Your Knowledge (or Guess) Wanted

[wally waltham]

Hello All,
What do y'all think "Dennison's Patent Cylindrical String Watch" is? His male appendage, i.e. his beard? (It takes a licking and keeps on ticking)
For those of you with the "Handwritten Records" of The American Watch Co. see entry 19,301-19,310 for May of 1859 on page 7.
Have a GREAT weekend and remember to take some time to reflect on the people this day honors.
Timely Regards,
wally

[wally waltham]

Hello All,
What do y'all think "Dennison's Patent Cylindrical String Watch" is? His male appendage, i.e. his beard? (It takes a licking and keeps on ticking)
For those of you with the "Handwritten Records" of The American Watch Co. see entry 19,301-19,310 for May of 1859 on page 7.
Have a GREAT weekend and remember to take some time to reflect on the people this day honors.
Timely Regards,
wally

[Jeff Hess]

Duuno. But it looks like they made ten of them. And what is that note about "imperfectly recorded"??

Cool! Never saw that before. Thanks wally!

[wally waltham]

Get right down there and burn your eyes out Jeff and you'll see the full note is: "4th, 6th, 7th, & 8th imperfectly recorded, rest not at all. 9 th(?)* is(?)* one place called Dennison's Patent Cylindrical String Watch." Ah.. the "benefits" of being extremely near-sighted.

Timely Regards,
wally

* Whatever comes after "9" is barely legible. I lean towards "is" as gramatically correct in a note-taking style, but "9th" would be more in the style of the previous notes. Alternatively, there is the possibility that the "9" isn't a 9 at all, but the first letter of a short word. WHAT do YOU think? ww

[Jeff Hess]

man,

I am very near sited. I do not have all that stuff on my copy. Roy's copier must have needed ink when he got down to my copy....


sure is neat stuff though.

[wally waltham]

Jeff,
Is your copy out-of-sequence on page 5 (10,821 to 16,860 June 1858 to April 1859) too?
Mine has to be read Upper Left to Upper Right and then Lower Left to Lower Right if you think of the page as split into quadrants.
Ain't we got FUN?
Cheers,
wally

[Tom McIntyre]

If you look at the Waltham ads in the Encyclopedia Vol I, you will see a couple of strange watches on pages 90 and 91. One very similar to these was found in the vaults after the Sherrif's sale of Waltham Precision a few years back. It had a cylindrical hairspring and a beat setting mechanism built into the lever.

The watch that showed up was in the 28,710 run, not the earlier 20,301 run. (You misrecorded the serial number :smile:) The 28,710 run has no particular note, but the preceding run of 10 is noted to be made by Mr Stratton.

------------------
Tom McIntyre
Past President, NAWCC Chapters 174 and 87
Member Chapters 8, 87, 149, 159, 161 and 174
NAWCC: Crafts Committee, Web Committee
Pocket Horology Web (http://www.pocketwatch.org)
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.AWCo.org)

[Tom McIntyre]

By lever I was referring to the escapement part that has the pallets on one end and the fork on the other end. In the Waltham helical that I have seen, there is a mechanism for changing the angle between the fork and the pallets.

The mechanism is similar to the mechanism found on some Vienna Regulator clocks for allowing one to set the beat by changing the angular relationship between the pendulum and the pallets.

The mechanism on the Waltham is incredibly sexy, but probably not practical. The watch was probably never sold although maybe some of the others in either the Dennison or Stratton run were.

------------------
Tom McIntyre
Past President, NAWCC Chapters 174 and 87
Member Chapters 8, 87, 149, 159, 161 and 174
NAWCC: Crafts Committee, Web Committee
Pocket Horology Web (http://www.pocketwatch.org)
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.AWCo.org)

[Tom McIntyre]

I don't think it is worth a separate thread. I am recalling something I examined for a few hours many years ago.

The beat adjuster on a modern freesprung watch changes the position of the stud to put the balance in beat rather than moving the collet as required for a watch with a regulator.

The device from the early Waltham changed the pallet to fork relationship and, I think, made the adjustment incredibly fine. you would only be able to change it very slightly for the watch to stop working unless you also adjusted the pallet depths. I don't recall a mechanism for sliding the pallets in and out. http://www.nawcc.org/ubb/eek.gif

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Tom McIntyre
Past President, NAWCC Chapters 174 and 87
Member Chapters 8, 87, 149, 159, 161 and 174
NAWCC: Crafts Committee, Web Committee
Pocket Horology Web (http://www.pocketwatch.org)
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.AWCo.org)

[Tom McIntyre]

I may be able to make a sketch from memory. My remark about beat setting was intended to conjure up an image for anyone who had seen that mechanism on a Vienna Regulator clock. The actual function of the mechanism in the Waltham is a mystery to me.

I don't think the current owner of the watch will be willing to furnish an illustration, but I could be wrong. I am pretty sure he would have seen this thread. (And no, it is not Jon.)

By the way, as to "string" and "spring" I thought that the misinterpretation was too obvious to comment on. It is, of course, cylindrical spring. :smile:

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Tom McIntyre
Past President, NAWCC Chapters 174 and 87
Member Chapters 8, 87, 149, 159, 161 and 174
NAWCC: Crafts Committee, Web Committee
Pocket Horology Web (http://www.pocketwatch.org)
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.AWCo.org)

[This message has been edited by Tom McIntyre (edited 05-28-2002).]