stems and crown refitting

[Jon Hanson]

is to DO it, but one needs hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stems, crowns and sleeves as cases have so many differences--lengths, shapes, sizes, etc., etc.; Or, a good lathe!

Jon Hanson, NAWCC #8801
Founder and President Chapter 149 (http://nawcc-ch149.com), The Early American Watch Club

[4thdimension]

Hi N.A.T,
Unfortunately, Jon may be right about the
procedure which is, essentially, to amass a huge volume of components and dig in. I did two yesterday and they took several hours. Ain't it
amazing that with all the ballyhooed interchangeable parts phenonmena back then, that casemakers didn't coordinate and narrow down the range of possibities any better than they did!
If you look through ca. 1890's material catalogues, there is page after page of these parts. But, as far as I know, there was no
casemaker serial number list which would have equated to stem, sleeve and crowns that could
have been ordered by number. Could it have been
this poorly set up 100 years ago? I have the labeled boxed assortment of PW stems for the
various makes but this is barely helpful. It is like a Rubik's cube, all the info is there, but only an idiot savant could pull the elements into sequence without difficulty.
Like case springing, virtually no stem-sleeve-collett work is sucessful without modification of the parts. I wish that I could
take Crescent #xxxx and look up the correct combo of parts in a reference. Did this ever exist?
Thank you "N.A.T" for posting about this(and the opportunity to relive the hellish thrashing about I endured yesterday), and a heartfelt
"good luck" with your watch.
-Cort

<(';')>

[BrianC]

Cort,
If it will make you feel any better, I too spent 2 hours yesterday looking for 2 p/w stems. I have a few thousand of them and was only able to find one of them.
Your not alone.
Brian C.

pwpartsetc@pwatch.com

[Jon Hanson]

Don't feel bad--I spent 2 hours 10 days ago trying to locate a certain stem for a blazer GF hunter to no avail! And, I have a HUGE (caps) collection of stems! I should have just used the lathe; as the late, great Wilbur Dexter used to say, "It is easier and faster to just make one!"

However, the late Col Townscend actually separated his stems by Company case and size! But then he was anal!

Jon Hanson, NAWCC #8801
Founder and President Chapter 149 (http://nawcc-ch149.com), The Early American Watch Club

[Kent]

NewAtThis:

The "THE GOLDEN AGE ARCHIVES" sells a CD of the BENJAMIN ALLEN JEWELER & WATCHMAKER CATALOGUE (http://www.geocities.com/~quesinberry/store/161jewlx.htm). This book contains pictures, part numbers and descriptions of pocket watch case parts. Of course you can't order from it, but at least it'll help you understand exactly which part(s) you're looking for.

Kent

That guy down in Georgia :smile: