Comments on: The Ray: The Watch, Not The Piano Player http://www.gearfuse.com/the-ray-the-watch-not-the-piano-player/ Gearfuse is a tech blog featuring news, views and opinions on the best of gadgets, gizmos, consumer electronics, hardware and more... Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:21:45 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: John http://www.gearfuse.com/the-ray-the-watch-not-the-piano-player/comment-page-1/#comment-186127 John Thu, 21 May 2009 17:48:36 +0000 http://www.gearfuse.com/?p=10653#comment-186127 Cool . . . slightly pricey . . . but OK for a one-off design that's made in small numbers. The "jewels" . . . and I believe it's likely 21 jewels, not 27 (assuming Citizen Miyota auto-wind). Anyway . . . the jewels in a mechanical watch movement are man-made rubies and are very tiny. They're the bearing caps for the axles (called pinions) on the gears (called wheels). If you look at a photo of the watch back (on Quiksilver) you'll see what look like red dots on the movement. Those are the ruby jewel bearing caps. Man-made ruby is actually red colored "corundum" which has extreme hardness, tends to be self-lubricating, and not only naturally polishes the ends of the pinions, it causes extremely little wear on them with very low friction . . . extending the life of the movement by decades. Nope . . . they won't make you rich . . . except that mechanical watch movements with sufficient "jeweling" in the right places will keep you from having to spend money on servicing the movement or buying a new watch for a very long time! If a movement is otherwise designed well, and isn't unduly abused, 17 or more jewels for a mechanical (hand-wind), and especially 21 or more for an auto-wind (adds a few more to the auto-wind mechanism) can create a movement that lasts 4-5 decades before it needs overhaul. :-) Cool . . . slightly pricey . . . but OK for a one-off design that’s made in small numbers. The “jewels” . . . and I believe it’s likely 21 jewels, not 27 (assuming Citizen Miyota auto-wind). Anyway . . . the jewels in a mechanical watch movement are man-made rubies and are very tiny. They’re the bearing caps for the axles (called pinions) on the gears (called wheels). If you look at a photo of the watch back (on Quiksilver) you’ll see what look like red dots on the movement. Those are the ruby jewel bearing caps.

Man-made ruby is actually red colored “corundum” which has extreme hardness, tends to be self-lubricating, and not only naturally polishes the ends of the pinions, it causes extremely little wear on them with very low friction . . . extending the life of the movement by decades. Nope . . . they won’t make you rich . . . except that mechanical watch movements with sufficient “jeweling” in the right places will keep you from having to spend money on servicing the movement or buying a new watch for a very long time! If a movement is otherwise designed well, and isn’t unduly abused, 17 or more jewels for a mechanical (hand-wind), and especially 21 or more for an auto-wind (adds a few more to the auto-wind mechanism) can create a movement that lasts 4-5 decades before it needs overhaul. :-)

]]>