antique

Continuing work….

Continuing work….

Last night before I fell asleep the thought crossed my mind to bring the materials and tools for a valve guide I need to make to work with me. This morning I miraculously remembered to bring the tools and materials, and today at lunch I began the construction of the second valve guide for my dad's Fairbanks-Morse hit and miss engine. I had already made a set of guides from cast iron to go in the cast iron head. Those guides didn't work out, so I decided to try bronze this time since…Read more …
A nice old watch

A nice old watch

I seem to have a serious lack of self control when it comes to old watches..... and cookies,..... but who doesn't like good cookies? So, when I saw this little pocket watch pop up on ebay it caught my eye. It has a chunk of the original porcelain face missing, and some cracks. The crystal is yellowed slightly so it probably has a plastic replacement that has been in it for a while... But, a few interesting things stood out to me right away: the pierced metal cover over the balance, the advance/retard…Read more …
More antiques

More antiques

Well, I bought some more orphans. I have a bunch of orphans actually. Due to the 'gold for cash' craze lately, people are selling off every heirloom they can find for scrap and that includes old mechanical watches. I really (honestly) don't understand selling a 100 year old mechanical device simply for a few dollars of gold, but since people do, the people who buy the scrap strip the gold (usually the case) and throw away the insides (usually damaging them in the process). Every so often a group of movements (what the…Read more …
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