Repairing Repeating Watches by C.T. Etchells, 1917
A practical treatise of vexatious repairs that come to the watchmaker are those on repeating watches. Not every watchmaker can make them, and that is just why they are profitable.
For those unfamiliar with repeating watches they were intended mainly for use in the dark. It utilized a form of work allowing the watch to strike the time at will. The time would be repeated on a bell, gong or the watch case itself.
A repeater is a complication in a mechanical watch or clock that audibly chimes the hours and often minutes at the press of a button. There are many types of repeater, from the simple repeater which merely strikes the number of hours, to the minute repeater which chimes the time down to the minute, using separate tones for hours, quarter hours, and minutes. They originated before widespread artificial illumination, to allow the time to be determined in the dark, and were also used by the visually impaired. Now they are mostly valued as expensive novelties by watch and clock enthusiasts. Repeaters should not be confused with striking clocks or watches, which do not strike on demand, but merely at regular intervals.
File Size: 1.1MB, 27 Pages
