aaronm
2923
More about motor barrels
In a traditional watch the mainspring is wound from by the central arbor and turns the watch mechanism from the outside of the barrel. In a motor-barrel design, everything is reversed, the watch is wound from the outside and drives from the arbor (it's more complicated then that, but that's the final outcome). This was critical in the time post-fusee and pre-unbreakable-mainspring, when a broken mainspring could destroy the guts of a watch an many different patents were taken out (safety pinions being the most common) to try and prevent this. A motor-barreled watch was immune, if the sprint broke, most of the power would be towards the steel winding gears, which could handle it. The invention of the unbreakable mainspring and the further development of the slip-bridle for automatic watches made this invention obsolete...
On the other hand it's a great little bit of American watch history for RGM to include.
I can't wait to see how that watch looks when done, that moon-phase is something else!
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Available on the marketplace
32 De Bethune listings are live on the eBay market and 28 collector listings on the WatchProSite marketplace.
RGM at the GTE 2012
More about motor barrels
Motor Barrel is Superior to a conventional barrel... more
Motor barrel outside the US
Love the Cal 20
discovered something new
As a proud owner of an RGM 130...
An underappreciated maker in my view....
Thank You, Don
..it's even better in teh flesh (metal)!
Quite like some of Roland's creations
