The Auburndale Watch Company : $b first American attempt toward the dollar watchBattison, Edwin A.
History
The Auburndale Watch Company : $b first American attempt toward the dollar watch
Battison, Edwin A.
Auburndale Watch Company (Auburndale, Mass.); Clock and watch making -- United States
low-priced watch, really a scaled-down alarm clock minus the alarm
mechanism.
It is said that about one thousand of the "Rotaries" were made. The
highest serial number to come to the author's attention, 507, may
indicate that only a part of the watches started were finished.
Accounts agree[35] that the next product of the factory was a "Timer"
containing a novel escapement patented on May 28, 1878,[36] by William
A. Wales. Early specimens are marked "Pat. Applied For," but one with the
serial number 996[37] bears no reference at all to a patent, presumably
because issuance of the patent or patents was imminent. Apparently the
timer was in full production before the patent was issued on May 28.
Specimens with higher serial numbers are stamped with three patent dates,
May 28, 1878,[38] June 24, 1879, and September 30, 1879, as seen in
figure 13, which also shows the arrangement of the train. In this
escapement the escape wheel (fig. 14) carries in the rim any suitable
number of steel pins all on the same radius from, and parallel to, the
axis of wheel rotation. In all cases the wheel makes one revolution per
second. The verge (figs. 14 and 15) is so proportioned that the distance
between the points of repose on the entrance and exit pallets will stop
the wheel at intervals equal to half the angular distance between the
pins.
In other words, with two pins in the escape wheel the escapement will
beat quarters of a second, because starting from a point of repose the
wheel will be arrested on the other point of repose after turning through
90 deg.. With four pins in the escape wheel and a suitably proportioned verge
the escape wheel advances in steps of 45 deg. and beats eighths of a second.
The growing trend in this period to standardize the timing of sporting
events in intervals of fifths of a second is reflected in still another
model having five pins in the escape wheel and beating tenths of a
second. By the nature of the verge in this escapement, it will be seen
that the number of beats must be twice the number of pins in the escape
wheel, leaving no way to secure an odd number of beats per second, hence
the 1/10-second model. This must have been a less desirable form because
of the much smaller verge required, plus the problem of accelerating so
much mass from a dead stop 600 times per minute.
[Illustration: Figure 17.--A TIMER DIAL that is probably either
experimental or very early. Note that the fractions of a second
(quarters) are shown on the outside dial instead of on a separate dial.
This dial was converted at the factory for use as the base of a
hairspring vibrating stand. A dial different from this but having the
same arrangement of circles is known. (In author's collection.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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