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THE SOUTHERN WOULD, OCTOBER 1, 1882,
5
to this the Wnterbury watch, as it is now
called, has been steadily produced at the rate
of six hundred complete watches in a day,
or about one a minute.
The factory erected hy the Waterbury
Watch Company is admirably located in the
center of a large plot of level ground, orn
amented with lawns and shade trees and
in convenientAeach of the center of the
city. The building is of brick and con
sists of three parts, a square central
building four stories high, a long wing
or extension in the rear thi$e stories
high, and a one-story annex or smaller
wing. This covers the present plant,
but there is ample space for two more
wings which the company contem
plate building. In the basement of the
central building is the spring depart
ment and the pattern shop. On the
first floor of the wing is the machine
shop, that is well supplied with tools
of the latest and most improved design.
This shop is fully occupied in making
and repairing the fine machinery used
in the actual work of making watches.
In all this work the metric system is
used, and the best metric gauges are
used throughout the factory. These
gauges will measure thousandths of a
centimeter. A special set of standard
gauges are always kept on hand, and by
these all the gauges used are frequently
tested. There is nothing like testing
your tests in such an art as this.
The next floor of the wing is devoted
to the case department. On the same
floor of the main building are the offi
ces of the company. Above the offices
is the material room, where supplies of all
the different parts of the watches are kept
in glass jars on shelves or in drawers and
cases. There is at all times in this room
enough finished parts to make fifty thou
sand watches, so that if any part of the
factory should be disabled the making of
watches could still proceed while repairs
were being made. On the same floor is the
designing room occupied by Mr. Buck, who
made the original watch, and rooms of the
model maker and the mechanical superin
tendent, the draughtsman and the compa
ny’s horological library.
On the top floor of the wing is the train
room, where all parts of the wheel work
or train system are made and finished. On
the top floor of the main building is the as
sembly or finishing department. This is a
large and lofty room, admirably lighted from
the sides and roof and acknowledged by ex
perts to be the finest watch assembly room
in the world. It is here the parts are assem
bled and the watches are put together, test
ed, regulated, and made ready for sale.
-The first requisites of a watch factory are
neatness and abundance of light. It is now
recognized that no man can do his best work
unless he is physically comfortable.
Excess of neat or cold, a poor light,
and more than all, bad air, are posi
tive hindrances to good work. Two
men, equally skilled, one in a close,
damp, or hot room with a bad light,
and the other in a dry, sweet, and
healthful room with the best light,
and the man who has the most com
fortable quarters will do tho most
and best work in a day. It is now
seen that every thing that contri
butes to the physical and mental
comfort of workmen or workwomen
pays a good return on the cost In
this factory it seems os if the walls
were all windows. The ceilings are
high and every room is comfortable
and well ventilated. Everywhere
there is the utmost neatness, no
dust, no smoke, no bad air. Every
man and woman is provided with
fresh water for washing the hands
and separate allowances of water for
the face and for drinking. The illus
tration on another page shows one
of the wash and cloak rooms, and
gives a suggestion of the neatness,
to say nothing of the comfort that
is insisted on In all parts of the
factory. It is doubtful If in any works in
the country more attention is paid to the
comfort of the people employed.
The motive power, plating and polishing
departments and the machine shops require
no particular mention. Each is provided
with the best tools and, together, they give
employment to sixty men. In the spring
making department wo come to the first
work of special interest. When the com
pany began to make watches it was thought
that a common watch-spring would serve
the purpose. At the very outset difficulties
were encountered. The spring must be a
good one, of the best material and workman
ship. Tlie difficulty was to get good steel.
Every market in the world was searched for
steel, and, after trying all brands it was
found that American cold-rolled steel from
Pittsburg, Pa., was the only thing that
would meet the exacting demands of this
watch. At first the springs were bought,
but it was soon found that to get just the
We may take for example the automatic
wheel-cutter. This machine, that is hardly
eighteen inches square, will space off, count
and cut tho teeth of fifty wheels atone time.
Moreover, it will cut just so many teeth, no
more and no less, and every tooth and every
wheel will be exactly alike, and when the
work is done it will stop. The attendant
picks up fifty brass blanks, just as they come
from the stamping department, and slips
them on to a mandrel. She then sets the
right thing it was better to make the springs
in the factory from the ribbons of steel os
they came from the mill. It may be here
remarked in passing that not only the steel
but every part is produced in this country.
The Waterbury is purely an American
watch. The ribbons of steel that como from
Pittsburg are wonderful for their uniform
ity of gauge. They seldom vary more than
one one thousandth of a centimeter in
thickness in any part. Each ribbon is slit
by machinery into narrow strips nine feet
long, and these are then coiled into flat bun
dles and made ready for hardening. After
hardening they are then rubbed down with
emery till they are everywhere exactly six
one-thousandtbs of a centimeter thick.
After the rubbing down, as shown in the
accompanying picture of the department,
comes the blueing or tempering and the
winding into coils for the watch.
The keystone of this whole art of watch
making, as carried on in this country, is the
train room. In this factory this department
occupies the entire top floor of the wing. It
is lofty, light, and well ventilated, and is re
A PIVOT 1ATHR.
garded as the finest train room in the United
States. The interior is happily shown by
the accompanying illustration. It is here
the various wheels and pinions forming the
train are made in whole or in part. The
machinery used for this work is the most
delicate and most costly in the world.
