Watchmaker's drill turn with whalebone bow.

Made:: Unknown in unknown place

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Watchmaker's drill turn with whalebone bow.
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Watchmaker's drill turn with whalebone bow.

These are two specimens of drilling machines sometimes used by watch and clockmakers and driven by small bows.

One has a forked frame with a lug at the bottom for holding it in the vice; one end of the fork is tapped to receive an adjustable back centre and the other has a plain hole through it. The spindle has a shouldered fore-end fitting the hole, while the back centre holds the shoulder up against the bearing. The nose of the spindle is bored for the reception of the drills, and it carries a pulley at its rear end for the bow string to act upon. The other specimen has a solid brass head with a plain bearing hole in which the spindle runs. The back end of the spindle carries the driving pulley, and the front end is formed as a split chuck for holding the drills. The spindle is held in position by a pin which engages with a groove in it. A bow for use with these turns is also shown, it is of whale bone and has a fine gut band.

Details

Category:: Hand and Machine Tools

Object Number:: 1910-16

Materials:: brass, steel, whale bone and cat gut

Measurements:: Bow overall: 255 mm x 70 mm x 10 mm, .004 kg
turn: .5906 x 1.6535 x .3937 in.; 15 x 42 x 10 mm
Drill turn overall: 45 mm x 96 mm x 14 mm, .072 kg

type:: hand drill

credit:: Wimshurst, H C

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Parts

Watchmaker's turn

Watchmaker's drilling turn. The turn has a lug at its base for fitting it into the jaws of a vice. One end of the fork is drilled and tapped to recieve the adjustable back centre and the other end has a plain hole through it. The spindle has a shouldered fore end fitting the hole, whilst the back centre holds the shoulder up against the bearing. The nose of the spindle is bored for the drills. It carries a pulley at the near end for the bow string to act upon.

A turn like this was used to hold small watch parts in place. This turn was used with a whalebone bow (1910-16/2) which rotated the part in the turn in order to shape it.

Materials:: brass , steel and brass DUP 1

Object Number:: 1910-16/1

type:: hand tools

Watchmaker's whalebone bow

Watchmaker's whalebone bow. The string wraps once around the spindle of a drilling turn (1910-16/1). The bow is made from whalebone with a fine gut band.

This bow was used to turn parts held in a drilling turn which allowed the maker to shape the materials for use in watches.