Dial Back Movement Movement View 2, Movement View 3, Patent Tag Front Patent Tag Back, Gold Train Color
Charles Vander Woerd's Patent "Dustproof" Model Watch. In 1869 Charles Vander Woerd was awarded US Letters Patent No. 95,547 for a completely new watch design. The new watch had a heavy dial plate without pillars with milled out wells to hold the train components. The winding ratchet is inserted into a further recess in the bottom of the mainspring barrel well. Only shafts pass through the watch body to the dial side, so that it can be tightly sealed to the dial side. The back side is a flat plane with thin bridges to hold the top pivots of the train. There is a provision to add a sealing plate to the top with cut outs for the decorative bridges.
I first saw the patent for this watch when I ordered a full set of C. V. Woerd's patents from the NAWCC in 1985. I had asked many collectors and no one had ever seen an example of the watch. In 1995 during a discussion at the MIT Watch Club, Stephen Helfant showed a picture of the patent drawing and my friend Pat Caruso remarked that he had the plates of the watch! The plates differ slightly from the drawings in the patent which were made before the model was constructed. In the patent drawings the bridges are shaped more in the Jurgensen style like the American Watch Co. experimental watch 50,100.
On examination, the finish of the patent model is much finer than the description in the patent would imply. It was not designed as a low cost example. It was decided to finish the watch with an American Grade train.
The train was taken from a late American Grade KW16 gilt movement that had lost its original balance cock and balance. The balance was found in Pat Caruso's spare material from the Waltham Engineering Department. These plates and the other material were given to Pat by the Chief Engineer when the department was shut down in the 1950's.
Bill Tapp finished the assembly and miscellaneous smaller parts. This included making the entire ratchet assembly from the patent drawings and designing and constructing a left handed Fogg's Center Pinion to protect the train from mainspring breakage. The Fogg's mechanism is the reverse of that normally found in Waltham watches because the center wheel is below the barrel in height.
The dial and display case are from an 1892 model Waltham and were also supplied by Bill Tapp.
Several years after the restoration was completed, George Collord discovered the actual patent model tags in a lot of ephemera he had obtained from a mid-western collector.
Plans are still on hold for the dustproof plate for the back. The original was probably metal, but this is speculation. When the project is ultimately done it will have a glass seal on the back cut to the complement of the shape of the plates and hopefully engraved with the history of the watch.. A concept of how this might look is here.
