Word of caution to wearers of mechanical watches

I have been wearing Hamilton 992 railroad pocket watches for many years, carrying them in the watch pockets of my pants. Recently, one of my Hamilton watches, which I wore most often, began to keep time very erratically. I had had this watch worked upon by Historic Timekeepers, Inc- a shop I recommend highly. Dewey Clark, the horologist, had made some new parts for this Hamilton 992 (after my wife accidentally dropped it on a hard ceramic tile floor, breaking the balance wheel and staff). The watch was in first class running order when I got back from that repair, but soon began keeping time erratically. My other Hamilton 992 was not far behind it, and ceased running altogether. I sent both of these watches to Dewey Clark, the owner of Historic Timekeepers, Inc. Aside from some other issues (like a local watchmaker who put the wrong sized jewels during a previous repair and glued jewels in), Dewey Clark emailed me to ask if I was working around strong magnetic fields. He had found parts of the watches had become magnetized to the point that it affected how they kept time.

The idea of strong magnetic fields is a given as I had worked for many years in a large hydroelectric plant and was around energized generators and transformers and high voltage switchgear and bus work. However, I had retired over 4 years ago. This got me to thinking as to what else might have caused the magnetization of the watch works. I realized I do a good bit of DC SMAW (stick) welding, and the power source is often an old Lincoln engine-generator set. This has a DC generator with plenty of copper in its windings. I am not one to drag welding lead any more than I have to, so keep leads short and weld close to the machine when fabbing stuff on the bench. I also have a few turns of short leads coiled on the ground, so this would be another source of magnetic fields. I did not think occasional exposure to the magnetic fields from dial indicator bases and a surface grinder chuck were enough to cause the problem.

In any event, Dewey Clark has repaired and adjusted my two railroad watches. They are now "in Rolex territory" to use Mr. Clark's terms for their accuracy. He advised me to keep the watches clear of strong magnetic fields in the future. The result is I will not be wearing my Hamilton railroad watches when I am doing shop work, particularly welding. I pass this along to anyone who wears a mechanical watch and is either doing welding, around welding, or around anything else which might have a strong magnetic field. Things like larger generators, large motors, transfomers and heavy power conductors all would be likely sources of this sort of magnetic field that would be strong enough to affect the works of a watch.

My own solution was to buy a cheap electronic pocket watch on Amazon. For 25 bucks, I have a smaller open-face pocket watch in a plain stainless case. It keeps excellent time and I am not concerned about exposing it to magnetic fields. I am keeping the Hamilton Railroad watches to wear when going out and about.
Those are heirloom watches, and finding competent watchmakers to work on them was getting impossible. Thanks to this website, I was referred to Historic Timekeepers, Inc. Mr. Clark has a micro machine shop and does some incredible work, making parts as needed and doing first class work. I am fortunate in finding Mr. Clark to fix and service my railroad watches. No sense risking them around strong magnetic fields. As an interesting twist: Mr. Clark asked if I was around "diesel electric locomotives". I am, but only occasionally to do some repairs. However, it set me to wondering if locomotive engineers who wore mechanical watches on the job ever had this sort of problem with their watches. For that matter, how about the engineers who ran the heavy electric locomotives like the GG-1's ? Clearly, the Hamilton Railroad watches dated to steam days, when strong magnetic fields were not present.

Joe, you're timing is excellent. Approximately a week ago I decided to start educating myself a bit on vintage pocket watches in order to make a well-informed purchase. My idea was to keep it as a "shop watch" because cell phones collect metallic dust at the speaker openings. I'm glad you mentioned the welding aspect, that deep-sixes the plan. I'll most likely buy one for out and about, though. Any other favorites besides that model Hamilton? All open face, or do you have some hunters too?

Strange, all this about magnetism and watches I have been wearing and welding with a Rolex Submariner on my wrist for 30 some years with no problems......

It only matters if there is magnetic material in the watch. Rolex may not have any in important places.

E.F. Thumann:

I have a couple of cheap open face pocket watches and a similarly cheap hunting case watch (with a railroad scene) people gave me years ago, nothing to recommend as a "real" pocket watch. I have no experience with anything other than the Hamilton 992B pocket watches. I have two of them. One has a factory-furnished yellow gold filled case, and was a gift to me from a good bro who was a long-time locomotive engineer. The other 992 B is in a billet stainless steel case made by an old tool and diemaker in our area (since deceased). He made 10 such watches and charged nine of us for only the works.

