Waltham Repairs, 1877

This older Waltham is one of the most interesting watches I've seen.  It's a key-wind, 18 size, 7 jewel movement, made about 1877.

This first photo shows the dial side, and the ratchet for the mainspring.  It's pretty cool, but that's just the beginning.

The watch has a tangential escapement, English style.

Here we have the hour wheel.  The hour wheel goes on the dial side.  It slips over the cannon pinion.  The hour hand rides directly on this wheel.

These closeups show that two teeth has been repaired.  

Where the broken teeth were, a notch has been filed out and a shaped piece of brass inserted.  The repair is soldered in place.  The watchmaker had to make the notch, and make the replacement piece, likely entirely with a small file.

Today, one would probably be able to replace an hour wheel on an old American pocketwatch.  But back when this was done, a replacement part could be extremely difficult to get, not to mention expensive.

This is exactly the typical technique for this type of repair, but I have only seen it a few times.  It's more common on clocks.  When I find something like this in a watch, I go to great length to preserve the work.

Moving on, this watch also has a make-shift banking pin!

The banking pins are two pins, off center, sticking out from the bottoms of two screws.  The screws can be turned slightly to adjust how far away from each other the pins are, since they are off-center underneath.

One of the two here is not a screw anymore, but a handmade brass plug.  It has a hole in the bottom with a pin inserted.

The top has a slight ridge for turning it. I was able to turn it with tweezers.

But wait!  There's more!

This is the minute wheel.  The outer part of this wheel is turned by the cannon pinion, and the inner part turns the outer edge of the hour wheel, thus this wheel reduces minutes to hours.

The inner section has also had a tooth repaired!

In this case, the replacement tooth, is really a post.

These next photos show the dial side works.

Here is the cannon pinion in the middle, ridding on the center shaft.  It turns the minute hand.  This one is squared on top because this watch is key-set.  It fits friction tight so it can be turned, it slips, when setting.

Here is the minute wheel in place, and the hour wheel over.

What a great watch!






Look here for more creative repairs...