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The Evolution of Time Keeping

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Before the advent of cheap watches, mechanical watches, and other advanced products of the sort, there was an evolution of time keeping that occurred.  In the earliest of civilizations, before time keeping was extremely accurate, people used interesting and quite scientific methods for keeping track of the flow of time.

Once society became coherent and educated, the intelligent of the day figured out ways to know the time, month, and season via where the stars were in the sky.  This involved a lot of advanced calculations and invented tools.  The Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas are some of the people most famous for their unique ways of time keeping, and travelers still can make use of their systems to this very day.

As time progressed, time keeping systems regressed from the outermost celestial bodies and to the ones more closer to us, such as the sun and moon.  The months we follow currently are based on the sun, while certain other countries track their months on the cycles of the moon.  The discrepancies in these cycles are not too large, but there is definitely a noticeable difference.

Currently the focus has been on the more broader aspects of time, but in our daily lives, what really matters is the time of day.  We each do certain things in the morning, others in the afternoon, and yet more activities at night.  While you can somewhat guess the time based on how light it is out, it is very difficult to pinpoint the exact time.  The sun dial was a practical solution that let everybody know what time it was.  It operates by casting a thin shadow from its style (the thin, vertical apparatus stretching from the dial), and where that shadow falls depends on the position of the sun.   For a sun dial to be accurate, it must be set up in a certain way, such that it is pointing true North and is aligned properly with the rotation of the Earth.

Since sun dials are hard to set up and are not very practical for the individual, mechanically-minded beings figured out how to make smaller time keeping devices, such as pocket and wristwatches.  The earliest watches were very basic and were prone to breaking quickly, but we all know to what extent watchmaking has progressed to today.  Some watches are impervious to bullets and sharp drops, and many have features that people did not even dream about just one hundred years ago.

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How a Mechanical Watch Works: Part Two

Thursday, July 9, 2009

In Part One, we went over the importance of winding a watch, how the mainspring worked, and the basics of the internal components of a mechanical watch.  Remember, cheap watches and expensive watches alike have the same internal components, it is only the quality of said components that separates the two categories of watches from each other.

As you can recall, the mainspring is stored with a lot of potential energy from the winding of the watch, and it slowly releases kinetic energy in order to make the watch function.  However, without further control, there would be no stable rate of release and the watch would be completely useless.  That is why a device known as a “motion works” is necessary in all mechanical watches.

A motion works essentially interprets the energy being released by the mainspring and converts it in to something that you can visually interpret, which is represented via the hands on a watch.  The motion works is set up so that for every twelve revolutions of the minute hand, there is one revolution of the hour hand.  This makes sense, because it takes twelve hours for the hour hand to get all the way around the clock.  In addition, the motion works is actually what makes the hour and minute hands move.  The precise control is managed by the gearing of the motion works and by another part called the escapement.

The escapement is an important part of managing the energy flow of the mainspring.  It consists of an escape wheel, pallet and fork, and balance assembly, which includes a number of small parts including a balance wheel.  Altogether, the escapement ensures the accuracy of the watch, and a properly adjusted escapement can keep time very accurately, only going off a second or two per day.  Of course, this adds up and over a month or two the watch may be behind by a minute, which is why it is important to adjust the time on your watch occasionally to counter this imperfection.

This only takes in to account some of the mechanisms needed for keeping time.  If the watch has other features added, such as a calendar, then there are other parts that are necessary to make this function as well.  As watches become more and more complex, so will the internal machinery, which means watchmakers will have a continuous amount of new information to learn if they want to keep up with the industry.

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Cheap Watches for Women

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

When it comes to jewelry and women, most people think about the classical items such as necklaces, bracelets, and cheap engagement rings.  Many can easily forget that a watch can also be considered jewelry, especially if it is elegant.  For a woman, a watch can be a great complement to their other attire, and you do not need to break the bank when buying such a watch.  There are many cheap watches out there that are fitting for ladies, although you cannot skimp out as much for a woman as you can for yourself (if you are a man, that is). Also, women especially appreciate handmade jewelry.

Women’s watches differ considerably from what a man would desire.  For one, women usually prefer watches that are smaller and not too big or bulky.  A strong, bold watch might suit a man very well, but it would look unnatural for a woman to wear such a thing.  Still, it is important for women to wear a watch of some sort, not only for the appearance but because of the purpose; at some point, everybody needs to know what time it is.

