Horological Adventures
Introduction
At the beginning of 2011, I took up watchmaking/repairing as a hobby not only to make some money towards my very first watch, but to better understand the inner workings of these mechanical wonders. Taking up watchmaking was truly when my passion for watches began. I've come to appreciate the incredible finishes of haute horlogerie along with the numerous complications that the world of horology has to offer because I began to realize the sheer amount of time that goes into each and every hand-made timepiece.
I decided to create this blog to share my passion with my fellow horology enthusiasts and to document the projects that I will undertake on the path to my very first watch.
Thanks for taking a visit and I hope you enjoy what I've done!
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Back At It
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
A Nice Surprise - Duplex Escapement
Fast-forward to this week... I finally had a chance to take the movement apart. The moment I unscrewed the balance cock, I heard the whizzing of the gears as they turned to release the energy wound up in the mainspring. Uh oh... I thought for sure I had broken a piece. Normally, the pallet fork in lever escapements would prevent that fast release of energy - which is usually bad news as that puts unnecessary stress on the gears and pinions. I quickly unscrewed the balance, and much to my surprise, this movement didn't have a normal lever escapement at all.
I stumbled upon a rare gem.
A duplex escapement peeked through the movement, and I knew that this $25 movement was easily worth more than ten times that. The quality of the movement also showed through in that the pieces went together absolutely perfectly. Once I had the gear train all placed in the main plate, all the pinions fit into their respective jewels the moment I rested the top plate on the parts - made my life a whole lot easier.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Spring Break Fixes
Sandoz Family Crest with "sine dolo" |
And second, an American fusee movement. I jumped on the opportunity to purchase this watch because the average American fusee movement is considerably rarer than the average European fusee movement. Why? Elgin, Waltham, Illinois, etc. all dominated to American pocket watch market, and the large majority of the movements they made were not fusee movements. Movements like the one here by J.W. Tucker & Co. were of higher quality and, as a result, lower in production quantity.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Another Nice Elgin
Thursday, November 28, 2013
So I Made a Light Box... (Elgin Doctor's Watch)
Hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
My Ever-growing Ledger
On each line, I have the maker, city, year, case, running condition, serial number, other markings/features, date sold, and price sold of the watches. For obvious reasons, I've cut off the prices sold in the picture below. The different colors correlate to different regions of origin - red is for Swiss watches, blue for English, and green for American and others.
Again, this wasn't meant to be a long and terribly intriguing post, but it goes more into the inner-workings of my watchmaking hobby, which I hope is of some interest to you!
Off to College
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Tarts London Repousse
Tarts pocket watches are considered "pseudo-London" pocket watches. These have been known as "Dutch-forgeries" rather than genuine watches from England. Tarts is the most prolific of these watches with John Wilter being another of these "pseudo-London" watches. These watches are usually of lesser quality which is apparent if you were to compare pictures of this movement to actual English watches of the same time period - the finishing is much cruder with "choppy" edges rather than smooth and screws that look more industrial than refined.
The overall condition of the watch is great but at the same time not so. The repousse case should be silver gilt, meaning that it should be gold plated overtop the sterling silver base. Most gilt watches have a brass base so that once a watch has been thoroughly worn through, the dull brown "interior" is in full view. This case being silver, however, I was still able to polish it nicely though not to excellent condition because it should be completely gilt and not silver. The inner case (not pictured) is of much better condition having its gold coat and all. I was able to confirm that the watch is silver gilt and not simply gilt because of the hallmarks within the inner case.
Another neat feature of the watch is its champleve dial. The dial is made to have troughs and raised portions. Traditionally, champleve is combined with enamelling so that the enamel fits right into the carved out areas. What I have seen with watches, however, is that the troughs are left as is, unfilled. The dial is also of gold tone, but I was unable to test the gold content (I should really invest in a gold testing set...).
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Vulliamy Half-quarter Dumb Repeater (repeater a toc)
Full-capped balance with nice pierced and engraved parts |
As someone mentioned to me, the diamond is truly of jewelry quality with all the facets of a diamond you'd normally find in a ring |
View of the hammers (the polished metal part touching the main plate) |
Close-up of the cylinder escapament |
Unfortunately no hands :( |
Highly finished, polished repeater mechanism - still beautiful after 200+ years |