Vintage Illinois Watch Co. film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTQT6PwgJTA

Have you seen this yet?

Thanks Greg, I just did. Fascinating!

great movie also found one on Hamilton there

It just gives you a sense of amazement as to how they could produce their product for the prices they sold for back then. Imagine what a watch made by the same procedures and number of people would cost today.

It also reinforces my knowledge that I would never be able to service a watch myself. I would never be able to have the steadiness required to handle such small parts. My hands have always shaken and have now lost flexibility as well. I'm totally amazed that humans can have those abilities.

At several points in the film, I observed practices which did not appear to be up to the high standards of the Illinois Watch Co. For example, the poising of balances was done with a rather primative steel jaw poising tool. I suspect they brought out the primitive tool in order to hide more sophisticatd equipment which Illinois Watch Co did not want other companies to see and copy.

Greg, While I agree that certain measures were undoubtedly taken to protect priprietary tooling and methods in this movie, the steel poising tool in the movie with fixed spacing set up for that wheel alone when used on a manufacturing floor is even more reliable than the "adjustabe" types we use on "used" watches.

My early 1960's experience employing several Hundred men and lady operators manufacturing precision machined Microwave assemblies in Cambridge, Massachusetts suggests that the experience-trained eye of the person doing this is far better than the poising tool itself.

Especially when these people were poising the balance wheel by comparing and changng Balance Weights as shown in the film. This very accurate method of adjusting weights makes the poise tool a simple feedback of success.

Finally, an errant watch that lost poise later in production such as from temperature adjust manipulation was most certainly re-poised again in the finishing room.