South Bend Watch Company

Once upon a time there was this dinky little company in South Bend, Indiana turning out small metal lathes. I forget its name. But there were other things going on in town as well, such as Notre Dame (and football), Studebaker automobiles, and a pocket watch company cranking out time pieces for the railroad they called the "Studebaker Railroad Watch." (It could be that the Studebakers owned the watch company or something. Don't know.)

Here you get a series articles published in 1912 that show you how watch movements and cases were mass produced. This was no small operation. You'll see the three story, 55,000 sq ft building that housed the operations. You'll see the internal workings of the watch and then examine the specialized jigs, fixtures, and machinery used to create watches.

You'll learn about watch gearing, watch train computations, the main spring, detached lever escapement, compensating balance, jeweled bearings and more. You'll see the special transfer chuck used to make the precision master plates, specialized gauges and dial mikes, techniques of making a lapping gauge blocks, and more. You'll learn how watch plates were made, how multiple drilling machines drilled dial foot holes, and more. You'll see the belt driven lathe that faced off the watch plates, construction details of the machine that punched numbers and letters into parts, the automatic screw machine that produced tiny machine screws, the machine for cutting teeth in brass gears, the polishing machine used to finish the escape wheels, the damaskeening machine used to decorate parts with fancy engraving, the machine for cutting in jewel settings and more. Learn how jewels where polished and gauged, how watch dials were made, and the characters printed on, and much more. The last two articles reveal how "gold-filled" watch cases were made and the machinery used.

Pocket watches are miracles of precision. And yet they were cranked out by the thousands. Here you'll learn how it was done. Yeah, I know. Digital watches are better and cheaper. But pocket watches are one of the seven (there are many more than seven) wonders of the mechanical world that go unappreciated in this digital age.

Get a copy and enjoy. Interesting stuff, especially if you're into collecting or building time pieces. Get a copy. The price is right. The only string attached is: when you get your watch factory up and running, I expect you to make a watch for ME. Get started! 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 softcover 64 pages

No. 23381 ... $8.95