The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-08-05
HANDLING A WATCH.
Rules That VIII Save Many jewelers. Bill
IL Followed

Followed
'You want to know how to care for a
fine watch, eh?" said the old watch
maker, as he took off his glasses and
wiped them with his handkerchief
"Let me see your watch"
The Mail and Express man handed
over his timepiece, and the old man
handled it carefully.
"Well, my boy" he said finally.
"bear in mind continually that watch
Is, in its way, almost as delicate piece
of mechanism as the human system AS
it is necessary for a man who wishes TO
keep in good health to take his meals
regularly, so is it necessary to feed
watch at regular intervals You feed
watch by winding it up. Therefore
have a certain hour for winding your
watch and never deviate from it
''In this case there are probably one
hundred watches. Not one of them Is
running. On this rack there are eight
cen, and all are going. Iwind them the
first thing in the morning, start them
with the one in the lower left hand cor
ner They get their meals regularly.
You can regulate your own watch II
you will. only study its peculiarities-
See this little arm. Well, if your watch
is running slow, turn that arm with the
blade of your penknife trifle toward
the letter F. If it is running fast turn
in the opposite direction toward IS
Don't move the arm more than a frac-
ton of an inch, for if that will not suf-
fee your watch needs watchmaler's
care.
Don't open the inner case of your
watch more than is absolutely neces-
sary. Every time you open 1T dust
sweeps in upon the works, and 1t takes
very little dust to put watch out OF
order. In nine times out of ten when
watch is brought to me to be cleaned
can tell with my glass the business the
owner of the watch follows exam
ined watch the other day and told my
customer that he worked in wool. He
admitted the fact. i had found small
particles of wool in the works of his
watch.
Have a chamois case for your watch,
or a chamois lining to your watch
it from getting scratched. I have heard
men say that watch with chamois
case will keep better time than one
without such protection, but that Is
nonsense.
eff you work near electric instru-
ments or ride on electric cars, you
should have your watch demagnetized-
A few years ago such an operation cost
a great deal of money. Unprincipled
jewellers would tell customer that in
order to make thorough job of it every
piece in the watch would have to be
treated independently posi- lively
and then negatively-in order toreceive
magnetic or electric equilibrium.
have known watchmakers TO charge
twenty FIVE dollars for demagnetizing
watch.
THE real cost Is almost nothing.
There is a machine for the purpose.
You place the watch on the positive
side and then on the negative. There
is no more work about It than there Is
in the baking of a loaf OF bread
Il have heard men say that 10 was
impossible TO take a sick watch 10
a jeweler without being told that
the trouble lay in a broken main
spring. But how little men who wear
watches know about mainsprings.
Broken mainsprings come as a sort OF
epidemic. Don't laugh. am simply
telling you fact a year ago this
spring l was flooded with watches, the
mainsprings of which had snapped A
REGULARITY OF the breaking was that
each of the twenty-five or more turns TO
the spring was severed and that the
breaks were in straight line from the
center 20 the circumference Of the
spring
Every matchmaker in New York had
an experience similar 20 my own last
spring. We have often compared notes,
but we have been unable 70 account for
the epidemics, except upon the hypoth-
esis that atmospheric conditions are the
cause What those conditions are, re-
mains 70 be determined II has been
asserted that when the northern lights
are the brightest mainsprings are most
apt to snap. You probably remember
that in February the aurora boreslis
was phenomenally brilliant and yet
during thai period no watch with .
broken handspring was brought 70 me
/ can't account for the phenomenon,
and I don't believe there IL watch
maker in New York who knows more
about IL than do
Now let me say few words "a .
sort Of finale The best as well a. the
ehearnst watch movements in the world
are made IN America It's al well
enough TO talk about Swiss watches,
but let me tell ron that in point Of soeu-
rate time-keepinz there never has been
made ave hundred dollar Swiss watch
that was . whit superior 70 = twenty
FIVE dollar watch IN America ~ 4.