That stainless case 992B was on me the night I met two deer on my Harley. The bike went into a broadslide and eventually laid down and I got free of the bike and did a slide on the pavement. Good leather and being in good shape, I was on my feet in moments and righted the Harley. I sustained a small broken bone in my left hand. No road rash, no other bruising or sprains. The 992 B was in the watch pocket of my jeans, under a pair of Vanson chaps and a Langlitz "Columbia" leather jacket. The result is two very small dents in the back of the case of that watch. The balance wheel and staff were broken during that accident. A local watchmaker who was getting on in years (also since deceased) repaired that watch. He cobbed it together as we were to find out later. Glued in a jewel and some other make-do repairs. The guy was getting on in years and had his infirmities, so I guess he did the best he could. A couple of years later, my wife dropped that watch on the laundry room floor. Broken the balance wheel and staff. That is when I came upon Historic Timekeepers, Inc.

I know that most of the heavyweight watch manufacturers in the USA made railroad approved watches- Hamilton being a major player, along with Elgin. Plenty of Elgin railroad pocket watches were made as well. I am sure both of these firms made "dress" pocket watches in "hunter" cases.

The little electronic pocket watch I wear in the shop and every day has the brand name "Gotham". It is about 2/3 the diameter of a railroad pocket watch, just a plain open faced watch.
It seems to stand the gaff of welding and shop work, and for 25 bucks, I can't go too wrong. I am old school and prefer an analog watch. Due to the work I've done over the years, a pocket watch made more sense. I used to wear a Seiko wrist watch. I had one my father gave me, and it had weld spatter on the stainless expansion band, had spark burns on the crystal, and had been exposed to rough service, grout, oil, water, vibration, magnetic fields and much else. Working in the powerplant, it made sense to go to a pocket watch. Too many tales of men having their metal watch bands short across live switchgear or similar, or get wound up in machinery.

I'd take a look at Historic Timekeepers site and see if he has any insights into different pocket watches.

I am partial to American made mechanical watches, but that's just me.

Gets me wondering what parts of watches are made of steel. The shafts or staves as i think they are called, but since they have a very small radius and do not move nearer or farther from anything in normal operation, I can't think magnetism would have much if any effect on them The large wheels I think are brass.. Pinions might be steel, but again I doubt magnetism would exert a measurable torque o nthem.

Hairsprings and mainsprings come to mind as parts that might be spring steel, and whose function could be affected if magnetism caused them to pull or bunch up and rub on one side.
But then a name, "Elgiloy" pops into my head, developed I suppose by Elgin Watch Co, I do not know when in relation to the age of Joe M's watches....quick search says it is a NON-magnetic cobalt-based alloy, but the property I could not confirm that is attached to the name in my memory is that the e modulus does not vary much with temperature, which would be useful for timepieces.

Any watchmakers here who could illuminate the parts or functions of watches likely to be affected by magnetizatiion? Anyone here who can confirm or obliterate my foggy feeling about constant-e-modulus alloys?

My Dad wore a mechanically self-winding Omega with radium dial for 40 yr...I always wondered if that caused the leukemia that killed him. I stopped trying to wear a watch after breaking two crystals in a week, some 40 yr ago.

E.F. Thumann --

From what I've seen, the relative merits of different makes of railroad-approved pocket watches is a Giants v. Dodgers question more often the not. The die-hard Ball fan pooh-poohed Elgin, Hamilton, Illinois, and Waltham, and vice-versa. There were, of course, other makers, including Omega and Rolex.

I'm partial to the Hamilton 992 myself, followed by Elgin and then Waltham.

John

I started carrying and collecting pocket watches about 60 years ago and have owned quite a few railroad watches, including the Hamilton 950, their top 16 size railroad model.

Watch repair shops have been using demagnetizers for a century or more because it was well known that magnetizing a watch will affect the rate. Old watches had steel balance springs, and a magnetized balance spring is bad news. If the coils touch each other and stick together, the rate goes nuts. The steel portion of a common bimetallic balance wheel can also affect rate if magnetized.

So, back in the 1880's, balance wheels and springs made of nonmagnetic alloys began to appear. Maybe Edison's new central DC electric generating plants provided the impetus. Over the years, the better grade watches made by progressive companies made nonmagnetic movements pretty common. I found one reference that indicated the original Hamilton 992 model had a steel balance spring, but the new 1940 model 992B had an Elinvar Extra nonmagnetic hair spring and an Aurium proprietary monometallic non magnetic and temperature neutral alloy balance wheel. I also had a few of the 4992B military navigator watches with 24 hour dial and sweep second hand.

