Evening star., 1949-03-17
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standard OF excellence Tor perform
ance in the field. By l945, a second
American company was ready to pro-
duce marine chronometers had they
been needed.
The essentially Of the American
jeweled watch industry in national
defense is not limited to the pro-
duction of accurate military time
pieces alone. Dozens of items of
direct military consequence were
manufactured for the government or
its contractors during the war by the
jeweled watch industry. Many war
facture of which the jeweled watch
manufacturers alone are capable.
Other industries. such as aircraft,
automobile. and one or two more,
work occasionally to tolerances as
close as those habitual in the jeweled
watch industry. but this industry
alone uses these tolerances in the
manufacture of tiny parts. so tiny
that they can scarcely be grasped by
the naked eye. No other industry
has this know-how, nor can obtain it
short of long years of manufacturing
experience.
From 1912 to the last months Of
Is45, the American jeweled watch in
dustry manufactured no watches for
the civilian market but devoted itself
exclusively to the production Of war
materials. Despite this fact. this
industry in some cases needed as much
as two years to meet the engineering
and tooling requirements on certain
new products which were needed by
the military forces and which no
other industry was qualified to under
take. If the industry had been large
enough TO support greater man
agement. engineering and tOoling
organization. these products could
have been supplied much faster and
the military striking power Of the
Allies enhanced in a critical hour in
history.
The evolution Of the American
system of watch manufacture can be
illustrated by a single compaIls IN.
In 1909. Luther Goddard began the
manufacture of watches in Shrews-
bury. Mass. BY the time he had re-
tired in 1917, he had produced about
500 watches. This was the largest
number Of watches ever produced by
an American manufacturer up t. that
time. BY 1905. a single American
watch manufacturer was able. through
the use of power driven machinery,
to produce several thousand watches
in a single day.
Industry Revo1utiOnized
Within that span of years the art
Of Matchmaking had been completely
revolutionized. II was the work, Of
course. of many hundreds of engi-
neers and technicians. One man
among them. however, was particu-
larly notable a New Englander,
Aaron L. Dennison. who is generally
celebrated as "the father of American
watch manufacture"
In watch manufacture over 700 diff
ferent sizes of material and over 140
different metallic alloys are employed.
The base plate or foundation of
a watch contains AZ holes. many Of
which must be accurate in size to
one ten-thousandth of an inch and
accurate in their location on the
plate to three ten-thousan6ths Of
an inch. Over 1869 operations are
required in making such plate!
The smallest screw used in a
watch looks like a speck of dust
to the naked eye; it is 26 one-thou-
sandths of an inch long. weighs one
and one-third one-hundred-thou-
sandths of an ounce. Twenty thousand
of them will barely fill thimble!
Yet each must be perfectly threaded
and slotted.
The wire used to manufacture hair
springs for lady's watch is approx
mately four-thousandths of an inch
wide and three-quarters of a thou
sandth of an inch thick. The toler-
ance on width is five one hundred
thousandths of an inch and on
thickness the tolerance is one one
hundred. .thousandths of an inch. Five
strands of this wire stacked together
would equal the thickness Of a human
hair!