Women often need more customization in their watches, although this can drive up the price somewhat.  Watches come in all styles and are made from many kinds of materials, such as gold, silver, and platinum.  Some people prefer their watches to be studded with different types of gems, especially diamonds (which unfortunately is not cheap at all).  For a woman, a watch is more like an ornament than a tool, even though it functions as both.  Along the lines of customization, many watches now automatically adjust to the wearer, so anybody can wear the watch without having to spend time figuring out how to get it on them.  Watches also featured multi-colored straps, so you can change the color of that to match whatever is being worn.

Men’s watches are increasingly being filled with new features that, although they will probably never be used, are quite cool.  Women typically would not use said features at all, and since they would only take up space, watches designed for women usually only show the time, and at most the date as well.  The most important attribute of a women’s watch is its sleekness, and when the watch is crowded with almost a dozen features, the watch loses its feminine appeal.  Most women will be happy with a simple watch as long as it appeals to their personal tastes and interests.

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Saving Money on Cheap Watches

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

With watches being as expensive as they are, it is important to try to save as much money as possible.  There are many ways to find cheap watches online, in your neighborhood, or somewhere else altogether.  Even if you want a high quality watch, there are still methods to get them for lower than retail prices.

When trying to save money, the first place you always want to check is eBay.  This auction house stocks literally billions of products, including tons of great cheap watches.  The reason eBay is so cheap is because the mass amount of users creates a significant amount of competition, so individuals need to make their prices as competitive as possible.  Although prices are usually cheap, there are ways to find even better deals.  For example, you can take advantage of misspellings and find items that nobody else does, which helps you since there will be less people bidding on that particular item.  Remember, eBay can get quite expensive if you get in to a bidding war with another user, so if a cheap watch goes above what you are willing to pay, just back out of the auction and seek out a different one.

For the record, although eBay is by far the most well known auction site, there are many others out there that have fewer users but better deals.  It may take more time if you browse through multiple websites, but you can often save a lot of money, in which case your time investment would pay off.  However, there are also cases where the best deals are to be found on eBay, so you have to be careful with how you spend your time.

Off the computer, you can find cheap watches at a variety of places.  If you live in a residential neighborhood, odds are that yard sales are bound to pop up.  Yard sales are notorious for having fantastic savings opportunities, and sometimes the vendors do not even know the value of what they are selling.  We’ve all heard stories of people picking up very valuable items for next to nothing at a yard sale, and you too can have the same experience if you look hard enough.  Of course, the neighbor has to be ignorant to the value as well, so luck plays as much a role as determination.

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How a Mechanical Watch Works: Part One

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

It is important to know about the things we use in our lives, and watches are no different.  Digital watches are completely electronic and do not follow the same principles that a mechanical watch does, so they can be completely disregarded.  Whether a particular watch belongs to the category of deluxe watches or cheap watches, the laws it follows will be uniform.

Like any mechanical object, there needs to be some kind of energy powering the product.  With a watch, this power is provided by winding the watch with your fingers.  Everyone knows that it is necessary to wind a watch tightly, but the physical mechanics of this escapes most people.

What you are turning with the crown is the mainspring, which is a narrow and long spring that ultimately makes all the other components in the watch move.  Springs are great for storing potential energy, which is just one of many types of energy that exists in the universe.  Since the spring is so small, just a little bit of effort from your fingers results in a lot of potential energy, and not much of it is needed to power the small gears inside a watch.  If one were to wind a watch fifty times bigger than themselves, it could take hours or days to wind it completely.

The mainspring is stored inside of a small container that functions as the first gear in a series of gear.  It meshes with another small gear and turns that, which in turn causes another gear to move, and so on.  This is the basic principle of a watch or any geared mechanism works.

As you know, it only takes a few winds for a watch to last weeks or months.  If there were no further system of control, the energy would immediately be converted to kinetic energy, and the gears would spin too quickly, and the practicality of keeping time would be lost.  Therefore, there needs to be something that controls the rate of spinning, and to such a degree that the rate is even, controlled, and matches what we humans have designated to be seconds, minutes, and hours.  This part of watchmaking is more complicated than previous segments, but those who are trained in this art have no problem understanding and applying these principles.

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Welcome to Very Cheap Watches

Monday, July 6, 2009

Hello, thank you for visiting VeryCheapWatches.com!  You can find great resources here about purchasing cheap watches, as well as all other sorts of information.  After spending a few weeks having this as your home page, I’m sure you’ll come to love it as much as I do.

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