Cartoon Wednesday

 

The Roger Malinowski Tribute Part 2 - The Boot Shop - Finished

I realized that I never showed off the finished pictures of the Boot Shop. Now a guided tour lead by your favorite prospector: 

The Roger Malinowski Tribute Part 3 - The Market

I have snuck in fifteen minutes here, fifteen minutes there working on this particular kit. This is the Market, part of the Stoney Creek Designs Crossroads Collection, a series of kits that were not part of his limited edition line of kits. This one is obviously based on the bakery in Silver Plume Colorado. However, the door way is squared off rather than the angled door on the original. Other than that its pretty darn close, by the way Banta Modelworks makes a version of this particular building as well.

I have run into a lot of issues with this kit, several self-inflicted, some by actually following the instructions. Because of that I'm doing a lot more dry fitting and trying to make sure everything actually fits. I think the biggest gripe with these kits is the 1/16th inch thick plywood that makes up the basic shell. Its really quite fragile during the construction phase. And those windows, they are huge! And I really messed them up, enough so that I think I'm going to try and find another unbuilt kit and try it again.

Obviously this one is not done, but since I can't seem to actually post anything I thought I would get something out there.

Family Heirloom - Pocket Watch

My Mom gave me this old family pocket watch sometime ago. Over the weekend I had acquired another pocket watch and since I had some tools out I decided to see what I could learn about this one.

The first observation is pretty obvious, right on the face is the manufacturer's name. In this case the Elgin National Watch Co. Next step was to see if it still worked at all. I could set the hands without a problem but it definitely wasn't winding properly which puts it in the non-working category.

Next step, open it up. I unscrewed the bezel pulled the stem and pulled the stem all the way out. This disengages the stem from the interior works. The inner case then swings out on a hinge which allows you to get to the back of the watch. On the back we see a repeat of the company name, the serial number and usually the number of jewels. In this case the number of jewels is not listed. I think what amazes me about these watch is that they used serial numbers. On top of that there are extensive databases online where these numbers are listed.

This particular watch's serial number is 2639357. The key points to take away are that this is a Grade 96 (quality and type of movement), Model 4 (factory model group) and was produced around 1888 and it has 7 Jewels (basically the more jewels the better). They made approximately 566,000 copies of this watch over the years! From a production standpoint that makes this a pretty common pocket watch. None the less now I need to sit down with Mom and see if she remembers who it belonged to.

I'm still in search of a military, particularly navigation, pocket watches, although I have a lead on that now. There are plenty out there its just about how much money you want to part with.

Cartoon Wednesday