The Ingold Fraise- anyone here use one?

[Ophiuchus]

I recently acquired an original edition of Daniels' Watchmaking, and I'm reading it like a man obsessed. (By the way, why does the new revised edition by Daniels, that was due out late last year, keep getting pushed back for release in the US????)

I came across a rather unique tool called the Ingold Fraise, on page 133. After realizing what it can be used to achieve, namely, dressing wheels and pinions even further than a topping tool allows, I became extremely curious.

The tool itself is a bow operated "fraise", or specialized file, that files the teeth forms down to an even finer finish than a topping tool allows, and it does this with a cutter shaped like a gear, but with small ridges perpendicularly placed on the teeth. It's use thus files the gear teeth to a perfect epicycloid form with the correct fraise choice with an axial path-
i.e. it files the shape of the teeth away in the direction of the tooth engagement, from the bottom out to the tip radiating away from the center of the wheel, in a way no other tool can.

This leaves a very finely finished gear tooth profile that can dramatically improve precision in the watch.

I did a lot of research on the inventor, Pierre Frédéric Ingold, and found he worked with A.L. Breguet in his later years, and moved on to invent this amazing tool for patent on June 26 1856- an engineer named Le Blanc filed the patent for Ingold on his behalf, with the description of “machine suitable to retouch gear wheels, to form the epicycloid curve and to give them the required shape”. I found all of this info from 2 very good translated documents on the life of Ingold, done by the fantastic Richard Watkins.

As horological tools go, I realize that a near total lack of info on this tool, coupled with less than 3 pictures of it including Daniels' book, mean it must have been obscure indeed, used only by the most precise of watchmakers. But from the description of it, I would love to find the patent for it, or any detailed pictures or information on it. I belong to several good patent search sites, but nothing is showing up for this. From what I've found, the fraise gears themselves are very hard to find, and I was wondering if anyone still makes these things for watchmakers.

Finally, I was wondering if any of the more eminent among us have used or do use this tool, and could offer any insight on it.

[whiskeybelly]

Ingold fraises are almost impossible to find. Most of the known sets seem to be owned by collectors; I have a watchmaker friend who has a complete set and have used them on occasion. They are more of a finishing tool than anything.

With rounding up tools, you can use them to completely form the profile of the teeth- all that's needed is that the wheel be divided with gashes made by a slitting saw of an appropriate thickness beforehand. I have done this many times when I was lacking the proper wheel cutter (I have many many wheel cutters but even more rounding up cutters ).

The Ingold fraise, as you pointed out, leaves a fine finish and the cutter marks are radial rather than axial as would be left from a normal cutter. This can help the efficiency of the train rather dramatically. The problem is that they are tedious to use, and if set incorrectly can do more damage than good. I've no idea how they were made and am quite curious about it. I imagine they were cut on a type of shaper; a shaper is a machine that can perform most of the functions of a milling machine but the cutting tool is held rigidly in the head and the machine moves this back and forth. The advantage is that quite complex tooling can be made and profiles cut that would be impossible with a normal revolving cutter.

Modern gears are almost universally made on hobbing machines. These machines use a cutter which is in the form of a thread, and both the cutter and workpiece revolve at at the same time. This is achieved through gearing or in late machines with computer control. Hobbed gears are extremely uniform, and the finish attainable is very very good. I think this has killed almost any need for retouching them.

The idea of the Ingold fraise is genius, but there just wasn't ever enough need for them to become widespread in use.

[Paul Loatman]

What exactly does the profile of the cutters for these look like? I can't find any decent pictures of them, but the way i understand it they're like this;



If so, then i'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult doing this on the lathe, it would just require different angles of cuts.

[Ophiuchus]

Paul, I think I have a picture of their profile in my copy of Watchmaking. I'll scan it and post it later today for you.

If someone who has one of these rare sets of fraises, though, would care to put them on a scanner together and scan them, so we could all see how the fraise profiles are, that may help a lot more.

I've been entertaining the idea of having fraises made- the bow seems simple enough, it seems to be the fraises themselves that are the difficult piece to make. If I could see their profiles and how they are numbered/spaced, I could draw up profiles for common fraises and have some cut with an EDM machine.

[Paul Loatman]

Paul, I think I have a picture of their profile in my copy of Watchmaking. I'll scan it and post it later today for you.

If someone who has one of these rare sets of fraises, though, would care to put them on a scanner together and scan them, so we could all see how the fraise profiles are, that may help a lot more.

I'd really appreciate that, because i'm quite interested in these as well.

I've been entertaining the idea of having fraises made- the bow seems simple enough, it seems to be the fraises themselves that are the difficult piece to make. If I could see their profiles and how they are numbered/spaced, I could draw up profiles for common fraises and have some cut with an EDM machine.

After reading this thread some time ago i did some searching on the net and came across a website with pictures of a set, and i agree completely about the bow, it's quite simple and something similar could easily be improvised, it's just the cutters that would be the real issue. If any machine could make these it's an EDM machine. Let us know if you get them made.

[Tibichi Ovidiu]

here's one auction that ended recently on ebay :Beau et petit compas aux engrenages horloger horlogerie

[Ophiuchus]

Paul, hopefully this uploads properly. I really need to create a website someday so I have a place to host images.

This is scanned from my 1981 copy of George Daniels' Watchmaking.
As far as I have extensively searched, this was the best description I could find for it's use and the fraise profiles.



I feel an EDM machine would make the best fraises, I assume they used progressive broaches to make the things back in the day. I see no reason these couldn't be resurrected as a useful tool, however, to do so, I would either have to talk with someone
who made them, or figure out exactly how the fraises are shaped for specific sized teeth- and to do the latter, I'd need someone to send me a very high res scan against white paper of a full set of fraises. Documentation that came with fraise sets would be
helpful too.

