causes of isochronal variation with which the repairer has to deal and which are often very destructive to position rates, as well as to general time keeping, may be found in the factor of, out of poise and uneven motive force, which is one of the elementary principles of adjusting. This feature should be thoroughly understood by all watchmakers, so that as good results as possible may be obtained from all watches above low grade, even though no test for adjustment is to be made. ”

“ Watches are extensively manufactured in various parts of Europe, but particularly in French Switzerland, France, and England. The London watchmakers have been celebrated for good workmanship, for more than a century and a half. This manufacture has not yet been commenced in the United States, although the machinery, or inside work, is very often imported in tin boxes, and afterwards supplied with dial plates and cases. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I admire the skill of the watch-maker who produces an accurate timepiece; but how much more would I admire his skill if he so made one watch that it was capable not only of keeping time, but also of evolving a series of watches, each keeping better time than that which produced it, so that from the plainest, simplest form of a watch there should be eventually evolved a magnificent chronometer, with jeweled holes, whose time would not vary from the true time a second in a million of years! ”

“ And then along came Madame Curie, the brilliant French scientist, and discovered radium, the merest shadow of which makes the dial of your watch luminous for as long as it lasts.
“There is a very famous clock in Strasbourg which not only tells the time of day, but also the day of week, the month, and the position of the moon and the planets. At various times processions of tiny figures cross a stage, including a cock that crows. The day of week is indicated by a separate little figure which takes its place on a tiny platform.
“A watch is perhaps the most wonderful little machine in the world. ”

“ When watches were comparative novelties it was not at all an uncommon desire on the part of their possessors to watch the operations of a mechanism which was regarded as wonderfully resembling life itself. Watch cases were consequently made of crystal, and were found strong and serviceable. In skeleton clocks the escapement is sometimes made a peculiarly interesting feature to the non-professional eye delighting in noting the amazing accuracy with which each piece of the mechanism works and combines to produce the result required. ”

“ While we may well marvel at the precision of the chronometer, it is equally marvelous, if not more so, that we may equip ourselves for a few dollars with [68] a timepiece which is so wonderfully accurate as to vary little more than a second per day. If one took the pains to regulate his watch carefully, any of the better makes could be adjusted to such accuracy.
There is nothing very mysterious about the mechanism of a watch. It consists merely of a train of gears which slow down the motions of the mainspring to a convenient speed ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The pliers for cutting watch-guards are very strong, and do their work in an instant; but these instruments are not generally used. Most thieves break the watch from the guard by the following quick and easy method:—The watch is tightly grasped in the left hand, the powerful and fleshy part of the thumb resting on the part of the watch where the stud and ring are attached. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This jewel possesses all the versatility of the clip itself, with the added usefulness of the timepiece. The watch face can of course be cunningly hidden, in the heart of a flower, or as an element of an abstract design. It may be worn on a low neckline, at a lapel, at the cuff, or even on a bracelet.
For a woman during business hours, or at golf, there is good reason for wearing a watch. The wrist watch is the best. For sports, a plain leather band should hold a simple watch. At business, a simple band or gold chain is appropriate; the watch itself may be encased with small diamonds. ”

“ SHAKESPEARE is forever coming into our affairs—putting in his oar, so to speak—with some pat word or sentence. The conversation, the other evening, had turned on the subject of watches, when one of the gentlemen present, the manager of a large watch-making establishment, told us a rather interesting fact. The component parts of a watch are produced by different workmen, who have no concern with the complex piece of mechanism as a whole, and possibly, as a rule, understand it imperfectly. Each worker needs to be expert in only his own special branch. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No, no, for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But I take out my watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch facing the mirror, I open the glass and I move the hands until in the mirror they seem to mark half-past ten. Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. So now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get it. For as I unlock the door and open it again, there is Mademoiselle Betty face to face with me! That young girl! Even though already I suspect her I get a shock, I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened enough against surprises. ”

“ 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 first watches, about 1500, had the foliot and verge escapement, and in some early attempts to govern the foliot a hog's bristle was used as a spring. By putting a ring around the ends of the foliot and adding the hair spring of Dr. Hooke, about 1640, we have the verge watches of our grandfathers. This balance wheel and hair spring stand today, but the “lever” escapement has taken the place of the verge. It is a modification of the dead beat, Fig. 29, by adding a lever to the anchor, and this lever is acted on by the balance, hence the name “lever watch.” ”