email: tony@lathes.co.uk
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The Kesselmeier Watchmakers' Lathe - USA 1879

Other American Watch Lathe Patents
Conklin   De Vries   Sanderson   Holt   Jackson   Chapin   Wild   Sawyer   Hunter   Messerer   Williams

   Shaller   Stehman   Hopkins   Cowels   Woerd   Horace Moseley   Ecaubert   Daniels-Moseley   

Witart   Kesselmeier   Scholer   Shaller   St.John

Other Lathes for Watchmakers


Unfortunately, the second page of this patent - a new form of 3-jaw chuck that could be adjusted to centre work - is not available. Even so, based on the information available, the idea must surely never have been put into production for no known watchmakers' lathe has ever been found so equipped.
Although Mr Kesselmeier states in his patent that "...
any suitable lathe frame, which, however, forms no part of my invention" he does not go on to say that the patent would require a unique headstock to accept his spindle, i.e. it would not be adaptable to any existing machine. However, the outer part of the Kesselmeier chuck is mentioned in another patent, that by Sawyer for his Improvements to the Centering of Work patent which used a somewhat similar design, though with fewer parts involved in its construction. 
In a sense,  Mr Kesselmeir was anticipating the introduction of collet-mounted "Crown" or "Button" chucks such as those by Gem, Johnanson and
Scholar, the latter with US patent 553,265 of 1896 and shown in "The Watchmakers' Lathe" book by Ward Goodrich. These chucks, with their screw-on cap, are intended to hold a pocket watch "crown" - a form of knob, often domed shaped, knurled or grooved for grip, that is pulled out or pushed in to change the time or other setting on a watch. The shape of a crown made it difficult hold on older watch lathes and the advert of the Crown chuck solved the problem.
Like those proposed by other inventers in the 1800s, including Jackson, Shaller, Hopkins and St. John, Kesselmeier's designit was not a fully automatic, instantly-set system and so required the operator to manipulate the assembly in order to achieve the desired  alignment..

Other American Watch Lathe Patents
Conklin   De Vries   Sanderson   Holt   Jackson   Chapin   Wild   Sawyer   Hunter   Messerer   Williams

   Shaller   Stehman   Hopkins   Cowels   Woerd   Horace Moseley   Ecaubert   Daniels-Moseley   

Witart   Kesselmeier   Scholer   Shaller   St.John

Other Lathes for Watchmakers

lathes.co.uk
The Kesselmeier Watchmakers' Lathe - USA 1879
email: tony@lathes.co.uk
Home   Machine Tool Archive   Machine-tools Sale & Wanted
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