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Before diving into wristwatch movements, a step by marine clocks could be interesting and fun too!

by grp 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago
It's funny how when you start tracing clock making you end up reliving pretty much all of the industrial revolution. Those people were really artists improving their products and their tools at every step and their heritage is still alive today. The watchmaking/clockmaking industry trained a whole generation of precision machinists which led to a revolution in mechanics, toys, calculating machines and ultimately set the stage for worldwide navigation and the industrial revolution.
- grp 9y ago
  True and clocks and watches are still the most precise mechanical tool/instrument.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    These are amazing too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta I've never been able to find one that I could afford though.
  - pedrocr 9y ago
    What do you base that on? I thought some industrial applications actually required much finer tolerances. Things like telescope mirrors. It probably depends on what you consider to be a mechanical tool.
    - grp 9y ago
      Sure, most watches have a tolerance of +4/-5 seconds by day (86400 seconds). It's about 58 ppm. I don't know which precision a not electronically assisted telescope have, but it's sure it's impressive.
      - lb1lf 9y ago
        -That would be pretty good watches - the requirement for being labelled a chronometer by the Swiss is +6/-4/day (with some further requirements - positions and temperatures) Seiko tune their top-of-the-line Grand Seikos a bit tighter - +5/-3/24h. They also have some limited edition VFA (if memory serves - Very Fine Adjusted) watches capable of +/-2s/24h. The engineer in me finds this kind of accuracy in a mechanical device just a hair short of black magic.
        pedrocr 9y ago
        >The engineer in me finds this kind of accuracy in a mechanical device just a hair short of black magic. I'm curious where you get this intuition. As an engineer with a background fully in electronics/software my intuition is that multiple-seconds per day of error is horrible. I never got into mechanical watches because of this. There are so many great quartz based watches that keep time so well that I've never seen the allure of the mechanical. I'm now curious from this discussion how big of a feat it is anyway but have no intuition for it.

Before diving into wristwatch movements, a step by marine clocks could be interesting and fun too!

by grp 9y ago

Before diving into wristwatch movements, a step by marine clocks could be interesting and fun too!

It's funny how when you start tracing clock making you end up reliving pretty much all of the industrial revolution. Those people were really artists improving their products and their tools at every step and their heritage is still alive today. The watchmaking/clockmaking industry trained a whole generation of precision machinists which led to a revolution in mechanics, toys, calculating machines and ultimately set the stage for worldwide navigation and the industrial revolution.

grp 9y ago
True and clocks and watches are still the most precise mechanical tool/instrument.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  These are amazing too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta I've never been able to find one that I could afford though.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  What do you base that on? I thought some industrial applications actually required much finer tolerances. Things like telescope mirrors. It probably depends on what you consider to be a mechanical tool.
  - grp 9y ago
    Sure, most watches have a tolerance of +4/-5 seconds by day (86400 seconds). It's about 58 ppm. I don't know which precision a not electronically assisted telescope have, but it's sure it's impressive.
    - lb1lf 9y ago
      -That would be pretty good watches - the requirement for being labelled a chronometer by the Swiss is +6/-4/day (with some further requirements - positions and temperatures) Seiko tune their top-of-the-line Grand Seikos a bit tighter - +5/-3/24h. They also have some limited edition VFA (if memory serves - Very Fine Adjusted) watches capable of +/-2s/24h. The engineer in me finds this kind of accuracy in a mechanical device just a hair short of black magic.
      - pedrocr 9y ago
        >The engineer in me finds this kind of accuracy in a mechanical device just a hair short of black magic. I'm curious where you get this intuition. As an engineer with a background fully in electronics/software my intuition is that multiple-seconds per day of error is horrible. I never got into mechanical watches because of this. There are so many great quartz based watches that keep time so well that I've never seen the allure of the mechanical. I'm now curious from this discussion how big of a feat it is anyway but have no intuition for it.