Animation of how a mechanical watch works

Perre · Oct 15, 2020

Not sure if this has already been posted, but found this great animation/explenation on how a mechanical watch works.
I have a couple myself, but never really understood how they worked.
Enjoy 😀

OMTOM · Oct 15, 2020

This is a nice video. It’s wonderful how people manage to break down and illustrate things that can otherwise be so complicated.

There are in fact several of these (have a look at YouTube). I like this one (try to get the version with the music!):

Perre · Oct 15, 2020

OMTOM
This is a nice video. It’s wonderful how people manage to break down and illustrate things that can otherwise be so complicated.

There are in fact several of these (have a look at YouTube). I like this one (try to get the version with the music!):

Thanks! clearly shows here what the escapement does, which was not very clear in the first video

Marsimaxam · Oct 16, 2020

Freaking amazing. It's a wonder how someone came up with the concept and design of a mechanical watch. "Baby, I'm amazed by you"

OMTOM · Oct 16, 2020

This version has been highlighted here before – but worth repeating for this thread. From 1949, Hamilton, it takes nearly 20 minutes. Again, nicely done. Yes, a wonder.

JimInOz · Oct 16, 2020

Marsimaxam
Freaking amazing. It's a wonder how someone came up with the concept and design of a mechanical watch. "Baby, I'm amazed by you"

Hardly a wonder, It's all rather basic really.

You simply start with a clepsydra, let it develop over a couple of thousand years, add in quite a few geniuses along the way and you end up where we are today.

😉

OMTOM · Oct 16, 2020

Of course these (beautiful) videos explain the workings of a mechanical watch. Things changed with the introduction of automatic movements – and then quartz. The following might help you to understand these:

JimInOz · Oct 16, 2020

OMTOM
Of course these (beautiful) videos explain the workings of a mechanical watch. Things changed with the introduction of automatic movements – and then quartz. The following might help you to understand these:

😁

The voice of the presenter reminded me of so many (too many!) instructional movies (no videos then) that I had to watch in the 1970's until we got video tapes and internet.

Perre · Oct 16, 2020

JimInOz
😁

The voice of the presenter reminded me of so many (too many!) instructional movies (no videos then) that I had to watch in the 1970's until we got video tapes and internet.

Everyone knew they were in for a ride when this badboy entered the room:

Perre · Oct 16, 2020

OMTOM
Of course these (beautiful) videos explain the workings of a mechanical watch. Things changed with the introduction of automatic movements – and then quartz. The following might help you to understand these:

Yeah the dingle arm does make the difference 😉

mjb · Oct 16, 2020

Thanks @Perre! Yeah, I remember film strips from school. <snore> That was before VCRs, so we had actual film projectors for the "talkies".

Archer · Oct 16, 2020

Perre
Everyone knew they were in for a ride when this badboy entered the room:

That was college! Back in high school it was film projectors. In primary school it was mostly a slide projector that had an audio tape to go along with it. The cassette tape would beep when the teacher was supposed to advance the slides. We were all blown away when a model showed up that would advance the slides automatically!

OMTOM · Oct 16, 2020

The model in our school was clad in a bikini, aged 22. They combined the physics class with biology.

Perre · Oct 20, 2020

Co-axial escapement.
Still not sure what’s going on 😉

Animation of how a mechanical watch works

Perre

OMTOM

Perre

Marsimaxam

OMTOM

JimInOz

OMTOM

JimInOz

Perre

Perre

mjb

Archer

OMTOM

Perre

Similar threads

Using a Mechanical Watch as a Compass...

Hello from a mechanical watch newbie :)

Great blog entry about how a mechanical watch works and is put together

A mechanical watch rendered in WebGL

My mistake (Don’t sleep on it)

GQ article - Why True Watch Heads Never Set the Time on Their Watches