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21 jewels
- Thread starter Midget
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2000
- Messages
- 3,140
the jewels are used instead of metal as bearings as tehy tend to be smoother and cause less friction and thereby less wear in the movement than metal bearings. Generally a mechanical watch with more jewels is more accurate and will likely live longer than one with fewer jewels.
jmx
jmx
Believe it or not the jewels were mostly ruby's &
emeralds. However, they are so small and precisly
cut that they have no real value as jewelery at
all.
Good mechanical watches had a minimum of 17 jewels
with 21 being the maximum usable as bearing points.
Jewels were use to avoid the need or problems with
lubrication of the bearing points that cheaper
watches had.
emeralds. However, they are so small and precisly
cut that they have no real value as jewelery at
all.
Good mechanical watches had a minimum of 17 jewels
with 21 being the maximum usable as bearing points.
Jewels were use to avoid the need or problems with
lubrication of the bearing points that cheaper
watches had.
While bearing jewels do reduce wear and greatly increase the life of a watch movement, their main purpose is to reduce friction and thereby increase accuracy.
Although other materials have been used, virtually all bearing jewels are rubies. Nowadays they are made of synthetic rubies, which work just as well. To my knowledge Poljot is the only company that still uses natural rubies.
The actual cost of the stones is negligible, adding perhaps a few cents to the cost of a movement.
Depending on the architecture of the movement you can have more than 21 functional jewels, and the Swiss watch industy actually has strict rules as to how a stone has to be used to be called a "Jewel" in order to prevent manufacturers from putting useless stones in the movement in order to "out jewel" the competition. There was a time before these rules existed that it was possible to see watches with 50 or even 100 jewels, with maybe twenty of them being useful and the others just used as decoration.
Although other materials have been used, virtually all bearing jewels are rubies. Nowadays they are made of synthetic rubies, which work just as well. To my knowledge Poljot is the only company that still uses natural rubies.
The actual cost of the stones is negligible, adding perhaps a few cents to the cost of a movement.
Depending on the architecture of the movement you can have more than 21 functional jewels, and the Swiss watch industy actually has strict rules as to how a stone has to be used to be called a "Jewel" in order to prevent manufacturers from putting useless stones in the movement in order to "out jewel" the competition. There was a time before these rules existed that it was possible to see watches with 50 or even 100 jewels, with maybe twenty of them being useful and the others just used as decoration.
Midget,
If you want to learn more about the 7S26 movement in your 5 you may want to check out this link.
It's quite a neat little machine, especially the "Magic Lever" winding system.
If you want to learn more about the 7S26 movement in your 5 you may want to check out this link.
It's quite a neat little machine, especially the "Magic Lever" winding system.