I also once had the low-tech answer to the magnetic issue. Someone made little stamped steel cloth-lined clamshell type cases in various sizes to fit around pocket watches. They were probably a pain to use, but they claimed to shield the watch from magnetic fields. That was the same period when Sears was selling various "magnetic" devices with dubious health claims. Now, I see people selling RFID blocking wallets to shield your credit cards from evil persons.

Every watch shop had a demagnetizer. The common form of demagnetizer is a hollow coil attached to 110 VAC with a pushbutton switch. Put the watch in the coil, push the switch, pull the watch slowly out of the coil, and release the switch. Maybe repeat the process a few times. The process is simple, so you don't need a skilled watchmaker to do it. They are still made, but you can probably do better getting an old one on eBay. Once transistors and such became common, electronic demagnetizers were invented that left the watch sitting still while the alternating magnetic field diminished to zero.

Demagnetizer/magnetizer | DEM-345.: Jewelry Making Tools: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
VINTAGE L & R WATCH MAKER DEMAGNETIZER WITH BOX | eBay

By the way, here is my newest "railroad" watch. It has the traditional Montgomery dial (numbers at every minute mark) and a very high quality stainless case. But then they added a 1/1000 second chronograph and a sweep second hand with an on-off switch (the button at 5:00). I think the battery will last longer if the second hand is stopped. It has a memory, so the second hand will catch up to the correct time when turned on, or after using the chronograph function. I have it in an old display stand and use it for a clock since my pants have not had watch pockets for several decades. Very cool look and Amazon had a good sale on them.

Amazon.com: Bulova Mens Pocket Watch 96B249: Bulova: Watches

Larry

Why are they called "hunter" cases?

The scene engraged on the back, like my elgin?

jim rozen said:

Why are they called "hunter" cases?

The scene engraged on the back, like my elgin?

Click to expand...

They have a metal lid that covers the glass crystal to prevent breakage in case of falling off the horse while fox hunting or avoiding hitting a deer while biking down the road. Pushing a button makes the lid flip open to see the dial.

I also have a half hunter. It has a small thick crystal in the center of the lid so you can see the inner portions of the hour and minute hands and get an approximate time without opening the lid. These watches have a special hour hand design with two spades, the inner one visible through the lid opening.

A proper hunting case watch winds at 3:00 because that is how you hold the watch when opening the lid. See picture below. The modern junk hunters wind (set) at 12:00, just right if the watch is hung from a nail in the wall with the lid open.

Larry

Verizon "flip phone" is my closest approximation to a pocket watch.

Well, I do have my grandfather's pocket watch (hunter case) which was given to him on his 21st birthday, way back in 1910. Engraved with his name (my name too!) and date on the cover it has been repaired and does keep accurate time - but I dare not use it.

Joe in NH

I believe the most common failure mode for magnetized watches is two hairspring coils sticking together, in effect shortening the spring, making it go faster. Something that can have a similar effect is balance wheel pivots being dirty of gummy. Somewhat surprisingly, the result is that it goes faster. The explanation is that the balance wheel does not swing vigorously as normal and rocks back and forth only far enough to step between teeth on the escapement. I have had several watches that would run normally when the balance shaft was horizontal and would change to a much faster pace when the shaft was vertical, presumably because its end was standing on a gummed jewel cap. The puzzling aspect was that jewelers seemed unaware of the effect. I fixed them by a simple cleaning and oiling.

Magnetism cannot be blocked the way electrostatic fields and radiation can. One technique for antimagnetic watches is to put a soft iron ring around the periphery of the movement. The magnetic field still goes through the watch but is diverted through the ring instead of passing through the movement.

Bill

Edit: Between deciding to post a reply and actually doing it, I paused to watch a segment on PBS about Afghan girls learning mountain climbing. In the interim Larry made my post mostly redundant.

9100 said:

I believe the most common failure mode for magnetized watches is two hairspring coils sticking together, in effect shortening the spring, making it go faster. Something that can have a similar effect is balance wheel pivots being dirty of gummy. Somewhat surprisingly, the result is that it goes faster. The explanation is that the balance wheel does not swing vigorously as normal and rocks back and forth only far enough to step between teeth on the escapement. I have had several watches that would run normally when the balance shaft was horizontal and would change to a much faster pace when the shaft was vertical, presumably because its end was standing on a gummed jewel cap. The puzzling aspect was that jewelers seemed unaware of the effect. I fixed them by a simple cleaning and oiling.

