VIRTUAL POCKET WATCH MUSEUM DAY 81, cal 57, 1905

Am I ever so glad that also Tonny has a C.57 that was built on a Monday
morning.

And whilst Adrian has ever so graciously replied to my post of yesterday and
explained the reason and logic behind the flipping (mirror imaging) of these
movements, I am still convinced that we need to give these same but different
movements, different denominator names.

Maybe I should start a petition.

The Watch

Last night I mentionedin Virtual Museum Day 80 post, that I had another Niello
cased C.57 that I wish to share with you and that I would do it soon.

That, was this watch.

However, since Tonny shows noit one but two real beautys today - I think
instead of 0.900 German silver an niello artwork, I need to offset Tonny's
post with the opposite. No precious metal, finaly adorned pocket watch - but
rather just plain old ugly steel.

The Real Watch

Well, she was in real poor state when I located her in Argentina.

Now, other than that dial (with it's fantastic 24 hour aftermarket
customization) if you look again at the above picture, you can see that it has
no glass over the watch. In fact look even closer and you will understand why.

The entire front bezel of this watch is missing!

Enter the master case builder....

A nice shiny gun metal steel new front bezel was manufactured - fits like a
dream. Note, the brass ring inlay on the top of the new steel bezel. The
entire case is sitting on top of the metalworkers hot steel fireing block.

And the rear case back hinge had to be repared too - as that was three quarter
way torn off.

A better view of that front brass inlay.

and did you notice, we have a replacement dial in there too? Well not really -
not then, just that after market 24 hour removed.

The movement a Cal. 57 and in fact the archives in Schaffhausen reflect that
this watch was sold in May of 1900 to the French wholesaler Erbeau in Paris.
From there it somehow at sometime travelled to South America.

The finished watch - and here, we have a replacement dial on it.

And look how nice Jeroen serviced the movement too.

So from ugly - to shear beauty in my eyes - a very handsome Cal. 57

This reminds me I had better check in with Jeroen and see how he is getting
along on the rust bucket project. Hopefully tomorrow then an update on that
project.

Maybe a few words on the 'power flow'

The energy that a watch needs to make it run is stored in the robust
mainspring. When the watch is wound, the mainspring is becoming tighter and
the energy is stored. Over time the mainspring is slowly unwinding for a small
part, transmitting the freed energy over the train of wheels to the escape
wheel. The escape wheel is blocked by the ancre or pallet fork. The pallet
fork has 2 arms which contain a jewel at the end of each arm. On turn, the 2
arms of the pallet fork touch a cam of the small escape wheel and the ancre
(pallet fork) transmits the energy received to the balance spring. The last
step is that the balance wheel starts to swing (oscillate) and the watch is
ticking until the energy of the main spring has been used completely.
Engineers can calculate how much energy is lost at every tick through the gear
train by friction. the transport of energy from the main spring to the balance
wheel is called the power flow. It appears that sometimes changing the design
of the movement into its mirror shape may reduce the friction at different
places in the gear train, making it more efficient and prolonging its
lifetime.

Adrian,

(alwaysiwc).

Brilliant rejuvination project Mark L :o)

Great post and information - thank you for the detailed explanation of the
power flow, Adrian!