Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-02-20
Matchmaking Mt Lancxster

"Stcu"oklOS at Lancaster.
i Nameloc " in the Philadelphia Ledger
In company with Mr.. John /. Hartman,
president of the Lancaster watch company.
Mr.. C. A. Bitner, aud Mr.. John D.
Skiles, also officers OF the company,
and Mr.. &. 5. Moseley, superintendent. we
visited yesterday the watch factory, now
in successful operation in this city, and
passed through the various departments
necessary to make a complete watch. The
company now have employed 142 hands,
35 watches per day. There are nine
in which nickel and gilt metal
is principally used. and in jeweling rubies
are placed instead of garnets, as in some
watches. All the watches made make five
ticks per second, $4,000 per hour and
432, 900 per day thus, by half-dOzen
turns of the key or stem, mOdicum OF
power is stored up in the spring thatis cut
up into near a half million of beats,
which are spread over the whole day, any
successive two of which are precisely the
same distance of time apart. The depart
ments in the factory number about twenty,
and they include the machine shop, in
which all the heavy and delicate
machinery necessary to turn out COM
plete watch is made frame rooms,
where the nickel and gilt frames aIe
made !; flat steel work room, general fin
ishing room, train making, hardening and
tempering Of steel pieces, screw making,
some Of them SO small as scarcely to be
seen with the naked eye adjusting the
movements, dial making, &c. After the
manufacture in these rooms, each piece is
separately and repeatedly gaused by in
struments, some Of which can measure the
seventeenth -thOusandth part OF an inch.
Each piece is thus capable of replacing the
corresponding dart of any other similar
watch without fitting, or it may be re-
placed by another smaller piece direct from
the wOrkman's hand with the surety that it
will fit and work correctly. TO make
a complete watch on this principle, about
one thousand processes are required the
escape wheel alone requires fifteen opera
tiOns. AS an instance of the extreme ac-
curacy of the machinery employed, We
may state that the cutters used in maxim.
the wheels are, in some places, shaped by
separate machines, but in the Lancaster
which, it is claimed, gives finer finish to
the wheels.
a striking illustration is given of the ef-
feet of skilled labor i'm multiplying the
value of raw material, in the making of the
pallet arbOr, an important part OF the
watch. This part of the time piece is So
small that it takes 13S, 24O to weigh 4
pound, and yet each Of these tiny pieces
has perfect thread cut upon it, but SO
fine that a magnifving glass is needed to
see it. Seven dollars worth of the stee!
entering into this particular product will
make $13, S24 worth of arbOrS, the estima-
ted value of each arbor being ten cents. An
other fine piece of work is the jewel screws
the heads, slots and threads of which are
as perfect us Oh the largest-sized screws.
These screws are SO small that it requires
$50, 400 to weigh pound Troy and when
finished are worth one cent each.
All the watches made by this company
are adjusted with great care to heat and
cold, and isochrOnism. They are first put
in q refrigerator, under ice, where they re-
main four hours, after which they are
placed in box heated by steam, where
they also remain four hours. The varia-
tiOns under these extremes of heat and
cold are carefully noted, and such read
.justment made as may be necessary. The
adjustment to isOchrOnlsm is the ''pinning
of the hair spring, which secures uniform
ity in the movements of the balance under
all conditions of tension in the handspring.
whether it be just wound up or nearly run
down.
The factory of the Lancaster watch COM
pany occupies a high plot of ground in the
suburbs or the city, and from its numerous
windows, as we'll as from the tower which
surmOunts the main entrance. an extended
and charming view is had of the rich fields
and wooded hill surrounding the city.
There are many important operations i'll
the manufacture of watches here, where
the delicate manipulation of female hands
is of the highest consequence, and foI
their labor the amount of wages paid is
determined by the skill and experience re-
quired, not by the sex of the operatives.