Interesting video.

 

I assume that escapement is what Omega calls "co-axial'?

 

Very interesting, & an example of how video's should be done.

 

It seems so.
A Technical Perspective - The Omega Co-Axial Escapement Fully ...https://monochrome-watches.com › Blog › Omega

 

Around the 5:50 mark, was that a very young Roger Smith? The video was a bit fuzzy on my cell phone...

 

I think so.

 

This vid has been posted before, but it is pertinent to Daniels.

13:41Talking Watches With Roger Smith

 

I attended The Longitude Symposium in 1993 at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA where all the leading lights of precision timekeeping attended, and George Daniels was one of the presenters. My wife and I were in the elevator at the hotel when the doors opened and George Daniels walked in, nattily attired in tweed just like you see him in pics. He had a waistcoat on with a gold chain so he was obviously carrying one of his creations, and under the cuff of his shirt you could see he was wearing one of his wristwatches, a round cased watch that could be reversed to show the tourbillon and calendar, he had completed it the year before. It's shown in Plate 64 in "All in Good Time" which Daniels wrote in 2006. We nodded at each other and rode down to the lobby to the banquet where he sat at the head table and Alistair Cooke gave the keynote address. That was as close as I ever came to a George Daniels watch. But I did handle a Roger Smith pocket watch a few years ago from a fellow collector.....amazing workmanship and the feeling of quality oozed all over the watch.

 

I met Roger Smith at an NAWCC conference about 20 years ago. He was wearing a watch he had made. A very basic tonneau shaped wrist watch in an 18-karat gold case. He told the story of how, early on, he had laboured long and hard to build a pocket watch from scratch. When he finished it, he made his way to the Isle on Mann, to Daniel’s doorstep. Daniels invited him in, whereupon Smith showed him his watch. Daniels was quite dismissive about the watch. He told Smith to come back when he had produced a watch that Daniels would find worthy. A number of years later, Smith did exactly that, and was met with a much more enthusiastic response. Smith worked with Daniels for some time. Daniels was unhappy with the calendar mechanism on early co-axial Omegas. Together they worked on improving the mechanism.

 

Odd - the first production watches were the Cal. 2500's, and the calendar on those came from the 1120, which came from the ETA 2892, and it never changed...

 

Well, that was what Roger told us at the seminar. Who knows?

 

Lecture by British independent watchmaker Roger Smith... apprentice of George Daniels
...

 

This one kind of slipped by with no comments. Well I watched the video and yes it's a bit dry, and Roger is not the most lively speaker I've ever heard, so this isn't an entertaining Ted talk by any stretch...but it was interesting from a watchmaking perspective.

I made a few notes on what was being said, and quite frankly there's some good stuff in there, along with some stuff I consider complete nonsense.

The “problem” is defined near the start of his talk as an “industry standard” 3 to 5 year service interval. So this and the remainder of the talk focuses almost exclusively on the topic of service intervals, rather than accuracy - this is in line with what Omega has always said about the co-axial - it's not about accuracy, but service intervals.

At 12 minutes in, he says that tonight he will be looking at the watch as a whole, rather than as the sum of it’s parts...he then goes on to talk about almost nothing but the escapement...

At 16 minutes in or so, he talks about quartz watches, and pulled out something I ever would have imagined a trained watchmaker would. I think he refers to Geroge's comments on quartz, but seems to have the same view, that "the quartz watch lacked soul.” A well worn and very tired trope. This is something I expect from a very new and overzealous watch collector, rather than from someone in the industry. He also mentioned that George said “The battery will commit suicide without warning” and since most quartz watches have an End of Life indicator that tells you when it needs replacing, that isn't the case.

There were also some possibly dubious environmental arguments against quartz. I'm not sure if anyone has done a proper study on the overall carbon footprint and environmental impact of making a luxury mechanical watch compared to a quartz, but I don't think the quartz is as bad as you might think, provided that the batteries are properly recycled.

At 29 mins the 2 level co-axial is discussed – calls it a good example of a poor transmitter of power. Talks about a braking effect between the intermediate escape wheel and the co-axial wheel, and the large diameter of the wheels causing too small of a ratio. He then says “you will need an increase in mainspring strength to overcome this drain in power.” Well, looking at the Cal. 2500 movements, this claim doesn't add up. The Cal. 2500 movements don't in fact use a stronger mainspring - the 2500 A and C use the Cal. 1120 mainspring from the 1120 base movement. The 2500 B and D use the same strength but different lengths. So if it requires more power as he claims, then more power compared to what exactly?

