Mechanical Watch Timer Apps

[Briar Lee]

This morning I dug out a 25 or so year old Sieko Five automatic I’ve never had serviced, nor worn much.

It’s an accurate enough watch to wear a week and set it again if needed, which is reasonable for a watch with a hundred dollar replacement value.



I own a sort of antique analog clock timer with clips that also works with watches.

But I had no idea there is a choice of apps on my phone where I can time a mechanical watch for accuracy.

Being an old Scotsman I tested the waters with a $1.99 app named Watch Repair. It’s noisy out here on my deck, but I did manage to get a minus 14 seconds a day reading laying the watch face down over the phone speaker. It took about ten minutes.



Let’s see how it likes real, noisy, loud ticking old railroad watches!.

This gadget might be like patterning your favorite shotgun against a steel plate, though. Every time I try that I see worse patterns than I actually think it shoots.

There are some things you’d really rather not know, such as what your daughter did with that nice young man that calls you sir and your wife ma’am.

It should be fun for awhile, though.

 

[Briar Lee]

Anyone who has even a slight interest in horology should splurge $3.99 and buy the Watch Tuner Timegrapher basic app for their phone. Forget about the first one, this one duplicates a genuine watchmaker’s Timegrapher and records a printable history of watch performance.



My Hamilton 992B gave an average of + 3 seconds a day on the first app, but my latest watch purchase, an Orient Star Classic, recorded a phenomenal +2 seconds a day rate on
the new app.



I reset my Orient Star every Saturday and it’s 14 seconds fast on the nose for the week. The precision of the watch is about zero, although the rate is two seconds a day fast. In theory it could be regulated but I’m beyond happy with it.

For any of these apps to work there should be dead silence. The refrigerator kicking on ended my watch timing session.

If you’d like your own Timegrapher it’s $4 away.

 

[warren]

I don't collect watches and no longer need a mechanical diver's watch so, I purchased a watch that is accurate, deadly accurate, all the time. It will also make an emergency call, via satellite, if necessary should the wounded ticker require such. Lot's of peace of mind that.

 

[Briar Lee]

I don't collect watches and no longer need a mechanical diver's watch so, I purchased a watch that is accurate, deadly accurate, all the time. It will also make an emergency call, via satellite, if necessary should the wounded ticker require such. Lot's of peace of mind that.

About fifty years ago in Humansville there was a man named Holmes who set up a watchmaking shop.

He had both a then modern time grapher and an ultrasonic cleaner in his shop.

I watched him take apart and clean, oil, and adjust my father’s 1958 Hamilton Thin O Matic. It took several interesting hours, and he offered me a discount if I’d go outside and play my trumpet, to drum up business.

I played Days of Glory and a few folks came over, and he picked up a few commissions that long ago Saturday.

Then I had it serviced again about thirty years ago, and the old man who serviced it pointed out a cracked lug. I’ve not worn it much since.

One of the benefits of a time grapher is to give an indication if your watch needs service. And it fascinates me the gadget can measure so many things, just by “listening” to the ticking.

Everyone has an atomic clock on their phone today.

A good watch is a want, like a good pipe.

Nobody needs either one, you know?

 

[Jbrewer2002]

I have 6-7 under $500 watches. For 4 bucks I’m curious lol. It will keep me occupied for a little bit.

 

[Briar Lee]

I have 6-7 under $500 watches. For 4 bucks I’m curious lol. It will keep me occupied for a little bit.

What is so fascinating to me is that mainly because of the prestige of making railroad certified watches, accurate to less than two seconds a day, in the 1890s the American watch industry mass produced watches every bit as accurate and durable and reliable as a modern mechanical watch, and far more intricately decorated.

Hamilton used to advertise every single watch they made was adjusted and regulated for at least one year after assembly, and railroad watches longer.

Then some electronic genius perfected the time grapher.

In a few minutes, a $4 app will accomplish what took months or even a year.

This Seiko 5 will keep railroad time, for $100 today. A century ago anything that accurate cost a fortune.

 

[mikethompson]

Interesting app. I'm not concerned with the precision accuracy of my watches, but it seems like a good tool for those who do.

You should post this in the Watch thread.

 

[JOHN72]

I only have two automatic or mechanical watches. A Hamilton Khaki and a Seiko. I don't mind having to adjust the time. Since we have mobile phones, which are real travel computers. You know, they are already part of our body. But mechanical watches have that vintage retro charm. And I'm a vintage lover.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

I just got my 2 old Eterna-matics and one newer Kontiki back from watchmaker complete overhaul, this all set me back for $ 370,but there weren't other options left If I wanted to keep them in working order.

 

[didimauw]

I don't collect watches and no longer need a mechanical diver's watch so, I purchased a watch that is accurate, deadly accurate, all the time. It will also make an emergency call, via satellite, if necessary should the wounded ticker require such. Lot's of peace of mind that.

Piggybacking off @Briar Lee , I used to just use time.gov to set my mechanical and automatic watches. Then I'd check it a few hours later, get anal about it and re set it. Then the next morning they would be off again, so I'd go back to time.gov and set the watch again.

After owning my non smart/solar/atomic Casio gshock, I got so used to having a watch be 100 percent accurate at all times no matter what. And I attempted to keep my mechanical watches as accurate as I could. I ended up going insane trying.

I'll be selling my auto and mechanical watches. All I need is my Gshock. I set my GW50001JF GShock one time, when I received it, and only because the watch came straight from Japan. I have never set the time again. Still perfect time keeping, and no Bluetooth/smart phone apps to keep me distracted. Just a watch.

 

[Briar Lee]

Again, nobody needs a watch today. We have atomic watches built in these dad blasted phones!.

