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!
This is a fairly old gift that I received almost a year ago, but I came across some pictures on my computer so I figured I'd share my experience with ALS's top-notch customer service!
I wrote to ALS about my passion for watches, simply expressing that I found their watches of incredible beauty and of astonishing horological engineering. My letter was about a page long that outlined what I so loved about their watches - from the blued screws holding the polished gold chatons to the hand engraved balance cocks and diamond end stones. I highlighted that I would undoubtedly collect their timepieces once I was financially able to. This letter was just for the sake of acknowledging my interest in the brand and to applaud their work, nothing more.
I did not receive a response from any representatives for quite some time and I figured my letter was either forgotten or disregarded. However, much to my surprise, a package arrived in the mail! A personal letter from ALS as well as one of their wooden loupes and a book! I don't have a picture of the book but it was "The Revival of Time" by Walter Lange.
I'll admit, it probably wasn't the smartest idea to jump straight to a repeater from having only fixed time-only watches. The logical next step from time-only pieces was probably to begin taking apart calendars, or even chronographs. However, it has been a great experience and definitely one that I do not regret racing into.
The movement had its entire gear train disassembled, which would have been an easy fix if that was the only problem. Unfortunately, the repeating mechanism was jammed too. I must say, it was an experience just taking the watch apart! It took nearly an hour to figure out how to safely take apart each piece, making sure that others were not harmed in the process. For fixing watches, I usually use parts boxes that have 20 slots in them, but for this repeater, I actually bought a new box with 30 some slots to accommodate for the vast amount of extra pieces. I tried my best to polish the hammers and gong, which turned out okay, but it was difficult because of the fragility of the gongs - I didn't want them to snap off from their base.
The problem with the repeater was that the star wheel was poorly made. Quite frankly, it may have been from a previous repairer's faults. The spaces between the teeth were either too large or too small, causing the quarter's snail to rotate without moving the star wheel or causing it to get jammed. I had to file some of it down and bend some teeth into place, but apparently it worked! After reassembling the movement, I was able to get both the repeating mechanism to match up to the time and the escapement to run. There is one fault to this watch that I was unable to fix - a missing piece. The piece does not hinder the performance of the repeater at all, nor does it affect the gear train, but it is the piece that is supposed to give the quarter chimes two tones. For example, if it was 4:20, quarter repeaters would generally chime ting ting ting ting... ting tang ting tang. But with the missing piece, it just chimes ting ting ting ting... tang tang. I'm not complaining, though because it is still fully functional!
There are a few unique things about this watch, aside from the obvious that it's a repeater. First, it's a cylinder escapement which completely eliminates the pallet fork. Second, the dial is beautifully guilloched, which I assume is hand engine-turned? Too bad it wasn't in the best of shape, but you can see the detail in one of the pictures below. I forget the name of this type of movement, but finally, the mainspring barrel is uncovered, anchored from the bottom.
It was a great learning experience as I have now added quarter repeaters to my arsenal of watchmaking skills! Throughout fixing the piece, I had a lot of moments where it just "clicked" as to the purpose of this piece or that and how exactly everything works together in harmony to create an audible version of the time. Sorry for the long post this time, but I had a incredible time repairing this repeater. I have attached a video of the chiming, which comes around midway through the video, as well as pictures.
