What does electronics and watchmaking have in common?

[mooredan]

Hello, I'm Dan a new member, and a brand new watchmaker!  I'm an Electrical Engineer professionally and an electronics designer/tinkerer/hobbyist for even longer.  I've been obsessed with time and timekeeping forever.  I've even built both a 60 kHz WWVB receiver and transmitter (that's the "atomic clock" radio station near Fort Collins, Colorado).

Anyway, I inherited a couple of pocket watches: a Hamilton 992 railroad grade from my father about 10 years ago (it probably belonged to my great-grandfather) -- it had a broken crystal, wound tight, and wasn't running.  Under a magnifier, I tweezed away the lint and hairs that were binding the hands and miraculously it began running!  Ordered a couple of new-old-stock crystals and got it fitted. It's been sitting on the shelf since getting an occasional wind.

More recently, I found a 1908 Elgin 12s 7-jewel grade 301 in a box that I inherited from my brother. Again no crystal, a broken hand, rusted case, and not running reliably -- looks like the second hand is rubbing against the dial hole.  This prompted me to add on another hobby to my resume -- watchmaking, so I can properly service and repair this.

Santa brought a nice wooden tool chest and a multitude of tools (some still on the way) and I ordered this mess of a movement off of ebay for learning:

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/collection/editdetails/131416/overview

It was wound tight, rusted, and seized.  Disassembled it and found two major issues: escape wheel's staff had corroded so much that it fused itself into the bridge,  the balance had corroded too and "leaked" its rust onto the hairspring gluing it together. Good news is that the jewels are in good shape, and no broken staffs.  Repaired what I could, cleaned it and now it runs, but not very well.  I have another donor movement on its way.

 

Thanks for reading this far and now to answer the question. Among the similarities are: require a strict attention to detail, working with small parts under magnification, share some common tools, and provide a great deal of mental stimulation.

Best regards,

Dan

[watchweasol]

Hi its cleaned up very well , If you are looking for bits try daveswatchparts.com,  put the number onto the pocketwatchdatabase site and it will give you all the details of the watch. These you will need for finding/ordering parts.

[JohnR725]

7 hours ago, mooredan said:

Thanks for reading this far and now to answer the question. Among the similarities are: require a strict attention to detail, working with small parts under magnification, share some common tools, and provide a great deal of mental stimulation.

Are you sure that's the only things in common?

[watchweasol]

In any repair/service discipline it required just that discipline avoid bodging and do quality work. Having worked in the service industry for over 50yrs any substandard repairs always bit back repeat faults were not appreciated. and I hated having to do others slap happy repairs where a cobbled reair failed.

[Michael1962]

Welcome to the forum Dan.

Gosh, some pocket watch movements are pretty.

[spectre6000]

Are you saying you're located near Ft. Collins and worked on the transmitter, or just referencing the atomic clock at NIST in Boulder? My buddy works there (affiliated institute, but on timekeeping projects directly associated), and there's another member here whose brother works at the same affiliated institute and on the same project. It'd be pretty crazy to tie that small world knot twice in the same forum...

Edited January 5, 2022 by spectre6000

[mooredan]

@spectre6000, sorry I didn't see your reply earlier.  I did live in Fort Collins for many years and visited the WWVB transmitter site (actually just north of Fort Collins, closer to the town of Wellington I think).  I didn't work on that transmitter but built my own 60 kHz low power transmitter to test a receiver that I was building.  Now in Oregon, the signal is sketchy during the day.  Quite a satisfying project as I could set the clocks in my house to any time and date that I wanted -- my very own "wayback" machine.