TALKING DIAL WITH DON AUKAMP-THE DIAL MAKER

Don Aukamp recently celebrated his 90th birthday with his family in Telluride, Colorado. Don was born in Lancaster, PA and graduated from Lampeter High School near Lancaster in 1952. He went to work immediately at Theo. R. Schwalm Dial Co in Lancaster as a machine operator. He worked making dials for 48 years, ending up there as Product Manager. Theo Schwalm started at the Hamilton Watch Company in the 30s as an electrician and over the years became the foremen of their dial department. He left Hamilton in 1948 and began making applied numeral dials in his basement, moving to a separate building a year later. Schwalm made dials for Gruen, Benrus, Croton, some Hamilton and Timex among many others. In the early 50's he began making the cheaper embossed dial in volume and by the 60s and 70s Schwalm Dial made 5 million dials per year with 250 employees. The company continued making expensive applied gold dials, diamond dials and various other award dials. The medallion dial became quite popular in the late 80's and Schwalm made thousands of them using a 100-ton screw press. The college medallion watch was quite popular, and the company made the dies and produced dials for most of the major colleges and universities in the country. It was at this time that they also set up a casing department so that they could produce a complete medallion watch for their customers. The company was owned by Richard Gockley, Schwalm's son-in-law, before the passing of Mr. Schwalm. Gockley sold the company in 1999-2000 to Terryberry Co., an awards company located in Grand Rapids, Mich. Two years later the company was again sold to S & S, a competitor in Tulsa, Okla. Former Product Manager Aukamp, and former General Manager Roy Munro stayed with the new company for a few months, then resigned and started a new company, Logo Time, for the production and casing of all types of emblem watches. They were immediately given work from Hamilton as Hamilton had, by this time, moved from its original buildings to a neighboring industrial park and had given up their dial department several years prior.

I asked Don a few questions about dial making.

