Lancaster

The Lancaster watch company began operation in 1877. It was a smaller company that made watches at a lower than usual price point. It later became part of Keystone, and later still Hamilton.

This example is an 18 size, 15 jewel, lever-set movement.

This first image is a "before" shot. There's a layer of solidified grease on everything. 

On the dial side we can see the lever setting mechanism.

This watch has an old repair that is caused some problems.  The lever mechanism places some upward pressure from below the dial when the lever is extended, because the watch does not fit its case exactly. The dial can lift enough to touch the base of the seconds hand and stop the watch. Replaceing a dial foot made the dial more secure.

Later versions of this movement improved on the design so as to avoid this problem.

The Lancaster Watch Company only made about 200,000 movements between 1877 and 1882.

An 18 Size Lancaster and a Setting Mechanism Repair

Here's some issues with the lever on this Lancaster Watch Co, 18 size, Melrose model.

The setting lever, when pulled out, presses down on the back of a rocking part. The front of the rocker thus is lifted up to move an idler wheel into place connecting the main wheel to the minute wheel.


There is a barely holding old repair to this rocker as you can see. The end of a screw is soldered to the rocker. The gear turns on the body of the screw. The screw's head is underneath.
This lever mechanism has all the problems that come from all the contact parts wearing down. For one, the main wheel does not press far enough to engage that idler gear fully in setting mode. The idler gear also does not come up far enough, due to metal worn away at the other end, to strongly engage the main and minute wheel.

Sometimes, I can add a bit of metal that will help. This wouldn't last on a watch that was in use everyday, but it helps.










In this case, I cemented a bit of curved steel to the back of that rocker part. Now the lever should press the back down further, lifting the front higher, for better engagement of the gears. This is the best we can do short of re-making some of these parts by hand.