"Dr Livingstone, I presume?"
The subject of that well known greeting was the namesake for my latest project watch. David Livingstone was a well know British explorer from Victorian times.
In 1932 Hamilton introduced the "explorer" series. These new models all featured the 12/0 sized 401 movement that was based on an Illinois caliber that came as the result of the acquisition of the Illinois Watch Company in 1928.
Four models were introduced in 1932... all named for famous explorers... Byrd, Ericsson, Andrews, and Wilkinson.
In 1933 the Stanley joined the series, named after Henry Morton Stanley.
Henry Morton Stanley is the explorer that found Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871 and he's the one who said, "Dr Livingstone, I presume". In 1934, the Livingstone joined the series for the third and final year. After 1934 the 401 movement was retired.
My project watch shows some wear to the gold filled case but it's not too bad thanks to having a fairly thick crystal installed. It protected the case from wear from shirt sleeves over the last 90 years. It's not working, hopefully it doesn't have a major issue, as I do not have a donor movement to help save the day.
The back of the case looks great. If I didn't know better I would have suspected it to be solid gold.
The dial is a little dirty in the corners but has a very nice milk chocolate patina. I'll try to remove the gunk but leave the dial looking 90 years old.
The 401 is a 12/0 sized movement, just like the 770 movement that would be introduced in 1955. However the 401 is almost 1.5x the size. That's because the 12/0 size is based on the width and the 401 is much longer than a 770. The movement is wound but not running. The balance looks to be okay but lots of things can prevent a watch from running.
Looking at the dial side of the. main plate, its a fairly simple setup. I'm not able to set the time for some reason - hopefully a good cleaning will clear that up.
Notice there are five wheels in the gear train. One of them, for the seconds hand, is just an arbor and the fourth wheel drives both the escape wheel and the seconds hand.
Everything is cleaned and ready to be reassembled.
The train wheels are all in place. Now the trick will be to get the train bridge in place. Getting five pivots to all line up at the same time can be very challenging but that's what you need to do to get the train bridge in place.
Five minutes later and the bridge is in place.
Next in place is the mainspring and the barrel bridge.
The balance came separated from the balance cock in the ultrasonic. The hair spring stud screw came out. Can you see it in the photo? It took me quite a while to find it.
For whatever reason, it took me over 30 minutes to get the balance installed and the watch running. Hairsprings from this era are unforgiving... one false move and you're toast. But the movement is now ticking away with a good motion. Time to see how it's really doing.
When I first saw the timegrapher I was thrilled. However, the beat error is really high. The amplitude is great though. To adjust the beat error I will need to remove the balance again and to be honest, without a spare balance, I'm not willing to try. I'll take a ticking watch that keeps time over a non-running watch that is only correct twice a day. A high beat error means the watch will stop a little earlier than a watch with a low beat error, and it might need a little flick of the wrist to get started but I'll take it.
The finished watch will benefit from a new crystal but a nice genuine croc strap goes a long way toward making it look great. This is a great watch... too bad I need to send it back to it's owner.
No comments:
Post a Comment