It would probably involve recreating an equation to determine profiles, and be a lot of work, but it could be done.

Are there really no companies left still producing these, no matter how niche? Nowhere? Constructing new tools from past examples can be done, but I'd need more information.

With all the prominent watchmakers among us, I'm sure someone here possesses a set.

[Paul Loatman]

Thank you Ophiuchus, That picture really helps, they're much more complicated than i had thought.

Maybe these are still being made somewhere, but i doubt it. Like Wiskeybelly said, hobbing cutters pretty much extinguished all need for these.

[Ophiuchus]

While whiskybelly was correct, in that modern hobbing cutters produce a much better finish than the old topping cutters, I still think the fraise could be useful.

There are independent makers that don't have hobbing machines, and in principal, even hobbing cutters still make cuts perpendicular to the way the gear train moves the teeth. This should mean that the fraise may still improve gear train efficiency beyond a hobbing cutter in theory, but we'd need to test a modern, well-made production watch with gears cut on a hobbing machine, and then test it's rates after professional fraising with a set of Ingold's fraises. Since the fraises by my accounts, were used before modern hobbing cutters, I wonder if anyone has tried this yet on a modern hobbed watch gear to see if it does improve it.

At the very least it would make an interesting test.

Perhaps I take it too far because I'm also reading Pioneers Of Precision Timekeeping, an old collection with pictures of the oldest high precision watches made- Mudge's Queen Charlotte watch (first supposed lever watch), Harrison's H5, and others. Reading this book and seeing the lengths some went to reduce error even far beyond the normal in the tiniest details, things like the fraise really grab my attention. After all, if the quest is for the greatest possible precision, even lost methods may still be useful.

[Paul Loatman]

While whiskybelly was correct, in that modern hobbing cutters produce a much better finish than the old topping cutters, I still think the fraise could be useful.

There are independent makers that don't have hobbing machines, and in principal, even hobbing cutters still make cuts perpendicular to the way the gear train moves the teeth. This should mean that the fraise may still improve gear train efficiency beyond a hobbing cutter in theory, but we'd need to test a modern, well-made production watch with gears cut on a hobbing machine, and then test it's rates after professional fraising with a set of Ingold's fraises. Since the fraises by my accounts, were used before modern hobbing cutters, I wonder if anyone has tried this yet on a modern hobbed watch gear to see if it does improve it.

At the very least it would make an interesting test.

Perhaps I take it too far because I'm also reading Pioneers Of Precision Timekeeping, an old collection with pictures of the oldest high precision watches made- Mudge's Queen Charlotte watch (first supposed lever watch), Harrison's H5, and others. Reading this book and seeing the lengths some went to reduce error even far beyond the normal in the tiniest details, things like the fraise really grab my attention. After all, if the quest is for the greatest possible precision, even lost methods may still be useful.

Well, that's the thing, there aren't very many independent watchmakers out there and i'd imagine a good set of these to last a lifetime so there really wouldn't be much of a client base for selling them. Maybe people doing restorations would benefit as well, but even then, they may not justify the costs over what they actually do.

I'm all for it personally since it would help me in the future though. I'm sure the watch Daniels made for Seth Atwood had wheels that were finished with these considering the accuracy it was capable of.

[Ophiuchus]

Since the auction pictures are as far as I can tell, publicly viewable, I am posting them here for educational posterity. It seems there was indeed a booklet with it describing it's use. I would have loved to have seen it.
Did someone here end up buying them? One of the pictures had what looked like basic instructions on selecting the cutter in it- since I use linux, I am going to attempt to add french input to my computer, and try to type the instructions to be translated.
I may be able to at least get basic cutter selection instructions translated if I'm lucky.

[Paul Loatman]

If i had known there was a set for sale somewhere i would have tried to win it.

Do you mind messaging me a link to the auction?

[Ophiuchus]

Paul, the auction already ended. The link was posted above by Tibichi as hotlink text. I just saved the pictures for posterity here.

I've contacted renowned horological historian David Penney to see if he has any leads on this device. If anyone on earth can direct me, he might be able to. He has a fantastic site
here: http://www.antiquewatchshop.co.uk/

[Paul Loatman]

Paul, the auction already ended. The link was posted above by Tibichi as hotlink text. I just saved the pictures for posterity here.

I've contacted renowned horological historian David Penney to see if he has any leads on this device. If anyone on earth can direct me, he might be able to. He has a fantastic site
here: http://www.antiquewatchshop.co.uk/

Ah, i didn't even notice his post...

Wow, the price it sold for is a lot less than i would have paid. If i had seen this when it was still up i would have tried to get it.

I've seen David's website, he has a lot of very unique watches, some with rare escapements.

Another person to ask is Ian Coote at; http://www.horo-logical.co.uk/index.html He has a page about the ingold fraise and i assume he owns it.

[whiskeybelly]

That's the nicest set of Ingold fraises I've ever seen!

These could be of use to makers doing extremely short runs or one-off watches. But there are other areas one can concentrate on that will have a more dramatic effect on the actual timekeeping than dressing wheels with these cutters. In particular, pinions get little of the attention that they used to, and there is a very real advantage in finishing them correctly.

One of the 'big' high end makers in Switzerland did as everyone else did some years ago and stopped finishing their pinions with wood discs in specialized machines, and started sending them out for batch electrolytic polishing. They started having trouble with a particular precision clock they make, the power transmission was too poor to run it. A respected independent helped them out with an old polishing machine (theirs had since gone to the foundry for scrap), and all was well again. I've heard that the specialist pinion makers are offering wood polishing again. Too bad the maker of the polishing machines has long since gone out of business ; I assume the machines are made to order now by other firms.

If someone did make these fraises available again, I would definitely be in line to buy a set though.