Civil War Waltham Restoration

[benhutcherson]

Waltham was the first American watch company, and the first company to mass produce watches with interchangeable parts.

Their first model was developed in the mid-1850s, and, by the late 1850s, this so-called model 1857 and become fairly standardized. It was being produced in(relatively) large numbers, and the lower grades were imminently affordable by many people.

By the end of the Civil War, Waltham had produced in the neighborhood of 180,000 watches, with roughly half of them being the low-end Wm. Ellery grade. In fact, the Wm. Ellery model 1857 is sometimes called the "Soldiers Watch" due to its supposed popularity among soldier of the War Between the States.

Although it's difficult to establish a provenance of a watch having been owned and carried in the war(with the exception of engraved watches), any Waltham made before or during the war has become especially coveted and desirable.

I was fortunate enough to recently acquire just such a Waltham from a fellow collector-an 11 jewel Wm. Ellery grade in its original coin silver hunting case. The serial number on this one is 95036, placing the year of production in 1863.

Unfortunately, though, this one is "rough", although it still has plenty of potential to be a good, running watch. The biggest problem is that the hairspring is badly mangled.









The first step is to disassemble it into all of the component parts, to allow me to better assess the condition. This constitutes in the neighborhood of 40 separate parts(including screws), each of which must be cleaned, inspected, and either repaired or replaced as necessary.



Aside from the hairspring, the mainspring is badly "set"(meaning that it has lost its springiness) as well as coned. Coning results from a watchmaker in the past having wound the spring into the barrel by hand rather than using a winder. It's set as a result of years(80? 100?) of being coiled inside the barrel. The mainspring will need to be replaced for the watch to have any hope of running well.

Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is that one of the pivots on the balance staff-the staff that supports the large balance wheel-is broken. This often happens as a result of a drop. This watch uses an "undersprung" design in which the hairspring is mounted under the balance wheel. Nearly every other watch made in the past 145 years has been "oversprung", with the hairspring mounted over top of the balance wheel. These undersprung balance staffs are difficult to find, and it's questionable whether or not they'll even fit correctly once one is sourced. Thus, I'll probably end up turning a replacement on the lathe.

Fortunately, the seller who sold me the watch also provided an NOS hairspring. It will take some work to "vibrate" the new spring to the balance wheel in order to get the watch to keep correct time.

One of the interesting things about these early watches is that they show a very heavy English influence. The pallet jewels are "covered". In addition, the escape wheel has blunt teeth-a design that, as far as I know, is unique to these early Walthams. English watches often had pointed teeth on the escape wheel, a design carried over to early Waltham model '57s. Later Waltham model '57s used the superior Swiss club-toothed design, where the end of the tooth has a "hook" on it. The blunt tooth represents a bridge between the delicate pointed tooth and the club tooth.



I'll keep this updated as I proceed through with the restoration. I hope that this will be of some interest to some of the members here, and that I haven't been too boring with the details.

[stub]

benhutcherson ,
                   I always like to see watches and clocks. I think they are great.
             By all means keep up the good work and keep posted .
             Do you know anybody that would be interested in  two books of  Steven G. Conover - Striking Clock Repair Guide
                                 Clock Repair Basics
                                                                              stub1953

[Bill Cahill]

How's the restoration coming along?
Bill Cahill

[Dan/Panther]

Wow, makes a dial look simple.
D/P

[benhutcherson]

Finally had a chance to work some more on this one.

I did some legwork, and was able to locate a factory replacement balance staff. This saves a LOT of work, although tolerances back then were such that it's not really a drop-in replacement as on later watches.

In any case, though, the first step is to remove the old staff from balance wheel. This is done by cutting off the old staff on a lathe. There are two schools of thought on this-one that suggests cutting off the rivet that holds the staff on, while the other suggests cutting all the way through the hub, essentially cutting the staff in half just below the balance wheel. The first approach leaves the old staff mostly intact, with the pretty significant chance of slipping and damaging the wheel, while the second approach carries little chance of damage with the disadvantage of completely destroying the old staff.

I prefer the first, as it's often necessary to duplicate dimensions on the old staff, and doing so is much easier with the staff intact.

I like to use a high speed steel(HSS) graver to cut the old staff off. In order for HSS to cut hardened carbon steel correctly, it needs to be very sharp. To achieve this, I first sharpen it on an India oil stone. It's then polished on two different grades of Arkansas stone(hard followed by translucent) and then finished on a leather strop. A properly prepared graver has a mirror finish on the cutting surface. There's also a "rule of thumb" for graver sharpness-a properly sharpened graver, when slid across one's thumbnail, will catch, while one that's too dull will simply slide.



The balance is chucked in the lathe and spun



The rivet can then easily be cut.

Once the rivet is cut, the balance is freed with a gentle tap in the staking tool



The work is only beginning, though. As I mentioned, I was able to obtain a factory replacement staff(shown on the left of the photo).



Unfortunately, the shoulder of the replacement is too large-by 14/1000ths inches, to fit the hole in the balance wheel. So, this particular dimension must be reduced.

I use a combination of tools to do this. The initial cut is made using a carbide graver that's been prepared on a diamond lap. The final few thousandths are taken away using a small handheld India slip.

Once this is done, the replacement can be riveted to the balance wheel



The next step is a test fit in the watch. The balance is installed, and "puffed" with air from a handheld blower.



Fortunately, the balance takes off spinning like a top, so no pivot work will be necessary.

The next step is to install the replacement hairspring. I did some initial experimenting-as compared to a reference, known good, watch to try and determine the correct hairspring length to get close to correct timing. The timing performance on this watch will never be great, owing to the limitations in design, but should be within a minute or two a day.



I'm getting close to having this one running. Unfortunately, the design of the watch makes setting it up to run well very difficult-things like setting the beat(making sure each tick is the same amount of time apart) require a significant amount of trial and error to get right.

[JorgeAmely]

Hats off to you sir. There aren't that many old school craftsmen like you around.

Keep up the good work.

[KeithB]

I've always been in complete awe of folks like Ben.  This kind of fine machine work is a rare and nearly-lost art.

[Dennis Markham]

Ben, that is amazing work.  I agree with the others, it's a lost art and requires a true craftsman to do that work.  Nice!