This brief article is about the lubrication requirements of some everyday mechanical objects including clocks, sewing machines, and guns.
It is surprising how little oil is needed but it has to be in the right places.
A clock is a good example. Your mechanical watch or clock may run just fine for years without maintenance. But one day it will stop running before the next wind-up time and you will probably realize it needs oiling. This happened with one of my old pocket watches. It was made in 1899 and is an outstanding example of advanced watch production of the time. I really like the watch design and weight and especially its face. The watch has been through a few hands before I got it and shows obvious wear. There was a repair to the case a long time ago which is obvious and the person before me put it on a buffing wheel to get the scratches out of the exterior and in doing so unfortunately removed much of the relief design. So it is not a museum piece. It is just a watch I like to look at every day and it sits on my book shelf. I would wind it every morning as part of my routine.
It stopped running one day so I took it to my local watch repairman who makes a good living just replacing batteries in modern watches. He is a skilled craftsman with whom I have done business for many years and I trust his opinion. He looked at it and said it was not worth much effort unless it had extreme emotional value which it did not. He said modern oiling practices require that he take the watch apart completely. Then he puts the parts in an electronic cleaning process. Then he assembles and oils. It takes about two months with his backlog and would cost several hundred dollars.Continue reading“Clocks And Glocks Need Oil, by A.J.S.”