Roger said he started his own co-axial caliber using a balance spring and mainspring from 30T2, and he made the sizes of wheel, pinions, and pivots larger to withstand the wear and tear required for a minimum 10 year service intervals (which is important later). He then says “the design of the mechanism went well” but gives no additional details.

At 42 mins he talks about the initial 2500 calibers, and says “I knew there would be little to be gained in this mechanism.” Ouch.

At 50 mins he talks about the strength of the mainspring in his own watches going from 1.55 mm to 1.15 mm due to escapement changes over a period of year of development. This seems like progress, but taken in isolation without something to compare it to it's difficult to judge.

I also noted he then admits that when servicing old tired watches when he was doing repairs, he would sometimes increase the mainspring strength in order to get decent amplitude. This is a big "no-no" in watch servicing.

At 54 minutes he predicts a 10-15 year service interval, and then says he can see getting to 20...

All through this as I noted, he talks about the escapement, and not much about the rest of the watch, despite claiming to take a holistic view of the whole watch. So if you can get the escapement to a 20 year service interval, what about the rest of the watch? Not just the rest of the movement, but what about seals, worn crowns, case tubes, etc.? This is not directly spoken to in the presentation...but in the Q&A some of it comes up...

Someone asks if materials technology will have an influence in the future. Roger says “not particularly” which ignores the advances in timekeeping made with things like silicon balance springs. He then goes on to say that changing materials is not treating the real problem, but more a symptom, which is a very short sighted view considering that new materials can enable completely new escapement designs, like the one that LVMH has come up with. This is adherence to tradition rather than true advancement in timekeeping, and the way he responds seems dogmatic.

Most telling comment...one person asks that if you are expecting the escapement to last 15 years in the future without service, don’t the oils and greases have top improve to keep up with that? Roger answers...”Well, you could say so...” and later says “if we do get a watch back for service in 15 or 20 years time, I would expect the oil will be gone, but that it will still beat” and then he says that they are also working on something to “replace oil” in the movement. So in this he is admitting that he basically expects the watch to be completely dry everywhere else, but still run. Is this is an advancement in reality? It seems the strategy is to let the watch wear itself out, so not exactly preventative maintenance, and this is in fact what many watch owners already do - wear it until it stops, and send it in for repairs. I know plenty of watches that have gone well past 10 years without a service...

Then someone asks him to comment on the fact that Omega uses oil on the escapement, but his is designed to run dry. Roger then says “Well actually we use a bit of oil on the escape wheel as well.” At this point I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

He then explains that when working with GD, they found that if you let the escapement run dry, there would be a build up of debris where the escape wheel hits the jewels. So they applied a very fine oil they they theorized is “absorbed” by the steel, and this prevents this build up of oxidization as he calls it. He then says that modern cleaning methods are the cause of this "problem", where these methods “strip away” any oils that may be in the materials. In the past people have theorized that the way GD cleaned things was why he claimed the escapement didn't need oil - he would use solvent at the bench and dip clean parts in it, and likely that solvent was contaminated with oils from cleaning parts, so the escapement was actually oiled all along, and it seems Roger has confirmed that. So all the criticism Omega has taken over the years, and people wondering why GD could make it run without oil and Omega couldn't, is all out the window. The idea that Omega "screwed up" GD's design to the point that it required oiling is a pure fantasy...it always required oil...

So quite an enlightening talk...

Cheers, Al

 

Interesting comments!Thanks!

Is not the silicon hairspring (and maybe some other amagnetic materials in the balance) responsible for the recent jump in accuracy for mechanical movements? Roughly speaking, take a good movement from the 60s (564, 1570), add a modern balance/hairspring and voila, +0.5spd?

I wonder if this strategy is not built in the modern products : restricted availability of parts, run it until it stops, get stuck with the brand's way of servicing, screw the remaining independants... My paranoia speaking maybe. Your word on this?

 

Yes, that's my point. I don't know that there's a good example of a watch movement that has only had the balance spring changed to silicon, in order to do a proper comparative test. But since you work on watches, you know what having a perfectly formed balance spring, that never goes out of shape and where it's thickness can be varied could do for timekeeping. The excellent timekeeping on some modern Omegas are mostly due to the balance spring.

Yes, clearly this happens. Improving on one part of the watch, in particular a critical area like the escapement certainly can have value, but as I've said before in this case it's a bit like claiming that having long lasting tires on your car means you no longer have to change your engine oil...