#horlogy

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It's time for action

[unfortunatelightweaver]

A large (approximately 1 meter in diameter) display showing the movement side of a pocket watch. If you're ever in south-central Pennsylvania you should check out the national watch and clock museum

[likemayonnaisebutmontreal]

Does it feel that time has become meaningless? That the minutes pass senselessly, the hours shift without purpose and the days melt into nothing?

[andmaybegayer]

I still have clock escapements on my mind so I'm gonna write about that.

Clocks are weirdly, extremely precise objects, which involve some crazy forces in tiny spaces, especially when you're dealing with pocketwatches or wristwatches. You’ve got a lot of energy bound up in springs and you’ve got all these components clacking into each other at high speed a hundred thousand times a day. In a stand-up clock using a pendulum, you can make the pallets of the escapement (the flat sections that touch the timing wheel) out of chunky metal, either cast or wide strips which can take a serious beating. For example, here’s the Pinwheel Escapement off of a tower clock. Big chunky brass pieces.

If you’ve ever taken apart a wristwatch you’ll know that the gears in there are fine, really fine. If you let those slam into each other at high speed over and over again, you’ll dent or scrape them and throw the escapement out of alignment real quickly. Scraping creates timing inconsistencies, and in particular the pallets will get deformed, and the shape of the pallet is VERY important for regular operation of a watch. So what’s the solution for this?

Why, gemstones of course!

Sometimes you’ll see a watch advertised as using “27 jewels” or “60 jewels”. This is a literal count of the number of gemstones used in the internal mechanism. Nowadays we use synthetic ruby, but in the past you would have needed to get natural ruby, emerald, sapphire or (rarely) diamond and cut them to shape. These could then be used as pallets, bearings, and bushings. Gems are crazy hard (rubies are a 9 on the mohs hardness scale, and diamonds are 10) so they don’t wear down, they transfer energy VERY efficiently, and they can be highly polished to reduce friction. Inside the watch that looks like this:

Yep, that’s ruby alright.

This is part of why watches could get so expensive, To make a good quality watch you might need dozens of high-quality, carefully shaped rubies. This video shows pretty nicely where you might find rubies in a watch, like on the axles of the gears and at the various interfaces around the pallet fork in the lever escapement. Some of the earliest nautical clocks like the H4 used diamond bearings in order to keep time accurately, and this was in the mid-1700′s long before synthetic diamond was possible.

There’s lots of other weird stuff going on here. The 1700′s is early industrial revolution, the idea that the discipline of watchmaking was at the level required to produce something like the H1 and H4 chronometers is wild. Steam engines were basically hot new tech when the H1 was made, and the Watt steam engine was still a few years out. It weirds me out something huge to think that there were people working on this scale of mechanism and making it work a hundred years before we figured out Germ Theory.

[vrhorlogerie-blog]

https://m.facebook.com/VRHorlogerie/ www.vrhorlogerie.com #watches #watches #belgium🇧🇪 #VRH #passion #montres #patekphilippe #audemarspiguet #fpjournewatches #boucheron #hermeswatch #blancpain #jaegerlecoultre #girardperregaux #iwc #omega #longines #officinepanerai #iwc #watchmaker #iwcschafhausen #watchbelgium #watchgram #watchmakers #watchmaking #watch #watches #passion #horlogerie #VRH #watchlovers #wirstwatch #luxurywatch #watchcollectors #horlogy #swisswatch #watchgeek #dailywatch #watchoftheday #watchnerd #belgium #luxury #watchaddict #watchaddicted #watchofinstagram #watchfam #watchnerd #wristporn #horlogery #montres tchcollectors #horlogy #swisswatch #watchgeek #dailywatch #watchoftheday #watchnerd #belgium #luxury #watchaddict #watchaddicted #watchofinstagram #watchfam #watchnerd #wristporn #horlogery #montres #montresvintage #montressuisses #maitrepolisseur #montresmecaniques #montresautomatiques #watchme #timepiece #timepieces #time #watchmania #watchporn #watchgram #luxurywatch #montrespassion

[vrhorlogerie-blog]

Precious ... 📸⌚️🌸 #iwc #watchmaker #iwcschafhausen #watchbelgium #watchgram #watchmakers #watchmaking #watch #watches #passion #horlogerie #VRH #watchlovers #wirstwatch #luxurywatch #watchcollectors #horlogy #swisswatch #watchgeek #dailywatch #watchoftheday #watchnerd #belgium #luxury #watchaddict #watchaddicted #watchofinstagram

[vrhorlogerie-blog]

Which is hidden ? #iwc #watchmaker #iwcschafhausen #watchbelgium #watchgram #watchmakers #watchmaking #watch #watches #passion #horlogerie #VRH #watchlovers #wirstwatch #luxurywatch #watchcollectors #horlogy #swisswatch #watchgeek #dailywatch #watchoftheday #watchnerd #belgium #luxury #watchaddict #watchaddicted #watchofinstagram

[vrhorlogerie-blog]

Shh, the watchmaker is working ⌚️🎥 #patekphilippe #annualcalendar #watch #watches #passion #horlogerie #VRH #watchlovers #wirstwatch #luxurywatch #watchcollectors #horlogy #swisswatch #watchgeek #dailywatch #watchoftheday #watchnerd #belgium #luxury #watchaddict #watchaddicted #watchofinstagram