VARIOUS SORTS OF TOOLS AND ENGINES FOR THE PREPARING, STAMPING, FIXING, TURNING, CUTTING, AND FINISHING OF DIVERS PARTS OF OR BELONGING TO A WATCH IN A MUCH MORE ACCURATE AND EXPEDITIOUS MANNER THAN HATH BEEN HERETOFORE PRACTISED BY MEANS OF THE TOOLS HITHERTO USED FOR THESE PURPOSES
Year: 1761

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
SANDERSON, of the City of Exeter, in the County of Devon, Watchmaker, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Ilis most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-fifth day of June, in the first year of His reign, did
give and grant unto me, the said George Sanderson, His especial licence, that
I, the said George Sanderson, during the term of years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales,
and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "VARIOUS SORTS OF
TOOLS AND ENGINES FOR THE PREPARING, STAMPING, FIXING, TURNING, CUTTING,
AND FINISHING OF DIVERS PARTS OF OR BELONGING TO A WATCH IN A MUCH MORE
ACCURATE AND EXPEDITIOUS MANNER THAN HATH BEEN HERETOFORE PRACTISED BY
MEANS OF THE TOOLS HITHERTO USED FOR THESE PURPOSES;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said George Sanderson,
under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature or
the said Invention, and how the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in
His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four kalendar months after
the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation
being thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the sail
George Sanderson, do hereby declare, that my said Invention of various
sorts of tools and engines for the preparing, stamping, fixing, turning, cutting,
and finishing of divers parts of or belonging to a watch in a much more
accurate and expeditious manner than hath been heretofore practised by

page_text: means of the tools hitherto used for those purposes, is described in the
plans thereof hereunto annexed, and is to be performed in the manner
following (that is to say):-
Figure it, a universal engine lath for turning and cutting divers parts
of or belonging to a watch. A, a manderil on which the several parts are
to be fixed, in order to be cut or turned by means of the screw, which is cut
at the end, in order to fix on the brass collets that are intended to hold the
parts to be worked; B, a dividing plate, on which is fixed the numbers made
use of for cutting the cock, pottance wheels, or any other part of a watch;
C, a ferrel for a gut to work on, which comes from a large wheel placed at
any convenient distance to give the motion for turning; D, the spring to
drop in the divisions. This manderil is made hollow about half way through
from the screw, and in which works a small arbor up and down by means
of a spiral spring lodged in the bottom, which always presses the taper
centre at E forward, so that when any thing is to be worked that hath a
hole in it you apply it to this taper centre, which, by being pressed, will
yield, that your work may lay true and flat, and, if well made, answers the
end of various arbors; when it happens that this centre is not used, there
is a screw at F to keep it back. G, G, G, G, is a very strong iron lath with
three poppet heads, and should, if possible, be made all out of one piece,
to be steady, and prevent any shake; II, II, H, are holes for large screws to
fix the engine to the bench; I, I, I, I, are four cutting frames, two of which
I, o, are to carry circular cutters moved by a gut which works upon the
ferrell of the cutter arbor K, which arbor is put in motion by the gut being
put upon a large wheel placed at any convenient distance and situation, which
large wheel is to be put into motion either by the foot, hand, weight, horse, or
water, for either of which powers the whole of the machine is calculated and
intended; the other two of those cutting frames have square holes at L,
through which a piece of steel is put and fastened by means of the screw M;
the end of this steel is fashioned agreeable to the form of the thing intended
to be turned, and when you would apply it to execute, you must first throw
back the cutting frame I, o, towards the dotted lines N, N, which will then
be as the opposite I, o, and the form of the whole four frames will then appear
more like a regular cross; this being done, you have free access to turn up and
apply either of the cutting frames towards the screw end of the manderil A,
where all the work is to be placed in order to be cut or turned. These cutting
frames move all upon center screws at O, so that they are instantly brought
forward or moved back; their centers work in pieces of iron P, P, P, P,
which pieces have mortises through them, with a screw, in order that the

