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Posted (edited)

Eyup watch peep, i figured an active thread where we can post and review good books to read would be useful. When i have questions and ideas i promptly dive into a book and then ask the forum for advice. Most beginners start with the greats such as Fried, de-carle and Daniels, these seem to be the most well known and referred to authors, experts in the field of watch making, a lot of Daniels probably being overtechnical to begin with. But there so many more, Nickelsilver recommended Gazeley a while back so i didn't waste time picking up 2 pre owned books, i wasn't disappointed and can see where the others may have aquired some of their knowledge.  Recently i reviewed and suggested modern watch repairing and adjusting by E.Borer this guy was heavily involved with Rolex and head of their technical department early on, so i assume he knew a thing or two. 1st printed 1931 and revised  twice over a period of 11 years, so the latest edition will contain better more upto date info. Here is another to look up by F.W.Brtten, I've just borrowed this from my local library, slightly earlier than Borer's book 1929 so again old school stuff. In it he mentions the method of cutting away the rivet of a staff to remove it from the balance wheel, that i have heard of before in our forum from Nicklesilver and other pros,  and was brought up by myself and someone else on another group site. That method i thought was a relatively new idea even though the Molfres tool has been around for a long time and employs the same way. Most folk on the other site poopooed the idea , only me and one other guy promoted it to be the safest option, that now taken up by Chris Spinner ( a fantastic amateur and worth watching his video content ). In Britten's book nearly 100 years ago he also states this as a safe way to avoid deformation of the balance wheel and it's hole over time and repeated staff changes. Old fashioned terms and part names used as well which are interesting, i used one not so long ago " pull out piece " we know as the setting lever. Britten actually calls it a " pullout piece or lock " the "pull out " we know as the stem.  So there you are two interesting old school books to check out, enjoy watch people  🙂

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Edited by Neverenoughwatches
  • Like 2
Posted

Reading the Borer book now Rich after your recommendation and very much enjoying it. Veery straight no fluff style of writing. As you say old school but I’m finding lots of nuggets of information that is expanding my understanding of things.

 

Tom

  • Like 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

Reading the Borer book now Rich after your recommendation and very much enjoying it. Veery straight no fluff style of writing. As you say old school but I’m finding lots of nuggets of information that is expanding my understanding of things.

 

Tom

Exactly Tom that's why i posted about it a while back. This book by britten is very similar but with the English take on the same principles ( I'm sure all the old masters learnt from each other ). I think a lot of the old ideas get lost during evolution, it's like the old carpentry and building techniques i still sometimes use, I've worked with guys a little younger than me, funny when they exclaim   " how the f..k did you do that !! "

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

I now have 3 books

1. Clock and watch repairing - De Carle.  Half the content of the book seals with clocks. Uses Photographs and illustrations

2. Complicated watches- De Carle. 10 chronometer watches. Line drawings.  

3. Watch repairer's manual - Fried. An excellent book. Large print. Good visual line drawings. Reading a chapter most nights. Well, re-reading the basics most nights. Very interesting. Recommended by members. I agree with their comments.

If I did not have knowledge from 2 years practice and internet courses, I would be totally lost if it were just down to the books for study. 

I did buy one book when I started. Watch repair for beginners - Kelly. Could not make head nor tail of it. Too advanced for me. Resold within a week.

 

 

Clock and watch repairing - De Carle.png

Complicated watches - De Carle.png

Watch repairers manual - Fried.jpg

Edited by rossjackson01
Spelling, Grammar, more information
  • Like 3
Posted
11 hours ago, rossjackson01 said:

I now have 3 books

1. Clock and watch repairing - De Carle.  Half the content of the book seals with clocks. Uses Photographs and illustrations

2. Complicated watches- De Carle. 10 chronometer watches. Line drawings.  

3. Watch repairer's manual - Fried. An excellent book. Large print. Good visual line drawings. Reading a chapter most nights. Well, re-reading the basics most nights. Very interesting. Recommended by members. I agree with their comments.

If I did not have knowledge from 2 years practice and internet courses, I would be totally lost if it were just down to the books for study. 

I did buy one book when I started. Watch repair for beginners - Kelly. Could not make head nor tail of it. Too advanced for me. Resold within a week.

 

 

Clock and watch repairing - De Carle.png

Complicated watches - De Carle.png

Watch repairers manual - Fried.jpg

Three good books Ross, another popular fried book is his bench practices, de-carle also has a dictionary of parts and terms.

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  • 6 months later...
Posted
On 1/12/2024 at 7:40 PM, tomh207 said:

Reading the Borer book now Rich after your recommendation and very much enjoying it. Veery straight no fluff style of writing. As you say old school but I’m finding lots of nuggets of information that is expanding my understanding of things.

 

Tom

It's great to hear you're enjoying the Borer book! The straightforward, no-fluff style really does make it a valuable read. I'm glad you're finding it informative and that it's expanding your understanding. Thanks for the feedback!

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Posted
3 hours ago, msmahi said:

It's great to hear you're enjoying the Borer book! The straightforward, no-fluff style really does make it a valuable read. I'm glad you're finding it informative and that it's expanding your understanding. Thanks for the feedback!

