The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Just got this from the watchmaker a week ago.






It’s a Ball-Hamilton 999B in a Ball Model case that is marked for the Ray W. Gumm Watch Company. This means that it is a “loaner” watch that would be lent to railroad employees when their watch was turned in for service or repair. Ray W. Gumm was a watch inspector for the Frisco Railroad, Missouri Pacific Railroad and Rock Island Railroad. He had stores in Hugo and Enid, Oklahoma; Wichita, Kansas and an office in Denver Union Station.

Very Nice, once upon a time we made nice things here in America.

Our metal fabrication shop at the museum puts out a lot of good work. We do a lot of specialty machine work doing everything from making parts for production line machinery to battery cases for marine life gps tracking devices.

We have gone too far in pushing college as the primary means to a good middle class living. There are plenty of trades that need more new journeymen and women. We need more machinists, construction trades and such. Watchmakers are also in demand, as the US Census Bureau now reports that there are fewer than 1,900 professional watchmakers in the country. My watchmaker has been servicing watches since he was twelve years old-his Dad was a watchmaker. He apprenticed to his Dad and went to watchmaker school.

I started in 1995 running manual machines. Currently run a Haas CNC. We make whatever comes through the door.

None of our machines are CNC. We have a couple of Bridgeports and three lathes of varying sizes-one of which was built in Germany as WWII reparations. Most of the machines were donated to our museum by local machine shops and restored by our master machinist. We're currently training up a couple of guys to assist him in production work. We do a lot of specialty work that other machine shops pass on, including rush jobs. In addition to machining, we do fabrication of items such as (but not limited to) security doors. The machine shop has grown in size and is constantly being improved. "Profits" from the machine shop were about $30,000 last year and all funds go to fund projects of our non-profit museum.

I enjoy seeing all these old time pieces you post. It amazes me how intricate the mechanisms on watches are. Yet for years they were all handmade. It's definitely a skill lost on today's generation.