Magnetism cannot be blocked the way electrostatic fields and radiation can. One technique for antimagnetic watches is to put a soft iron ring around the periphery of the movement. The magnetic field still goes through the watch but is diverted through the ring instead of passing through the movement.

Bill

Edit: Between deciding to post a reply and actually doing it, I paused to watch a segment on PBS about Afghan girls learning mountain climbing. In the interim Larry made my post mostly redundant.

Click to expand...

Your girls mountain climbing comment certainly was not redundant!

People, stop totally freaking out! It ain't magic. AC stuff does NOT magnetizing your watch! Only hi power DC stuff!

So the welder for 30 yr likely had brute force ac welder. 30 years in the power plant was fine too cuz of AC not DC.

Want a readily available demagnetizer? Your solder gun is perfect.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Joe/John (and everyone) thanks for the detailed replies. I looked through the Historic Timekeepers site, he seems to have all of his ducks in a row! There is also another informative site "pocketwatchrepair" dot come, it has pages and pages of specific info on them. Good reading all around. I suppose almost any internet purchase of a vintage watch will be a crap shoot, I'll have to take the plunge after a bit more research.

mike_kilroy said:

Your girls mountain climbing comment certainly was not redundant!

People, stop totally freaking out! It ain't magic. AC stuff does NOT magnetizing your watch! Only hi power DC stuff!

So the welder for 30 yr likely had brute force ac welder. 30 years in the power plant was fine too cuz of AC not DC.

Want a readily available demagnetizer? Your solder gun is perfect.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Well it is a brute force welder at 460 amps max, but it spends a lot of time on DC. It is set up for ac-dc TIG but I can burn some sticks with a few minute change over.

Adding to mike's comment:

Even DC welding does not have to be an issue with magnetizing. The strength of the magnet formed by a part of the watch has to be reasonably strong before it will actually cause troubles like sticking coils together, etc. That is not so easy to cause.

I suspect that the welding cable may have essentially rested on the watch (with jeans, etc causing a small spacing). The field created by the cables tends to be fairly even over the entire area between the cables. So a watch between the cables but not near one or the other, will probably not get much of an effect. Even less if the watch is not between the cables, but outside of the "loop" formed by the cables.

But the field is strong very near the cable, and that field can easily magnetize susceptible materials.

And, of course, the next time, the watch might be turned the other way, due to the weldor shifting position, etc, and then the effect will be, at least initially, to demagnetize, to reverse the direction of magnetization, which means first undoing what the initial field did, before inducing a field opposite to it. A reversed field is somewhat like one cycle of AC. So in that case, the degree of magnetization will depend on the history of currents and positions of the watch. Long term it might add to zero, but at any given time there might be substantially magnetized parts.

It IS however, NOT TOTALLY TRUE that "AC does not magnetize your watch". AC will do a fine job of magnetizing, IF you flip the switch, or break the arc, suddenly. That will leave a remanent magnetization. It is why you cannot just stick the watch in that demagnetizer, then turn it on and off. You have to pull the watch away so each half cycle produces a slightly smaller field in it than the one before.

So even AC welding could easily magnetize a watch if the cable is near enough to produce the field needed to magnetize something in the watch. All will be well until the arc is broken, at which time some degree of remanent magnetization is left.

mike_kilroy said:

Your girls mountain climbing comment certainly was not redundant!

Click to expand...

The Taliban threatens these girls for not being proper subservient women. There is a rock & mountain climbing store two door from my shop. Their clientele is almost as many women as men. They are nearly always intelligent and likeable people. Malala Yousafzai and Mukhtar Mai deserve all the support we can give them.

Bill

Not entirely relevant but along the same lines -- can't credit it because I snagged this somewhere and didn't write down where but -- funny :

"In a different vein, coming back from the Azores we sailed through a good deal of electrical storms and general low viz sloppiness for some days. It was really cool. We even had St. Elmo's Fire, which we all played Captain Ahab with. Anyway, I was at the helm on the morning watch groggily following the compass to America with the rising sun in my face. The other man on watch emerged from the doghouse with coffee he'd been making to celebrate sunrise, looked about and muttered, "So . . . didn't the sun used to rise in the east?"

All the electrical activity had turned the compass."

magnetism and pocket watches

From this experience as well as this thread, I have learned what "anti magnetic" on the back of a watch case is about.