The guy,  Emil Borer was actually part of the Aegler family that made watches for Rolex, as well as heavily involved with Rolex .

Posted
On 1/12/2024 at 2:01 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

Recently i reviewed and suggested modern watch repairing and adjusting by E.Borer this guy was heavily involved with Rolex and head of their technical department early on, so i assume he knew a thing or two. 1st printed 1931 and revised  twice over a period of 11 years, so the latest edition will contain better more upto date info.

That looks very much worth reading; just trying to find it and discovered that the third edition is available to "borrow" & read online from the internet archive:

https://archive.org/details/modernwatchrepai0000unse

 

  • Like 3
Posted
5 hours ago, rjenkinsgb said:

That looks very much worth reading; just trying to find it and discovered that the third edition is available to "borrow" & read online from the internet archive:

https://archive.org/details/modernwatchrepai0000unse

 

Only a small book but as others have said its non fluff. Worth seeking out the book as it has a really good fold out diagram. I paid a fiver for it , i think Tom paid the same. 

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Posted (edited)

You are lucky you got the big detailed edition, later ones were much smaller. I have 2nd (like yours, 221 pages) and 5th (135 pages). The latter I am a bit proud of, a present by Hans Jendritzki:

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Frank

Edited by praezis
  • Like 3
Posted
10 minutes ago, praezis said:

You are lucky you got the big detailed edition, later ones were much smaller. I have 2nd (like yours, 221 pages) and 5th (135 pages). The latter I am a bit proud of, a present by Hans Jendritzki:

IMG_4570.jpeg.bfa1f98eace2f3b3453a81d6590cd11d.jpeg

Frank

What does it say?  I can't use translation because I can't make out all the letters. 

Posted
16 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

What does it say?  I can't use translation because I can't make out all the letters. 

Ok, as a young man I sent him a review, questions and listed some print errors on the book.

He thanks for „the thorough review“. I visited him in Hamburg then.

Frank

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  • Thanks 2
Posted
7 hours ago, praezis said:

You are lucky you got the big detailed edition, later ones were much smaller. I have 2nd (like yours, 221 pages) and 5th (135 pages). The latter I am a bit proud of, a present by Hans Jendritzki:

IMG_4570.jpeg.bfa1f98eace2f3b3453a81d6590cd11d.jpeg

Frank

You are lucky Frank ,thats a treasure.  Can you translate the inscription for us and let us in on the story of how you come to receive it please

I didnt see you had already thanks frank.

Posted

I thought I would list some of my clock books if that is OK. I have to go and have my eyes checked tomorrow for diabetes so I have to have drops so it will depend on how things go normally I can't see a bloody thing for about 2 hours 

  • Like 4
Posted
46 minutes ago, oldhippy said:

I thought I would list some of my clock books if that is OK. I have to go and have my eyes checked tomorrow for diabetes so I have to have drops so it will depend on how things go normally I can't see a bloody thing for about 2 hours 

Absolutely OH, at the i wasn't thinking much about clocks, still not really but i am sure i will progress towards them. Feel free to change the thread title to watch and clock books or whatever you think encompasses all timepieces to include clock folk. My missus has to go through that every couple of years to make sure her boarderline diabetes isn't affecting her eyes. I took her last week, she said the drops sting like hell to begin with then she has to wear sunglasses for the rest of the day. 

  • 5 months later...
Posted

Nice big old book, knocking on 150 years and 600 pages. I don't own it as I would like an original copy, but a new paperback version is relatively cheap. We can all download it free as it's well out of ownership copyright . Get reading more people 🙂.

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Posted

Here is a small list of books I have to do with horology.

Watch & Clockmakers of the world vol 1 & 2

The Horolovar 400 day clock guide mine is and old third edition.

The French Marble Clock

Carriage Clocks

An old Fume watch catalogue

White dial clocks

Long case clocks

Clock types.

 

  • Like 4
Posted

American Watchmaking: A Technical History of the American Watch Industry 1850 - 1930, Michael C Harrold.

It reads like a scholarly publication, and is deeply detailed. But if you want to know exactly which people founded which companies and with how much in investment capital, and how much they lost their investors in what year before being bought out by Waltham or Elgin, this is your book.

Photos are only black & white so it isn't much for a gazing, but it does have a number of good machinery diagrams and loads of grainy photos of American watches at every stage of development. And lots of graphs of trends for things you probably don't think much about, like how common 3/4 plate vs full plate vs split plate movements were in any given decade. Descriptions of weird inventions like stem wind adapters for key wind movements. Also photos (and drawings) of the enormous factories.

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  • 1 month later...
Posted (edited)

Another for the watchroom library, strange how watchrepair takes you down different paths. Looking forward to reading this one, though the dyslexia and ADH will impact a summer reading completion date 😄

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Whoever started and revived the " oil is oil " thread..you know who you are......@Waggy and @Swefiddler......👍 cheers for that 🤨.....🤣

" life would be impossible "....and bedtimes would be very boring.....maybe this book has more to it than meets the eye..😁

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I was was wondering how soon a horologist was going appear in this book...quite soon even...page 7

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Edited by Neverenoughwatches

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