Pivoting. Making pivot drills. Hardening
drills. The drilling and fitting of new pivots 39

STAFF MAKING AND PIVOTING.

CHAPTER I.

To produce a good balance staff requires more skill than to produce any
other turned portion of a watch, and your success will depend not alone
on your knowledge of its proper shape and measurements, nor the tools at
your command, but rather upon your skill with the graver and your success
in hardening and tempering. There are many points worthy of consideration
in the making of a balance staff that are too often neglected. I have
seen staffs that were models as regards execution and finish, that were
nearly worthless from a practical standpoint, simply because the maker
had devoted all his time and energy to the execution of a beautiful piece
of lathe work, and had given no thought or study to the form and size of
the pivots. On the other hand, one often sees staffs whose pivots are
faultless in shape, but the execution and finish so bungling as to offset
all the good qualities as regards shape. To have good tools and the right
ideas is one thing, and to use these tools properly and make a practical
demonstration of your theory is another.

I shall endeavor to take up every point in connection with the balance
staff, from the steel to the jewels, and their relation to the pivots,
and I believe this will then convey to the reader all the necessary
points, not only as regards staffs, but pivots also, whether applied to a
balance or a pinion staff.

It may be argued, and we often do hear material dealers advance the
theory, that to-day, with our interchangeable parts and the cheapness of
all material, it is a waste of time to make a balance staff. To the
reader who takes this view of the situation I simply want to say, kindly
follow me to the end of this paragraph, and if you are still of the same
opinion, then you are wasting your time in following me farther. For a
material dealer to advance this theory I can find some excuse; he is an
interested party, and the selling of material is his bread and butter;
but the other fellow, well I never could understand him and possibly
never shall. When we seriously consider the various styles and series in
"old model" and "new model," of only one of the leading manufacturers of
watches in this country, to say nothing of the legion of small and large
concerns who are manufacturing or have manufactured in the past, and