But there is a little kid down inside this old man that can still get thrilled with a brand new watch.

Lookie at my Orient Star.



My watch was totally manufactured “in house” by Orient in Japan on their premium luxury Orient Star line.

No, they didn’t spend a year and some in the factory regulating it, they didn’t need to, thanks to no doubt industrial grade time graphers they must use.

There isn’t one atom of my watch, that’s cheaply made. A century from now some other man will be able to have it serviced, or repaired. It does not have a disposable movement.



You can buy a good, usable, lifetime watch with a Seiko movement online for about $60.



But for a true luxury grade watch, they start with the Orient Star.

 

[Jbrewer2002]

Here is the TX I have on now. Ill take a picture of the rest when I get home. This one has a perpetual calendar. The only problem is you have to send it in to have the battery changed and set. I can change the battery but don’t know the date setting process. The rest of my watches are either solar, mechanical wind, or motion wind.

 

[Briar Lee]

John Martin was the last, and best of the watchmakers I’ve known.

I’m glad to report when he turned 65 and qualified for Medicare, he sold out his shop and retired to his farm to live happily ever after. Something we should all consider, who can, you know?

But when he was a young man in 1970 he trained under the certified watch maker of the Union Pacific railroad in Jefferson City Missouri and might be the last man alive who inspected a lot, of railroad service watches.

When Lee Mace, a locally famous country music entertainer hit a dock with a home built airplane at LOZ and drowned in 1985 he had a $50,000 minute repeating watch in his pocket, and John Martin saved the watch, although Lee should have not flown so close to the water, you know?

Lee Mace (1927-1985) - Find a Grave Memorial

Entertainer. Founded Lee Mace's Ozark Opry at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. The Mace family owned and operated the show beginning in 1953 when Lee and his wife, Joyce, opened the doors to the show that became known as the longest running original Opry, second only to Nashville's Grand Ole...

www.findagrave.com

About twenty years ago, I was loafing in his shop between court appearances and asked John Martin, what watch that he personally wore, or carried.

He took out from his drawer a forties Brock Hamilton wrist watch with a special M series 982 movement (decorated, Elvinar Extra, adjusted 6 positions) in a solid 14K case.

He said the man who trained him, gave it to him when he retired. It was the among most accurate wrist watches he’d ever seen, and the absolute top grade of American wrist watch ever made.

I just blathered. Oh my, I want one!

He said I’ll try and find you one.

About a year or so later I came in his shop and he presented me with a 14K Brock 982M and a bill for $300.

It’s the highest quality watch I own.



Let’s see how the time grapher likes it.

 

[mawnansmiff]

Over here we get the BBC 'pips' on the hour from most if not all BBC radio stations.

Thing is, if one wants to accurately set a watch be aware that only the pips from an FM station will be accurate, DAB or internet radio has a roughly 8 second lag.

Regards,

Jay.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I am glad that I will never need that sort of accuracy. There are only four times in my word, about a quarter til, almost a quarter after, about half past, and almost on the hour. I try to be 10-20 minutes early for any meeting, and I would never walk into any business after a half hour till closing.

I'm never involved in any situations where I have to calibrate my watch with anyone. But, it would probably be fun.

 

[Briar Lee]

Why the Swiss beat the American fine watch industry to extinction.

This was an inexpensive Unitas 6431/45 movement in a high quality but inexpensive stainless steel case. It was several times cheaper than a Hamilton 992B

This is as close to perfect on a time grapher as they’ll ever get.



The beat error could be a smiden lower and the amplitude a bit higher, but this is great performance from any watch movement, especially one likely sixty years old.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I have a couple of Hamilton 992b pocket watches (one is ex US Ordnance Department) and both are stunning performers in the timekeeping stakes.

Also both give near identical readings on my timegrapher, despite being made some years apart.

Regards,

Jay.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Why the Swiss beat the American fine watch industry to extinction.

There is one reason that the US gets beat in almost every category for our goods. And, that is Henry Ford's influence. Ford burned into the American capitalist mindset that keeping the production cheap enough that every American can afford one of whatever you are making is the way to win. Sure, sure, we have a few industries that have done well, but almost every other industry cuts every corner and squeezes every last drop of production out of its workers. More, faster, cheaper equals more money that you can make. If it costs $1000 to make one, in the American mindset, you should be able to make 1,000 of them fast for 1$ a piece.

I have a friend who make luxury pocket knives. She can only make 8 a year, and sells them for over $15,000 a piece. She has a waiting list of people who've already paid, up to 3 years in advance. No, not everyone can afford one, and there's no need to crank out 100's of $15,000 pocketknives. But, the entrepreneur would say, "I can make 15,000 knives a month, for $1 a piece. Then fifty years from now, someone like you would be comparing these handmade knives to the factory makes.

The factories that these watches were made in are a far cry from the laboratories in which the Swiss made their watches.

 

[Hillcrest]

I'm never involved in any situations where I have to calibrate my watch

Its probably only really important in scuba diving and EOD Tech work ...

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Its probably only really important in scuba diving and EOD Tech work ...

Yeh, It's like when we had the store. On a slow day, we'd close the shop fifteen minutes early, and low and behold we would get some numbskull watch freak, pointing at their watch, "you've still got to stay open for five more minutes, let me in." Like, it would take five minutes to crank back up the Point of Sale system. "Nope, go away," but they'd be standing there pointing at their watch, as I'd pull the screen back over the windows and doors.

In restaurants, the cook staff will shiv you for coming in fifteen minutes before closing. It's like we have this community of people "on spectrum" that don't understand that closing time, and how long it will take to serve you, don't balance out, and makes pointing at their watch a form of mental illness.