All posts by admin

All, Jobs

Job 6 – Patek Philippe Ladies’ Watch

Watch Model: Patek Philippe

Year Made: ~1932

Movement Model: Patek Philippe #949478, 7-70

Case Number: Ref. 3006, #697379

Mass, case+movement: 9.7g

Mass, movement alone: __g

Dimensions, case: 18.46mm diameter x 7.10mm thick

Crystal diameter:

Dimensions, movement: 11.9mm wide x ~16mm high x __mm thick

Case Number

Movement Number

Mainspring
Photos
Cannon Pinion Removal with Horotec Watch Hand Removing Press

Click Spring Screw on Quarter

All, Jobs, Mechanical Watch Repairs Attempted

Job 5 – Traffic Engineering Stopwatch #4 – Attempted

Watch Model: Jules Racine & Co. 1018672

Movement Model: Excelsior Park No 3364R

Year Made: ____

Mass: 79.96g (without string attached)

Outer diameter: 50.3mm

Crystal diameter: 42.75mm, 0.89mm thick

Shock-Resistant:

Disassembly Photos, Pre-Cleaning

Problems List

  • Shattered crystal.
  • Mainspring.
  • Fourth gear broken shaft.

Repair Summary

Not worth repair.

At full-throw of the pallet fork, the pallet stone does not clear the ratchet wheel tooth:

After mainspring replacement, the watch ticked through two or three teeth of the ratchet wheel, then get stuck. Normally, I would look into adjusting the ratchet wheel or pallet fork, but since the case was bent and the crystal shattered, I believe the entire movement was slightly warped throughout. When resassembling, the bridge holes didn’t quite line up, further indicating the whole movement is bent.

All, Reference and Lists

Watch Batteries by Movement

This will never be a complete list, but there does not seem to be a good list of watch battery type by model online to even get an idea. Have to start somewhere! Owner’s manuals are not always available so usually you have to open the watch and take out the old battery.

Batteries In-Stock
321
344

Bulova Accutron N7

362

S.A.K. Design

364

E5402; Bring It, The Porter 17F

371
373

Job 40

377

Wenger Victorinox Swiss Army 24908;

394
395
396
397
399

Watch Batteries in a Flash has this good cross reference once you know one of the battery identifiers.

Silver oxide batteries are the high-drain type for watches with large, bright illumination.

Alkaline batteries are “normal” watch batteries.

Also, from Watch Batteries in a Flash, PRO TIP: If you are having a hard time determining your battery, measure the width of the battery and then the height. Use the dimensions against the Dimensions column to find the battery that you need. You can also use a micrometer to measure the inside of a battery cavity to find out which battery you need.

All

AstroWideImageMapper – and Related / Similar Software

AstroWideImageMapper (AWIM)

The AstroWideImageMapper (AWIM) project aims to enable users to label images of any format – particularly wide-angle – with with pixel-by-pixel directional astronomical coordinate data, i.e. directional azimuth and altitude.

FITS Images

https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_viewer.html

FITS stands for “Flexible Image Transport System.” FITS images are indeed “images” tagged with astronomical data. There are various tools enabling the user to convert among FITS and many other image formats. While FITS images are tagged with flexible astronomical metadata, the quotes around “image” are appropriate. FITS are not strictly images, they are more like observatory data files. From the link above:

“FITS data arrays contain elements which typically represent the values of a physical quantity at some coordinate location. Consequently they need not contain any pixel rendering information in the form of transfer functions, and there is no mechanism for color look-up tables. An application should provide this functionality, either statically using a more or less sophisticated algorithm, or interactively allowing a user various degrees of choice.”

EXIF Data

https://www.cipa.jp/std/documents/e/DC-X008-Translation-2019-E.pdf

EXIF version 2.32, released in 2019, did not contain azimuth or altitude directional data. All references to altitude are location with respect to sea level, not direction. There is one reference to azimuth, but it refers to the azimuth of GPS satellites received by the camera at snapshot time.

Astro-Photography Tool

https://www.astrophotography.app/usersguide/

The primary purpose of APT is to help astro-photographers control their cameras with software and plan photo shoots of the stars.

OpenCV

https://docs.opencv.org/4.x/dc/dbb/tutorial_py_calibration.html

OpenCV is open-source python dealing with image distortion.

Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom

Adobe Photoshop has a various tools aimed at image distortion and some of the tools are included in Lightroom as well.

Google Sky

Google Sky is a phone app that enables the user to point the phone in any direction and see a labeled version of the sky in that direction. While Google Sky is impressive, it suffers from receiving its directional data entirely from the phone’s sensors, which can be particularly inaccurate because of azimuth.

Of note, I believe there is another similar app to Google Sky and there are certainly various computer programs with 3-D explorable models of the solar system, galaxy, and even universe to the extent we humans have mapped it.

TawbaWare

http://tawbaware.com/

TawbaWare is used by astro-photgraphers, but primarily focuses on image stitching rather than directional data.