Hi,
anybody can tell me what the Omega extract will tell me? i just ordered one at 120CHF!!!!
this is what i kn know;
1) caliper 354 year 1954
2) case in gold, eagle head stamped in several places, i think it is French.
3) runs perfectly
4) hands and dial look really old
do you guys think that the case belongs to the caliper?
do you think the dial and hands are original?

 

yes, French case, all seems to match.

BTW it is spelled calibre (not caliper, which is a device for measuring).

But I am sure that the extract will not provide many interesting facts...

The movements for these French watches were exported bare (=without cases) to France where they were cased locally due to high import charges for gold at that time.

What you will receive from the Omega Archives:

"Movement with serial number XXX was delivered to France, and the date of production/delivery" nothing more.
So in this case an extract is not worth the money...

 

Hope you get the answers you hope to see, but the extract is going to take a long while to arrive...

 

Caliper 354...

 

i feel particularly embarrassed for not knowing how to spell calibre in English (it is the same as in French), especially because i worked for ETA over 10 years and another 7 years for the watch industry and i made literally millions and millions of watch components like, stems, crowns, pinons and other components i don't know they are called in English.

i ask for forgiveness

 

He will be here all week folks. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses.

 

don't break your brake calipers

 

somehow i am happy about the replay from Omega, i save a 120CHF.
i noticed that you guys like the photos of the components i posted yesterday, later i will take some more on a microscope and post them.

 

Don't worry mate! You're English is fine! .. I've been in England, speaking English, for 60 years and I still think the word 'nothing' is pronounced 'Fakk all'!

 

some photos (not best quality) made with a microscope.
all this components are made with Tornos machines, came drive, much more precise and reliable than a CNC machine.

 

Bold statements! Let me take off my watchmaker hat and put on my project/process engineer hat for a minute...

I've rebuilt dozens of cam driven screw machines, both simple single spindle models like you show, as well as models with as many as 8 spindles and some with 100 hp A/C motors on them. I've also bought, programmed, and installed a number of CNC machining centers (some single spindle and some multi-spindle) made by various manufacturers. All the machines were much larger than the one you show - running stock as large as 8 inches in diameter at the largest.

The accuracy of CNC machining can vary wildly, depending on rigidity of the casting, design of the slides, accuracy of the ball screw, and type of motor used (stepper motor with an open loop, or servo with a position encoder). You can't classify them all with one level of accuracy, because a machine that uses a servo and position encoder will get you accuracy well beyond the rigidity of the machine and backlash of the ball screw. They can be made just as accurate as the mechanical components will allow, so the CNC is not a limiting factor on some machines. Of course cheaper machines it can be if you are using a stepper motor, and overdrive it momentarily, and it skips a step...oops! Accuracy? What accuracy?

For reliability I would agree that cam driven machines are indeed very reliable. Like anything mechanical, maintenance is the key. Worn slides, loose gibs, debris getting in when the wipers fail...been there done that many times.

Where a cam driven machine shines is in productivity on long production runs. So if you are making a lot of one thing, the set-up time is longer but the time per piece is small as it's spread out. CNC's advantage is in it's flexibility, so set-up is faster, and if you make a lot of short runs it's more economical in terms of set-up time per part made.

Anyway, welcome to the forum, from someone who has also been in the trenches of mass production...

Cheers, Al

 

Does anyone know which email works for contacting the archive office of omega? They don't seem to reply emails!

 

Hi, i see you are a guy who likes mechanics, i fell the same way.
i have no much experience with inches, especially "8 inches" i am from Switzerland worked my entire live in the manufacturing industries and i almost newer produced anything above 10mm, also not much experience with rebuilding, i grownup in Solothurn in the heart of the watch manufacturing, 90% of the swiss movement and components, crowns and gears are made in the triangle Solothurn Biel and Moutier, everybody is touched by the watch industries in one way or another, my father my uncle my friends, my father in the 60 and 70 worked for Certina, Omega, my friends work for Rolex and ETA, i worked in the 80 until 2005 for ETA, Omega and Meco (Meco crown producer for all swatch group members).
My statement "all this components are made with Tornos machines, came drive, much more precise and reliable than a CNC machine" is a reflection of what the watch industry used and is continuing to use, cam machines in 90% of the cases, the crown manufacturing is changing a bit by using Tsugami CNC machines.
Decolletage mane used in French German and Italian in the manufacturing industries for lathing is predominantly overwhelmed with conventional cam machines from the 1940 till today, during my time we tried countless times CNC machines, the only one that came close was the deco7 from Tornos, but if you walk into ETA lathing today you will find 280 cam machines and approximately 15 CNC, and nobody wants to operate the CNC machinery, the conventional cam machines are just to perfect for the job.
as you mentioned "long production" the watch industries is mass prosecution, mo mater if it is a ETA movement or a Omega it is mass prosecution and the same count for Rolex, we are talking 100 of thousand movements per year.
Even if the Tornos cam machines are not produced anymore nobody want to replace them, all cast iron components of the machines (base, headstok, tool tower, tool holder rocker arm and so on) are casted in summer than left outside the entire winter, taken in spring for additional work, them in another winter outside until spring, additional work, only after 3 winters the components are Ok assembling the machine.
you combine this machine with an temperature controlled and humidity controlled environment, a guy that knows how the set up, operate and make the tools and drills by him self and you end up with components that are OK for any high-end watch on the planet.
when you produce watch components on a lathing machine in Switzerland you will need to be able to make your own tools, you cant buy them, you will have you own Agathon grinder and make drills and tolls.
even gears always start on a lathing machine than the go to the gear hobbing machine (Strausak machines), guess what, thy are cam driven.
like i mention my father made watches components in the 60, the machines did not have a main motor, but a long shaft above the machines, this shaft did drive all machines in the department by a leather belt that could be disengaged for each machine when you needed to stop the machine, there was no carbide not even high speed steel, he used to forge his own tool, please remember this next time you encounter a watch made in the 60 and earlier on.

i could go on for days writing about this, but i need to work now,

since 2005 i am not in the watch industries any more, but i am continuing manufacturing, not in Switzerland but in asia, we are producing ball pen tips, tolerance in the micron (0.001 millimeters) approximately 6 millions a day.
the machine, made by Mikron Bile Switzerland, guess what, cam driven.
below a few photos.

i apologist if i made some writing mistakes, i have a good excuse, i am Swiss

 

Are you sure those are ball point pen tip manufacturing machines? They look like centrifuges enriching Uranium 235 for the North Korean Nuclear program!

 

it is not a watch topic, but below you can see a bit more