Watch Master Hairspring Vibrator 1960’ish?

[Woolshire]

I’ve had this for…um, several decades? Just uncovered/unearthed it and thought I would post here to learn a little more about it. It is complete and seems to work well! I’m guessing that it is from around 1960 and the microphone listens and it draws on the paper that advances as it’s running. I put it to a 1 minute test and certainly was able to make the microphone translate noise to the paper. Don’t know much else about it but hoping someone can fill in the blanks. Also, I’m sure this would be desirable to someone. I don’t do much vibrating of hairsprings (I think twice, ever) and did those on more of a trail and error method.

[Woolshire]

I believe this is also a timegrapher. I put a watch on it and it draws a pair of dot lines very similar to the trace on a modern timegrapher. Looks to be fairly accurate, too. 

[praezis]

What makes you think this is for hairspring vibrating? Did you ever vibrate one with this device?

What I see is a very vintage timing machine and a microphone.

Frank

[AndyGSi]

It's an old timing machine and here's someone selling the instructions.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/176273518803

Edit

Just realised with the instructions that the extra bit on top
does appear to be something to do with hairsprings.

Also realised that it's the G47 Manual as below but looks very similar.

 

G47 Manual.pdf

Edited January 22 by AndyGSi

[Neverenoughwatches]

Looks like this is the vibrator.

hairspring vibrator lead block or earphone ?

[Woolshire]

I don’t think I have that part. I was wondering how the hs vibrating might work. There is this “saddle” and the top part has a hole through it. My initial thought was the hs stud would be held above (through the hole) and the balance/balance pivot would rest on the saddle floor. If this part was just for the Time Machine function, I would think it would look more like a flat table to sit the watch on. 
I can tell this is quality made and likely cost the watchmaker a decent sum back in the day.

Edit: wait, I see now that the saddle is designed to hold a watch verticals to the saddle…makes sense now. Thanks for the additional info…still don’t know if I have the vibrating portion of this tool

Edited January 22 by Woolshire

[praezis]

1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Looks like this is the vibrator.

@Woolshire 
Did you investigate „D“, is it removable?

[Neverenoughwatches]

51 minutes ago, praezis said:

@Woolshire 
Did you investigate „D“, is it removable?

Haha I take it that in the red circle is an earpiece. 

My red circle earlier 

[Woolshire]

The “D” knob looks to be only for height adjustment. The metal tag states that it is a watch holder and hairspring vibrator

[JohnR725]

 

Just now, Woolshire said:

The metal tag states that it is a watch holder and hairspring vibrator

other than tweezers and a hairspring to vibrate it's all there. somewhere in the universe I probably have a picture but we really don't need a picture if you can use your imagination.

so one of the classic ways to vibrate a hairspring is to hold the hairspring with something have the balance wheel oscillate and as it oscillates it will lift up and down as the hairspring coils up and releases and as the balance wheel goes up and down it can make a ticking sound on something.

So we just need to use our imagination and it's all there.

so to vibrated hairspring we just need to hold it with a pair of tweezers over the sensor. Which at one time would be easy to do but problematic now. Notice in the image below item number a as a black circle on top. The black circle is the top of a tube of rubber going all the way to the bottom. It serves two purposes that holds the watch when you're timing the watch and it would hold tweezers if you insert it through the hole.

so part a is basically for holding the tweezers which holds the end of the hairspring or wherever you think it's mostly vibrated. The balance wheel would hang underneath as it oscillates back and forth it will tap on the sensor the timing machine will pick it up and you can try to vibrate your hairspring.

 

[AndyGSi]

Just had a chance to look through the manual properly.

[Woolshire]

Wow, what great information! Thanks to everyone who helped me understand this old machine. The vibrating part makes perfect sense now. I never would have thought of the tapping of the staff to draw the line on the paper.

[AndyGSi]

4 minutes ago, Woolshire said:

I never would have thought of the tapping of the staff to draw the line on the paper.

I think the next problem is if it has any paper now, how long it will last for?

[Woolshire]

Yes, I think paper is a problem. There is no ink required on this. It seems the paper is tap sensitive and marks are made  that look like tiny timegrapher dots. 
Back to the vibrating; It seems the tapping of the balance staff on the saddle table would occur each time the hairspring began to reverse course so the line drawn should be straight when 18,000 bph is achieved. The machine does have various bph settings.  I may just mock it up and try it out. I’ll report back after.

[AndyGSi]

Yes it uses what's called impact or pressure sensitive paper that was used in a lot of old chart recorders.

https://shop.iogproducts.com/products/impact-o-graph-chart-paper

[Woolshire]

This will give us an idea of what it looks like when vibrating a hairspring with this doohickey.  The balance I chose seems a little large for the saddle, even though it’s a men’s wristwatch balance. Could it be you can fuse the flat surface around the saddle? I don’t think so but am surprised the saddle isn’t a little bigger.