# A Smiths Mechanical Clock



## Always"watching" (Sep 21, 2013)

I had a near miss yeterday when I knocked one of my treasured clocks off the cabinet and it literally "exploded" with all the external parts coming off, including the hands, the glass, the dial, and the dial surround. Fortunately, I managed to restore it and it is now working again. In fact, it seems to go on for ever without the need for rewinding. What I would really like to know is what the term "floating balance" means, as this is obviously a feature of the clock's movement, written as it is on the back of the clock.

Could someone also explain what the term "hacking" means in terms of watch movements. It is a term I often hear but know little about, and I would appreciate a layman's guide.

Finally, what exactly does the term "ligne" mean when describing a movement. I realise that it is a French word but I am not sure what it means in watch movement terms.

Many thanks for any help


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## Will Fly (Apr 10, 2012)

The Hamilton 987S wristwatch from 1940 I've just bought, and my Hamilton 4992B (from 1943) pocket watch both have a hack function. Basically, when you pull the crown out, a spring presses against the balance, allowing the second hand to be stopped (usually) at the 12 o'clock position. This allows the watch to be synchronised with other watches or with a master clock, to an exact time.

It was a feature of military watches and it's no coincidence that both my WW2-period Hamiltons have the hack function. But then so do many modern quartz watches, including my Seiko Solar!


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## wookie (Apr 27, 2009)

> I had a near miss yeterday when I knocked one of my treasured clocks off the cabinet and it literally "exploded" with all the external parts coming off, including the hands, the glass, the dial, and the dial surround. Fortunately, I managed to restore it and it is now working again. In fact, it seems to go on for ever without the need for rewinding. What I would really like to know is what the term "floating balance" means, as this is obviously a feature of the clock's movement, written as it is on the back of the clock.
> 
> Could someone also explain what the term "hacking" means in terms of watch movements. It is a term I often hear but know little about, and I would appreciate a layman's guide.
> 
> ...


Hi

Ligne is just a unit of measure used by the French prior to them converting to the metric system, The swiss still use it for movement sizes but it is dying out, I find this table pretty good for my conversion needs

all the best

Wook


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## Will Fly (Apr 10, 2012)

There's a variant on that table. In the USA they use the"Lancashire" system of watch sizing so, as well as Lignes, Millimetres and Inches, you have sizes from 35/0 upwards - the equivalent of 1/4 ligne - to 45 - the equivalent of 30 lignes.

So, a standard size 16s pocket watch would be 19 lignes, and a fairly standard size 0 wristwatch would be 13 lignes.


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## wookie (Apr 27, 2009)

I sometimes think watchmakers must have been building their own tower of babel when you look at the mess of sizes

wook


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## Will Fly (Apr 10, 2012)

wookie said:


> I sometimes think watchmakers must have been building their own tower of babel when you look at the mess of sizes
> 
> wook


Indeed! I found it a nightmare to understand at first.


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## Always"watching" (Sep 21, 2013)

How extraordinary - it is bad enough with just ordinary metric and the feet and inches sytems of measurement One does wonder what the point is in having these complicated systems for watch movements when we already have decent measurement systems in place. Thanks Will Fly for also telling me about the hack system on watches - I always associate hacking with breaking into other people's computers. It just shows how "cheap" I am that I have never, at least knowingly, encountered a hack system on any watch I have bought, and I suppose it could be useful. Obviously on most quartz watches, pulling out the stem to the hands-adjust position does stop the hands from moving, which can be handy for synchronisation and saving power and movement wear in the short term, until the battery starts to leak that is.

Aha though - no-one has told me what a "floating balance" is yet - come on thomasr, where are you when I need you?

Thanks everyone so far


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## Will Fly (Apr 10, 2012)

In 1956, Smiths offered clocks with the new "floating balance" movement invented by Hettich in Germany and licensed to Smiths. The "Floating balance" resembles a classic regulator, only it's inside out - instead of pivots turning in jewel holes the holes are mounted in a tubular balance staff which turns on a tightly-stretched wire. This allows the balance wheel to "float", as the name would suggest, and replacement of the wire is much easier than planting new pivots, although still not for the faint of heart. A balance wheel in a table clock has many advantages over a pendulum - the clock is transportable, does not need to run level, beats faster so is liable to be more accurate.

(Found on the internet from various sources).


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## Always"watching" (Sep 21, 2013)

Thanks Will, that's really interesting and good of you to take the trouble to look it up for me. My Smiths clock seems to hardly ever need winding, even after a terrible accident befell it when I knocked it off the shelf. It sort of "exploded" as it hit the floor and the hands, glass and glass surround all flew off in various directions, Fortunately, I found the various bits and none had come to any real harm - just a sliver of glass has cracked off the edge of the glass - and I was able to reconstruct the clock as if nothing had happened. Of course, as it was me, the sliver of glass just had to to penetrate my finger as my hand slid over it on the carpet. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.


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## mel (Dec 6, 2006)

Hi H,

You have to remember that "ligne" and the other measurement systems were and are in place from *before* either Metric or Imperial systems became standardised in any way. The standard TIMEX movement from the 1950's - known as the #24 - is listed in the Service Manuals as being "11 1/4 by 9 1/4 ligne" and this is a US company. I suspect, although I have no definite knowledge of same, that ligne was perhaps felt to be universally understood by watchmakers worldwide without the need for "translation" into differing measurement systems, and so continued and still continues to be used well past a "sellby" as it were.

The Lancashire list is certainly used for Pocket Watch sizes, you will see many advertised as a "Size 16" or similar, but not so often on wristwatch sizes. I'm sure I read once that this was named after a person rather than the county of Lancashire, but the memory goes at my age, so I can't remember where, maybe in Le Carre books? :lol:

The Lancashire system is more suited to describing PW movements which are generally round and thus a constant size at any point, whereas the Ligne system can be more easily used for oval shapes as TIMEX did in the illustration above.

'tis OK I'll ask the Mrs what my name is to signoff :weed:

Mel ldman:


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