how many jewels?

[cavi]

What is the difference between 17 jewels, 23 jewels and so forth?  What do more or less jewels do?

[Mike on a bike]

Good one I will let the more watch techy movement guys chime in on specifics..   But in most cases the more the better , now to the caveats and such in regard to different movements...................... , we are detail guys !

[Nanuq]

In days of yore they added more jewels to make a better movement, and because "more is better". So you wound up with 100-jewel movements with tiny rubies around the perimeter of the oscillating rotor, where they did absolutely nothing at all.

Jewels reduce friction, so more jewels in the gear train of a watch means less friction and longer life.

http://elginwatches.org/help/watch_jewels.html

[cavi]

thanks

[Mendota Explorer]

Interesting. I always wondered what they did, too.

[kbh]

A little more detail regarding the jewels in our ETA/clone movements.

 

17 jewels was all that were required for these and most simple movements until the jewel wars heated up. ETA added the extra jewels into the winding module where most of them went into the two reversing gears. Most experts at the time found this to be a marketing ploy more than an actual benefit since, one, they were not in use near as much as in other parts of the gear train that were jeweled and in constant motion, and secondly, those parts were very cheap and easy to replace during a normal servicing. So in reality the older 17 jewel movements are just as reliable.

[Mendota Explorer]

Are they real or synthetic jewels?

[chronoluvvv]

all the jewels i've ever needed were endowed to me in one single famous fail-safe pair

[Nanuq]

I think Ken is down to a one-jewel movement. 

[bassboink]

I love all the technical articles on forum! makes me proud to study engineering! Maybe there could even be a technical subforum........ Would be interested in handcrafting my own movement down the road.