page_text: frames and center pieces P may be brought nearer to or carried further
from the center of the manderil A; those mortise pieces slide upon part of
the frame G, and are brought forward or backward by a screw at Q, and
then fixed by the screw which passes through the mortise into the frame G;
the different depths which those frames are to cut or turn is adjusted by
means of the screws R, R, R, R, which are so placed as to drop upon some
part of the lath to prevent cutting too deep.
Innumerable are the operations which may be performed by this universal
engine lath, as does evidently appear by the four cutting frames being so
contrived that each and every of them may perform its part towards the
work without ever moving of a screw, or refixing any one part thereto
belonging, so that when the engine is once set to the work you intend to cut
or turn, you may turn or cut a surprizing quantity with prodigious expedition
and accuracy; only it must be here observed, that sometimes, in different
branches of the work, it may be found necessary that one or more of the
cutting frames is so managed that they may drop in a different direction or
angle, which every workman must manage according to the different parts
which he intends to execute, and which is easily done by the necessary
alteration in the mortise pieces at P. Sometimes it may be necessary that
three or all four of the cutting frames are of one and the same construction,
which likewise must be varied discretionally, and which, when so managed,
it is plain that any wheel in a watch may be turned and have all the teeth
cut and finished before taken out of the engine, as may all the difficult parts
of the motion and slide, the barrell, the cock, and pottance, and particularly
the pillars, which, being fixed by the common methods, two or three of those
cutting frames may be brought to operate one after the other where the last
sett of cutters may intirely finish them. The cap of a watch may likewise
be turned surprizingly quick; the brass for contrate wheels, ballance wheels,
and the cap is prepared by casting it into iron moulds so near the shape as to
be worked without nealing. As to fixing the several parts to be worked, the
common methods now practised among the trade, of screws, bridges, and
gallows's, cement, or wax, may do for many parts; but what I would chiefly
recommend, where wax is not strong enough, is soft pewter sodder, by which
means you have free access to the work to come at any part of it without
being obstructed by such screws or other parts generally made use of for
fixtures. It would be endless to describe the several parts of a watch this
engine is capable of executing, as there is hardly any thing in the movement
way but it may be brought to execute with surprizing expedition and
accuracy.

page_text: Figure ii is a screw press, in the bottom of which, as at A, is placed a
die with eight (or more) fixed centers, to operate as center punches for the
accurate dispatch of marking the pillar plates for drilling; B is a pin, placed
in the center, on which you are to drop the plates through the center hole to
prevent being marked wrong, and then turning down the screw handle at C,
you press or mark all the holes; this method may be practised by a blow on
the anvil where the press may be thought too expensive.
Figure ii is for cutting forehanded or backhanded screws with a circular
cutter, particularly the endless screw of a watch. A, A, a strong frame like a
pivett bench; B, a large screw with a hole quite through it from C to C,
through which you put the wire D, D, on which you intend to cut the screw;
E is a small screw to fix the wire in the hole C, C; F is a notch in the
other poppet head to admit the cutter; and pray let it be remembred that
M, S, is always intended to signify the manderil screw, or the part or concave
screw for the tool treated on, to be fixed to the manderil screw in Figure the
First. This being observed, you must drop the cutter on the wire at F, and
when you have sunk it as deep as you chuse the screw to be cut you must
then move forward the large screw B, which carries the wire D, D, with it,
and causes the screw to be cut. This method I make use of with two, three,
or more cutters, for the displacing of the superfluous part of the steel wire, in
roughing out barrel arbors, center pinions, small pinions, and various other
parts; but then the screw B must be only a plain arbor, so that when you
turn it round it goes neither forward nor backward, as it must only have a
circular motion, without it be in cutting screws, in which case the screw is
intended to move it to and fro.
Figure ivth is a brass or iron collett, with three broad-headed screws in it,
A, A, A, under which are to be placed the watch plates after they are
hardened and filed flat on one side, in order that the cutting framo I may
drop upon it, and strike a circle intended to adjust the thickness, which when
done the said circle is to be filed out; the same may be made use of for the
cocks, the wheels, cap, or any other part of a watch where an exact thickness
is required.
Figure vh, the collett to turn the pillar plates upon after filed of a thickness,
which is done by turning up one of the frames, marked I, up against it, to
turn off the edge and bring it to size.
Figure vith is another collett to turn the upper plates upon, which plates
have the square pottance holes cut or stamped before they are turned. A is a
short square stud or steady pin, fastened in the collett, and fitting the said
holes, to keep them in a right position to be turned.

page_text: Figure vii is a piece of iron, like a sugar loaf, to be screwed up tight
against the plates by means of the screw S, in Figure First, entering the
hollow center A; the same method I use for taking the plates when in square
pieces, and making them round, by turning or cutting off the corners, either
before or after they are filed flatt.
Figure viiith, a steel pottance die, about an inch thick, where the dotted part
shews the part to be sunk, and the tail A is left to spread without confinement;
in the middle of the dotted part, at O is a hole drilled quite through the die,
which is intended to strike the pottances back in case they stick too tight in
the die in planishing.
Figure ixth is the pattern for the pottance brass to be cast by, where the
dotted parts shews the nose and foot to be rose high in the pattern; and the
other parts at A, A, shew the tails, which are to be sawed through at B, B,
being intended for two, by means of which pattern and die at least fifty weight
of brass on each one hundred is saved.
Figure xh, a cutting frame for crossing watch wheels. This frame is to
be substituted in room of either of the other four in Figure First. A, the ferri!
on which the gut works; B, an oval cutter to cut the crosses; C, C, the two
centers in which the two center screws 0, 0, of Figure First are to work.
Those oval cutters have a hole through them, which, being screwed, you screw
them on to the arbor; D, the arbor on the end of which the cutters are to
be fixed.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Sanderson, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourth day of September, One thousand seven
hundred and sixty-one.
GEO. SANDERSON (L.S.)