# How do mechanical watches keep time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 6, 2024, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498 "2024-10-06T08:57:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/21 "2024-10-06T21:46:18Z")
**MrsFtG** has one of [these](https://youtu.be/S2IrwJXC3Aw?t=21) Borel Kaleidoscope cocktail watches with a clear back. You get to see how it ticks without taking the back off. It’s really cool. (Of course I took the back off a few years ago to get it running well again, but no harm, and a lot of good, done.) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/22 "2024-10-06T22:04:04Z")
> [@mozchron](#): > > The fact that we can make these very accurate does not surprise me. The fact that they could do a pretty good job of it a hundred (or hundreds) of years ago does surprise me. I have a Hamilton 992b railroad pocket watch (85 years old) that is as accurate as the best mechanical watch made today (about a second per day). It is amazing but then they were basically the smart phone of their day; a technology being continually improved by the best engineers over many iterations. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2024, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/23 "2024-10-06T22:36:59Z")
Moreover they were a technology (no pun intended) whose time had come. The demands of urban life including factory, trolley and train schedules created an enormous potential demand if someone could inexpensively produce reasonably accurate watches. So iterative improvements in quality and price took off. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2024, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/24 "2024-10-06T22:40:05Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It is amazing but then they were basically the smart phone of their day In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, when Holmes first meets Watson, he deduces a great many things about him just by a glance at Watson’s pocket watch. In one of the modern adaptations, they used that scene nearly verbatim, just with the watch replaced by a phone. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2024, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/25 "2024-10-06T23:19:59Z")
In the Red Headed League, when they go into the bank vault at night, Homes asks Watson to bring his “repeater”. Which is a pretty remarkable device. A watch that tells the time by chiming on request. As they are waiting in total darkness for the villains of the story to arrive, this makes sense. Watson’s repeater would have been a pocket watch, so not as great marvel of horology as a wristwatch repeater, but about as sophisticated a device as was possible. In the modern world of ultra expensive watch collecting, a repeater pretty much tops out the hierarchy of complications. H Moser does a repeater that eschews a face with hands. Probably the most coveted watch in modern times is the Phillipe Dufour Grande Sonnorie. Handmade. Yours in exchange for your first born child. > **[Philippe Dufour Grande Sonnerie Wristwatch No. 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDoINgZaAZ4%5C)** ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/26 "2024-10-07T04:51:01Z")
If you’re interested is seeing how watches work in detail, watch (har!) any of the videos by the amateur watchmaker at [Wristwatch Revival](https://youtube.com/@wristwatchrevival?si=j8V0ym_ppMIM5R1Y). You may initially balk at a 50+ minute video of a guy taking a watch apart, fixing it, and putting it back together, but if you’re like me (and many of his other fans who say the same thing) you’ll find it fascinating and strangely compelling. He’s extremely knowledgeable and explains what he’s doing and why in a clear and easy-to-understand way. And he has an _amazing_ collection of highly specialized tools! ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/27 "2024-10-07T07:56:56Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > you’ll find it fascinating and strangely compelling. That was indeed a fascinating rabbit hole. The complexity of a “simple” clock is unbelievable! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/28 "2024-10-07T09:34:35Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > But as famously known, Harrison was able to build a successful chronometer once he perfected the basics with quite humble tools. Following up on Francis’s comment, see: > **[John Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison)** > > John Harrison (3 April \[O.S. 24 March\] 1693 – 24 March 1776) was an English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of how to calculate longitude while at sea. > Harrison's solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel. The problem he solved had been considered so important following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 that the British Parliament was offering financial rewards... > **[Longitude (book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book))** > > Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time is a 1995 best-selling book by Dava Sobel about John Harrison, an 18th-century clockmaker who created the first clock (chronometer) sufficiently accurate to be used to determine longitude at sea—an important development in navigation. The book was made into a television series entitled Longitude. In 1998, The Illustrated Longitude was published, supplementing the earlier text with 180 images of ch De... ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/29 "2024-10-07T10:40:25Z")