Nearly all the machines arc watched and
tended by girls. We will not say guided,
for they are almost every one automatic in
their action and will do everything but
think.
mandrel in the ma
chine, covers it over
with a metal shield to
keep out the dust, gives
a drop of oil here and
there and starts the ma
chine. It goes soberly
on with the work, feed
ing the blank wheels
up to the cutting tool and turning out in a
few minutes fifty finished wheels ready to
go into fifty different watches. Meanwhile,
the girl is preparing fifty more wheels for a
second machine and by the time that machine
is ready the first has stopped and is ready
to be loaded again.
Here is a girl at work with a tiny lathe,
called the automatic staff or pivot lathe.
This minute part of tho watch is of steel
only fifty-three one hundrethspartof a cen
timeter thick, and the part cut in the ma
chine is only twenty-two thousandths of a
centimeter in diameter, yet on this ma
chine the girl can perform three thousand
eight hundred operations in a single day.
It is only one minute step in making the
staff, for, small as it is, it goes through
twenty-seven operations in twenty-seven dif
ferent hands befoie it is finished. The il
lustration gives a good idea of the machine,
the work and the girl.
This is only one machine, but is a fair
sample of them all. Extreme fineness, per
fection of finish, and accuracy of adjust
ment are the points sought for in their con
struction. Every part of the room is filled
with tools of wonderful ingenuity. This
may be a cheap watch, but, as far as the fac
tory is concerned, the tools must be the
same as in any first-class watch factory. The
Waterbury may have few parts, but it takes
five hundred operations to make a single
watch. The only difference between this
watch and the most costly is the fewer
parts, less material, and different ar
rangement of the parts. Accurate re
cords aro kept by a simple system of
book-keeping of every block of metal
given out and every piece of finished
work brought back. Each workman
and woman must return just as many
as he receives, including the broken or
injured pieces, or make up the loss.
When the work is done the finished
parts go to the material room to be
stored in quantities till wanted for the
assembly department.
The finishing, the final putting to
gether of the parts, and making the
watches is all done in the spacious room
at the top of the building. Here are
the fitters who take the different parts
of the train work and the springs and
put them together. Here is the grand
test of the whole art. If these quarts and
pints of parts will not go together with
out difficulty the whole factory is a failure,
and a cheap watch Is an impossibility. They
do so go together, not absolutely without
any fitting whatever, but so nearly so that
it may be practically said that watches can
be made every time without mistake and
every watch will be a good one. The works
are then put in the case and we have a fin
ished watch. It can be wound up and will
go fairly well at once. However, this is not
enough. They must be regulated and thor
oughly tested before they leave the factory.
For this purpose large trays, each holding
276 watches are prepared. The watches are
wound up and put in the tray and
left to run for twenty-five hours.
These trays are supported on pivots
that enable them to swing or turn
completely over. First the tray
filled with watches all in motion is
placed in one position, say upright.
It rests there for a day and an hour.
Then the watches are all wound
again and the tray is turned up-side-
down. At the end of the next
twenty-five hours the tray is turned
at an angle of forty-five degrees. Six
days pass and in that time every
watch has been for a day in a differ
ent position. If any one or more
watches stop they are taken out and
sent to the inspectors to bo examined
to see what is the matter. If the
watch stands the six day’s test it is
regarded as a good watch, reody-for
sale, and it goes to New York and a
market. The accompanying picture
shows the manner of testing the
watches in the assembly room.
Here is a watch factory costing
half a million and giving employ
ment to three hundred people.
What is the outcome of it? Six
hundred watches every working day
in year. One watch a minute and
every one a reliable time-piece, good
for ten years’ use, and that can be
bought at retail for three dollars and
fifty cents. The company does not
sell single watches, as the dealers
all over the country keep them on
hand. The company does what has
never been done before—it sells watches by
the gross.
Six hundred watches aday is a good many.
You would imagine the whole country sup
plied by this time. By no means. This is
the farmer’s watch, the miner’s watch, the
laborer’s watch, the boy’s watch, the school
girl's watch. Tho majority of these never
owned a watch before. At the jeweler’s it
may be found neatly packed in a satin-lined
box, finished ready for immediate use.
With it comes a book of advice concerning
the watch, and all at a price that puts a
good time-piece in every pocket in the land.
The luxuries of tho rich have come to the
poor. Perhaps after all that is not it. The
necessities of the times have make watches
essential to business, in school, at home, and
in society. The Waterbury watch is the
people’s time-piece, at once a trusty friend
and monitor.—The Century, July 1882.
From an acorn weighing only a few grains
a tree will grow, lor a hundred years or
more, not only throwing off many pounds
of leaves every year, but itself weighing
several tons. If an orange twig is put in a
large box of earth and that earth weighed,
when the twig becomes a tree bearing lus
cious fruit, there will be very near the same
quantity of earth. From careful experi
ments made by different scientific men, it is
an ascertained fact that a very large part of
the growth of a tree is derived from the sun,
TKSTING 276 WATCHI8.
from the air and from the water, and a very
little from the earth; and, notably, all vege
tation becomes sickly, unless it is freely ex
posed to sunshine. Wood and coal are but
condensed sunshine.