1. Question - How were the AGN numerals and indexes made? Answer- Mark, they would order gold wire, roll a small flat on the wire and then chop it into small pieces. These gold pieces were then swagged on a 5-ton press to make a small, flat blank with the two .010" dia. pins protruding on the bottom. These were trimmed in small die stands on a small 1-ton bench press turning out the various numerals and indexes for the applied dials. The parts were either polished on jasper stones (numerals) or faceted on machine shop shapers (indexes) later using Swiss fly- cutting machines.
2. Question - How were those small numerals polished, they are so tiny? - Answer - We would use a round piece of linoleum about the size of a silver dollar and press the parts into the linoleum. The assembled linoleum block was then" rubbed" on flat abrasive stones and finally polished by again "rubbing" the blocks on a flat dark green jasper stone. In later years I developed a method of glueing the numerals on a 2" dia. steel block with grooves. The block was held on a small lathe and a spinning diamond tool cut the surfaces of the numerals on the block. They were then removed by dissolving the glue and washing the parts.
3. Question - How were the applied dials themselves made? Answer - High quality (scratch-free) brass stock was purchased in coils. They were cut into small pieces 1 1⁄2" square, then pierced with a center hole and two locating holes at the outer edge of the blank at 12 and 6. The dial was then blanked out on a 10-ton press to whatever diameter or shape was required.
4. Question - How were the dial feet attached? Answer - The original method in the '50s used a fixture that located the feet, several small solder "washers" were slipped over the feet and a small hand-held soldering torch soldered the feet fast to the dial. This was quite time consuming and very soon the company purchased foot welding equipment from Switzerland. These machines used solder-filled dial feet. The dial lay on the bed of the machine and the dial feet were placed into vertical holding fixtures which were then lowered onto the dial and an electric charge would "tack" the feet to the dial. The dial was then run through a conveyor belt oven and the solder in the foot would melt and securely fasten them. In later years we also purchased a used foot welder from a company that owned the old Hamilton dial department equipment. That machine actually welded solid dial feet to the dial. However, Schwalm Dial always preferred the soldering technique with the ovens, and we eventually had four of these.
5. Question - How were the holes put into the dial blanks for the applied gold numeral dials? - Answer - The numeral and index pins were either .008", .010", .013" in diameter and those small holes were drilled into the dial blank with the blank held in a fixture and the drill put through a template that located the drill in the proper places. Later, we began to pierce holes using small piercing machines that I purchased in Switzerland after finding three of them in an engineer’s garage during a visit there. We would purchase the small piercing ends from a local screw machine operator and these small parts were replaced in the piercing fixtures when one of them broke. It was amazing to me how long some of them would last! This operation was performed before the dial foot was welded and blanked to size by using the 12 & 6 o’clock positions locating holes pierced into the square dial blank at the beginning. (see question 3) After these operations were done the dials were buffed and cleaned in an ultra-sonic cleaner.
6. Question - How was the Butler silver or Pebble White finishes done? Answer - Butler finish dials were cleaned, bright dipped and then plated in a silver strike tank for a few seconds and then plated in a slower plating tank. The dials were then brushed in the desired way using pumice and water. The grain finish was done using silver powder, cream of tartar and salt. This mixture was "rubbed" on the dial. Once this was done the dials were lacquered and the various printing was then done on pad printing machines. The high volumes in later years required us to semi-automate the manual pad printing machines so they could be cycled with a foot pedal, vastly increasing speed, particularly for the inexpensive dials.
7. Question - How were black nickel dials done? - Answer - Basically the same as butler dials but the plating was black nickel. This was a very difficult bath to maintain, and the plated dial required a special lacquer to make them shiny. We later converted mostly to black spray enamel.
8. Question - How were embossed dials made? - Answer - The vast amount of our embossed dials used male, and female dies so the presses were about 15-ton and the heavy die stands were set so that the operator could move the stock across the locating pins to the tune of about 1,000 per hour! These die stands were equipped with 4 stations: locating holes, center hole, embossing, and blanking. Quite expensive to build! The Timex dials did not require feet but needed two tabs to hold them on a movement. These tabs were part of the press operation and a fifth station on the die stand produced the dial with the tabs. The tabs were then bent under the dial in a secondary operation instead of requiring foot-welding. The medallion dial was made on our 100-ton screw press located in a pit in the basement due to its size and weight. This heavy press was necessary because there was a female die at the top and a smooth die on the bottom forcing the press to actually cause its pressure to melt the brass for a moment causing it to flow into the female die. All of that happened in a micro-second. The embossed dials were formed, if necessary, then foot welded and sent to the finishing room. The screw press dials needed to have center hole made, blanking done, and feet welded, then sent to finishing. After finishing the dials got a protective coat of water lacquer and were then sent to the cutting room where the numerals and indexes were cut with diamond cutting machines. The dials were held to the machine with vacuum and the operator, looking through a scope would cut the tops of the numerals and indexes in various ways with the fly-cutting wheel on the machine. Dials then had the water lacquer removed and final lacquer applied.
9. Question - How were the AGN numerals applied - Answer – All numerals and indexes were applied by hand with fine tweezers with a plastic piece on the other end for pressing the part without scratching it. Sometimes a piece of peg wood would be used.
10. Question – In regard to all those Hamilton printing dies I purchased from you that were from the 40's to the 90's, why did Hamilton use round dies and everyone else use square ones? - Answer – I do not know! Hamilton chrome plated their dies after engraving. They did this so that they could remove the plating and correct a badly scratched plate and then re-plate it for use. The Schwalm plates were of soft steel and then hardened after engraving. Both companies employed hand engravers. Cal Allison was the old timer I remember at Hamilton and Mike Gockley, Dicks brother, learned the skill at Hamilton and later came to work for Schwalm.
11. Question - Why do some of the dies have the complete minutes, hour and sub second tracking with the name Hamilton etched on the plates; then other plates have just the tracks and no name? Answer - Good question; and I have no idea. When it’s all on one die it makes it easier to line up and faster to print. All Schwalm dies had the names on the track plates for the embossed dials we made.

 I have a great story for you Mark. Ted Schwalm went to the Basel Fair in Switzerland in the late 60's. That is the yearly event that features all the watch and equipment companies that create anything watches. He gathered everyone in the company conference room when he got back and slid about 6 watch dials out on the table, announcing, "Men, we might soon be out of business!". He explained that they were plastic dials made with the new injection molding technique that made a complete dial (with feet) from plastic. They looked 100% like brass dials! Lucky for everyone, the product never came to market, and no one ever knew why.

​One last story for you.  I had bought the entire cabinet of 18K gold numerals and indexes from Hamilton when they discontinued their dial department. That cabinet contained 100's of small metal tins with 500 gold parts in each tin. There might have been 100,000 parts there; we never counted them. They had real value, and we even sold some to dial refinishers for replacements on dials. They also had valuable applied gold letters for watches and pocket watches that were used for personalization. When it was decided to sell the company in 1999, Dick Gockley came into my office where the cabinet was kept carrying a clear plastic 1 gallon trash bag and began dumping each tin of gold parts into the bag. He then walked out to our safe which contained our large inventory of gold parts and dumped all of them into the bag. He must have had 10 lbs. of 14K and 18K gold in that bag when he returned to his office! I guess as the owner, he was entitled to that, but I never forgot it!
 
Interview with Don by Mark  was done on 2-21-25.