tiiniiiG; of sporting events in intervals of fiftiis of a sec- 

 ond is reflected in still another model having five pins 

 in the escape wheel and beating tenths of a second. 

 By the nature of the verge in this escapement, it will be 

 seen that the number of beats must be twice the num- 

 ber of pins in the escape wheel, leaving no way to se- 

 cure an odd number of beats per second, hence the 

 'lo-second model. This must have been a less desir- 

 able form because of the much smaller verge required, 

 plus the problem of accelerating so much mass from a 

 dead stop 600 times per minute. 



Figure 16 illustrates a dial for this ','n-sccond model 

 which the author found in a lot of unused parts left 



Figure 17. — .\ Timer Di.^l ihat is probabK ciihcr 

 experimental or very early. Note that llic fractions 

 of a second (quarters) are shown on the outside dial 

 instead of on a separate dial. This dial was convened 

 at the factory for use as the base of a hairspring 

 vibrating stand. A dial difTerent from this but having 

 the same arrangement of circles is known. (In 

 author's collection.) 



over when the factory closed. The watch had an 

 18-size ;;^plate movement with grained nickel finish. 

 The escapement is special, as we have seen, but the 

 fork, roller, and balance action arc conxcntional. 

 There are five jewels, four to support the balance stafT 

 and an impulse jewel. The barrel arbor comes 

 through the top plate with a .square, as in a kcywind 

 watch, but is fitted with a winding handle, so that a 

 key is unnecessary. This handle appears to be an 

 afterthought, because on the earlier models (those with 



P.M'ER 4: .AUBURNDALE WATCH COMPANY 



serial numbers below 1,000), the barrel arbor is short, 

 barely long enough to attach the winding handle; 

 later this arbor was made longer. Patent 204274 

 issued to Benjamin Wormclle of Brighton, Ma.s.sachu- 

 -setts, on May 28, 1878, the same date as Wales' es- 

 capement patent, may have suggested this winding 

 handle. On watches with higher serial numbers, 

 there are two arrows on the handle to show the direc- 

 tion to wind. 



The earliest of the.se timers had a slide on the side of 

 the case to stop the movement by means of a piece of 

 thin spring steel applied roughly tangentially to the 

 smooth rim of the three-arm, solid steel balance wheel. 

 When this action is reversed to start the movement, 

 the spring, in retracting from the wheel rim, starts the 

 wheel swinging. Soon this slide on the ca.se was dis- 

 pensed with by fitting a curved sheet-metal rack into a 

 groove turned in the edge of the balance cock. En- 

 gaging this rack was a pinion with a square hole 

 through which the square stem could slide to set the 

 hands back to zero as it had from the beginning, while 

 turning the stem now would actuate the pinion and 

 rack to start and stop the movement, as the slide in 

 the case had originally done. 



X'arious minor changes, dictated by experience and 

 the need for economy in manufacture, were made in 

 these moxcments. ."Xfter about tlie first thousand 

 the diameter of the balance was reduced from ap- 

 proximately .700 to about .530 inch. This smaller 

 wheel was. of course, much more suitable to vibrate at 

 the faster speeds required on the models beatingeighths 

 and tenths of a second. .'\t some time between the 

 manufacture of watches bearing serial numbers 3135 

 and 3622. the formerly separate winding pawl and 

 .spring were combined into one piece that could be 

 entirely made in a punch press. Another economy 

 move was to stamp the name and patents in place of 

 hand engra\ing. For a long time hand engraving was 

 u.sed, although stamping had been used from the 

 beginning on the earlier rotary watch. 



The case was very similar to that used on the rotary. 

 The dial, of white enamel with snap rim fastened by a 

 screw,"" carried three graduated circles, an outer 

 circle graduated in seconds up to sixty surrounding 

 two smaller subsidiary dials. The top one of these 

 smaller dials recorded minutes clasped up to ten and 

 the lower one recorded fractions of a second. The 



'« U. S. patent 216917, issued to William .\. Wales and as- 

 signed to William B. Fowlc, was applied for on .Xovcmlx-r I , 

 1878, after llie device was already in use on earlier specimens 

 of these watches. 



63 