Learning that high-end watches have different frequencies came as a surprise to me. I don’t recall frequency being mentioned in advertising or on the box. I wore wrist watches since childhood and probably never had anything but the off the shelf standard 5 ticks a second. Now I wonder about the frequency of my $14 Timex. 😉 It was accurate enough when I was in high school. I didn’t get a Seiko until college. Link [A Guide to the Accurate, Mesmerizing High-Beat Watch | Gear Patrol](https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/a225365/best-high-beat-watches/) > [@](#): > > Many [high-end watches](https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/a151303/10-best-watches-5000/) today already beat at a relatively quick frequency of 28,800 beats per hour (about 8 ticks a second), while other common frequencies in more affordable watches are 21,600 bph (six beats per second) and 18,000 bph (five beats per second). But it takes 36,000 bph (10 beats per second) to have the “smooth action” of a high-beat watch. Because watches running at this frequency are most subject to strain on their internal workings, they require more durable parts and better lubricants to deal with the added friction. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/30 "2024-10-07T14:07:05Z")
Tag Heuer produced a watch, or at least a prototype of one, where the chronograph portion of the movement runs at 1,000 hertz, or 2,000 ‘ticks’ per second. At that furious pace, the chronograph has a power reserve such that it can only run for about four minutes before winding. [The world’s fastest watches: movements with oscillating frequencies far beyond 4 Hz](https://www.montredo.com/the-fastest-watches-in-the-world-movements-with-oscillating-frequencies-far-beyond-4-hz/?srsltid=AfmBOooJizI9RcCeubA5-EjchRYATyaXLbPfq6vhZg1uxMLG7CKoksqc) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/31 "2024-10-07T17:56:28Z")
In [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-babbage-engines-and-watchworks/837480/21), I speculated about building a Babbage Analytical Engine with watch-scale components. While impractical for a watch, a 1000 hz escapement would be great for such a computer. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2024, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/32 "2024-10-08T11:32:57Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > If you’re interested is seeing how watches work in detail, watch (har!) any of the videos by the amateur watchmaker at [Wristwatch Revival](https://youtube.com/@wristwatchrevival?si=j8V0ym_ppMIM5R1Y). You may initially balk at a 50+ minute video of a guy taking a watch apart, fixing it, and putting it back together, but if you’re like me (and many of his other fans who say the same thing) you’ll find it fascinating and strangely compelling. > > He’s extremely knowledgeable and explains what he’s doing and why in a clear and easy-to-understand way. For an amateur, Marshall is pretty good. His video making and editing skills and patter are really what make his videos very watchable. \*Note, i’m an amateur who is MUCH LESS good than Marshall 🙂 > [@commasense](#): > > And he has an _amazing_ collection of highly specialized tools! Watchmaking/repair tools are crazy. I have a pretty good set, mostly vintage (better quality than you can find today without spending $$$$). Collecting tools becomes as much of a thing as the watches themselves. Its a common thing (at least for me) to need a $70 tool to fix a $20 pocket watch, then never need to use the tool again … ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2024, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498/33 "2024-10-08T14:09:39Z")
> [@mozchron](#): > > For an amateur, Marshall is pretty good. His video making and editing skills and patter are really what make his videos very watchable. Marshall’s videos are very entertaining and kept me occupied while my wife was doing chemo last year. But once you’ve watched a bunch of them, a little variety is nice. There are a number of really good watch repair channels, but my current favorite is @RedDeadRestoration. He doesn’t talk, so you only hear the sound of the parts, tools and machines. Once you’ve seen enough narrated videos, it’s kind of fun to imagine your own voice over. I’ll never see someone using a mainspring winder to insert the spring into the barrel without hearing Marshall’s voice exclaiming that that’s his favorite step. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-mechanical-watches-keep-time/1008498.md?page=1)