GENIUS RESIDES IN DISGUISE OF WATCHMAKER

Charles Minor, ex-Wainfleet Man, Holds Reputation for Skilled Craftmanship

[The Welland Tribune and Telegraph, 21 April 1921]

Dr. E.J. Barrick of Salvadore Sask. sends us an interesting clipping from Victoria Daily Times relating to an ex-Wainfleet man who has not been heard from for a number of years. A.R. Minor and D.W. Minor of Wainfleet are nephews. The article is as follows:

Victoria holds within her borders in Charles William Minor, one to whom accuracy has been a guiding star for forty useful years of achievement.

“Charlie” as he is known to his circle of friends in every walk of life holds the reputation for being the most ingenious watchmaker on the continent. He has worked at his profession for the past forty years ever since he made his first watch with a Toronto firm when he was only eighteen years of age. Now he is getting along towards the further end of the road of life. Holding as his motto “a man is as old as he feels”, Mr. Minor is fifty-seven years young, born a Canadian of Canadian parents in the year 1864. His workshop is in the Glengarry Apartments on Cook Street without name or sign.

In all the intricacies of mechanical problems that have come before him in forty years he has yet to meet a problem in the highest realms of mechanical accuracy that he cannot overcome.

Makes Own Tools

Typical of the inventive genius and viewpoint of Mr. Minor is the fact that he has in the past forty years made watch-making and repair tools and instruments that cannot be bought by the remainder of his trade to-day. Working for months at a time he has perfected model after model of instruments that now do his daily work for him and consist of the standard tools of the watch trade.

These tools he had made himself from the rough steel, cutting them out, tempering them in his own workshop and solely by himself. His tempering solution is a secret which he guards more closely than anything else of the really exceptional achievements of which he had been capable. All tools are made to fit his lathe which in itself is a model of perfectness with attachments that guide his work in a manner that is not only not possible, but still undreamed of in the accepted trade practice of watch-making.

With these gems from his own brain Mr. Minor will make a watch from beginning to end. The main spring is the only point he cannot make by virtue of the fact that that requires very expensive machinery and processes but given the facilities he states he would be delighted also to make that. The watch case of course is the work of others as in carpentering the cabinet making is apart from the other branches of the trade.

Mechanical Neatness

A representative of The Times yesterday interviewed Mr. Minor and was through kindness treated to an exhibition of mechanical neatness and skill that will always serve as a treasured memory. The watchmaker set a ruby for the visitors in the twinkling of an eye boring a hole for his jewel, setting it in place with a degree of accuracy that bore out his contention that the finished product was mathematically correct. In this, Mr. Minor explained that the accepted practice was to bore the setting and try the jewel, if the hole was too small to rebore, if too large to throw away the work. On the other hand, by a most ingenious jewel setter he has made himself, Mr. Minor bores his hole and sets the jewel by the exact and automatic measurement of the ruby itself.

He explained that rubies, sapphires and diamonds were all used in watches, while the diamonds were used for end-bearing, on the end of the pins bearing the movement. Garnets, he told, were used in cheaper grades of watches. In connection with jewels, he exhibited what is known as an old English Virge watch, which was made in 1834 and is still giving perfect service. This Virge watch was made before jewels were used in watches, and it is in itself an interesting study of mechanical movement. Mr. Minor is making today a wheel for the Virge watch made in 1834, an incident that explains everything about the man and his exceptional genius.

Going through the cabinet, Mr. Minor exhibited some of the tools he has made himself, including a universal wheel cutter, that will cut every wheel used in all American watches; tool holders, chucks and counter-sinkers; screw-cutting attachments that cut the threads of all screws used in watchmaking from 10 turns to the inch to 250 turns to the inch, this tool cutting right and left hand threads with the slight turning of a single lever on the lathe; wheel rounding tools that will bring the tiny watch wheels into perfect mathematical balance.

He is deluged with orders to repair chronographs, meteorological, astronomical and other instruments, while during the life of the life of the late Dr. O. M. Jones, Mr. Minor made most of the special instruments of that famous surgeon.

Other Records

Mr. Minor has had a long life of activity in other walks too. He holds the road cycle, racing championships of this city for the two and five miles respectively in 1884, and later starred on the “safety’s” when they came out. His English settler, “Roy Montez,” chief of a long line of the fine settlers, won fifty-five firsts, and dozens of specials in the Pacific Northwest Dog Kennel Shows, while his other dogs won literally bushels of medals and cups in similar events. For trap-shooting in the three coast cities Mr. Minor holds medals of the top place, and several from international gun clubs. He is a photographer of more than passing ability, and added to all he studied for medicine and served four years as an apothecary and dispenser with high recommendations in 1881.