The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-02-24
As TO YOUR WATCH.
If It Varies but a Second or Less a
Day 1t Is a Good One.
New York Sun.

New York Sun.
The man with the good watch. finding
his timepiece running a little slow, took 1t
in to the jeweler of whom he bought it to
have it set. The jeweler opened the watch
at the back TO get at the little scrap of
paper there kept, upon which was inscribed
the record of previous settings.
1T was last SET he said, he glanced
at this paper, ION Oct. 4, and this is Feb.
4, marking a period of approximately four
months. The watch is now one minute and
twenty-five seconds slow; or, in other
words, 1t has lost eighty-five seconds in
say one hundred and twenty days. So the
watch has varied but a trihe more than
two-thirds of a second a day, which is do
ing very well indeed.
LAS a matter of fact, among the very
best of watches some might vary as much
as a second a day. or thirty seconds
month; though some watches might not
vary more than ten or twelve seconds a
month. 1t is conceivable that a watch
might run absolutely true. but that would
be something very remarkable.
1T is a familiar fact that no two loco
motives, though made from the same stock
of material and from the same patterns at
the same time, will run exactly alike in all
their performances, and the same is true of
watches. You might take two watches of
the same stock at the same time and by
the same workmen, and they would not
run exactly alike though the difference in
From one cause or another watches
may vary in their running. A watch that
had run fifteen or twenty seconds slow
one month might run fifteen or twenty
seconds fast another, and then it might
come back TO the true time. And so at
times, months after 1t was set, 1t might
seem to be keeping exact time.
COmmOnlV a no
uniform variation, running fast slow;
and a thoroughly good watch, running with
such variation would, of course, be prac-
tically a perfect timekeeper.
TO sum II all up ii can be laid down as
general proposition that a watch that
varies but a second or less in a day, or but
thirty seconds or less in month is surely
a good watch; and one that varies. as yours
has done, but a trifiing fraction more than
two-thirds of a second a day in four months,
is very good watch; and we won't touch
the regulator, We'll just set 1t; and see
what IL will do next time.
Does 1t hurt a watch TO lay il down on
its side at night, to put it. for instance
under your pillow? Why, putting it under
your pillow may be a good thing to do
to protect it from burglars, but it is not
good for the watch.
I'm use a watch is carried in a vertical
position, which is the proper position for
ii so that the arborS or aXles or the wheels
will have the same bearing at both ends
When the watch Is laid on its side there is
some slight deviation from the uniformity
of bearing-slight, but sOmething-and it
is very probable that if, instead of putting
your watch under your pillow at night YOU
should leave 1t In your waistcoat pocket
and hang your waistcoat mp so that the
watch would remain by night as well as
by day I'm what we might call its natural
position ii would do even better than il
has done.
1T is really interesting to think that a
watch will run so long as it does without
fresh oiling. In the case of most machines
we have oil cups over the bearings from
which a lubricant is fed constantly or we
oil the bearings frequently. But there are
no oil cups or reservoirs of any sort in a
watch. When il is cleaned there Is put in
each bearing the most infinitesimal drop of
oil and that sufficeS.
1.-The bearings, to be sure, are small, but
some of the wheels of a watch make in
the course of a year, an enormous number
of turns or movements and the watch
should not be run indefinitely without at
tention. A watch should be cleaned as oft
en- as once in eighteen months"