9100: you are spot-on about the effects of magnetization on the movement of a pocketwatch with parts susceptible to magnetization. I thought I was losing my marbles when the pocketwatch which had recently been repaired started gaining large amounts of time. At first I thought I'd forgotten to wind it, so would re-set it, wind it, and the watch would continue to gain time. Over 24 hours, the watch would gain several hours.

LVanice: I do not think a hunter case on a pocket watch would have prevented damage to the works when I got tangled up with the deer. I had been taught to always carry an open-face pocket watch with the crystal facing into my body. In that way, the back of the watch case would absorb impacts. This was the case the night I had that accident. As I wrote, there are two very small dents in the back of the stainless watch case. The impact or shock broke the balance wheel and staff and hairspring.
With or without a hunter case, that damage would have occurred. I know when I first spotted the deer coming up out of a field and onto the road, I had the Harley doing about 60 mph. I got on the brakes and had the Harley slowed considerably and saw one deer pass cleanly in front of the bike. Either that deer did a quick 180 or a second deer was on the scene, as there was literally a deer's head and neck right in front of the left hand running light on the handlebar, illuminated in an unearthly orange. I must have slowed the Harley considerably by the time that happened, but the bike still had some speed on it. The deer which tee boned the Harley sent it into a broadslide and it was severe enough that I knew the bike was going to lay down. I remember that after I had righted the Hog and was taking stock of things, a car came down the road and I flagged him down. It was an unmarked deputy sheriff, and he got me in his car and asked me to check myself over. Aside from discovering I had an injury to my left hand, I took out my pocket watch and saw it had quit running. I was initially more upset about the watch than much else. That was in November of 2007. I sometimes wonder if a modern watch with an electronic movement would have fared better in that accident.

My locomotive engineer buddy had the experience of damaging his own 992B Hamilton railroad watch in a similar manner. He said he was wearing bib overalls and went to use the toilet. There was a hard ceramic tile floor in the men's room. As he dropped his bibs, the pocket watch fell out of the breast pocket of the bibs. It was on a tether (we tend to use pieces of boot lace), and there was enough slack for the watch to hit the tile floor. As my buddy told it, he knew before he got done with his business in the men's room, that the watch was heavily damaged. Same sort of damage, broken balance wheel and staff.

As for the welding having a magnetizing effect on the watch movements, I tend to think this is the culprit. I've been retired about 4 1/2 years from the powerplant, and my stainless case railroad watch was repaired in 2014. It began keeping erratic time within a year of that repair. That coincides with my doing a lot of welding using an old Lincoln gas driven machine, running DC current. I was burning 1/8" electrode, some of it on railroad cars and I'd be on, under and around the cars. Working out of position or in a tight place, I tend to wrap the "whip" (section of lighter, more flexible welding lead) around my right forearm to take the weight of the lead off my right hand, which is holding the "stinger" or electrode holder. That lets me use my other hand to hang on or steady myself as I sometimes am in some contorted positions, having to bend the electrode and doing some grunting and twisting my head and neck into new positions. I am sure plenty of times I had the heavier lead passing against my belly or side.

The old Lincoln machine is a "straight DC generator", no AC generator with transformer and rectifier. On one job, in the summer of 2015, I welded for 4 or 5 straight days, 8 hours a day, with the only non welding time being spent in fitting up the work, grinding or chipping. I burned a lot of E 7018 and E 6010 and lost almost 10 lbs to sweating under my welding jacket. I also go out on welding inspection jobs, so am around more welding, some with fairly high currents. At home, when I am welding, I use one or the other of the Lincoln gas driven machines, but I keep the leads short and the machine in close reach.

Now that I have learned about the magnetization problem, I will make sure to take better care of my railroad watches. Historic Timekeepers has made a new mainspring & new hairsprings for the stainless cased Hamilton watch out of some newer alloy than what was originally used. However, the old steel parts in the escapement and balance wheel are still made of carbon steel, so the magnetic issues are still there.

For what it is worth: the magnetism around welding leads is considerably stronger than most people think. I do a lot of finishing work in my shop which involves tons of finish grind/smoothing work before powdercoating. The resulting mild steel dust on the floor immediate forms parallel lines when you begin to weld. Those "lines" form out to about 2" on both side of the full length of the lead. I would think that kind of force would easily magnetize something as thin/fragile as many of the pocket watch internals, if the lead was against your pants leg. My .02