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Project complete, thanks to those who's advice I sought


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Well I've finished another project, and my first cylinder escapement movement. As can be seen from my previous thread " movement ID" you can see what i was up against, some very helpful members, Stuart and oldhippy huge thanks for the knowledge you guys shared.

i still have no idea who made the movement or how old it is, all I know is that it's now ticking nicely and has kept perfect time with my phone (dial up) for the last 45mins. I shall over the weekend change its position to see how it keeps time. I tried it on the timegrapher but the machine didn't like it, don't know wether my Chinese one is programmed for cylinder escapements, but if it keeps time as it is now I'm not fussed. I tagged L&R ultra fine as members have been asking what it's like, well the last photo shows how well it cleans movement parts, also the picture of the dial is before I tried out some steradent denture tablets, Wow they really work, 3 mins on warm water and no cracks visible( they are still there but all the dirt has been removed making it nearly impossible to see them) I can highly recommend these as a way of cleaning enamel dials.

Now some before and after photos......

 

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Thanks mate, im not at all bothered about +/-10 secs a day on this movement, I wouldn't mind if it gained or lost 10 mins a day, I, m happy with my work on the hairspring and aligning everything up correctly with the cylinder (thanks to your info) its been running now for 4 hours dial up and is 1 minute fast to my phone, so if it carries on like that for the next 24hrs it will be running 6 mins fast. I shall see how it is in the morning, rewind and go dial down.

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    • No, the Peseux 7040 is doing very well as far as the rate (and amplitude) is concerned. The maximum delta measured was 20 seconds between fully wound, crown down (+8 s/d) and fully wound minus 24 hours, crown up (-12 s/d). Compare that to the ETA 2763 having a delta of over 80 seconds. What I was trying to convey was that I observed that the much higher amplitude of the Peseux movement during a 12-minute measuring period could momentarily fluctuate by 30° just like the much lower amplitude on the ETA 2763. I haven't studied the History graph on @praezis PCTM software for any other than these two movements but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these fluctuations in amplitude during a 12-minute measuring period are the rule rather than the exception for all typical non-high-end-chronometer movements.
    • I'm presently using a cheap supermarket ultrasonic cleaner, with L&R #111 cleaner and #3 rinse solutions. I cut a bit off the bottom of an appropriate size plastic sports drink bottle, which is a perfect fit around the mesh basket I use (~65mm diameter). That allows me to use mostly water in the machine tub and cleaner or rinse only in the small plastic container. I keep the solutions that are still fit for use in small glass jam jars. I use the cleaner then two rinses, then the mesh basket balances on my bathroom radiator (once it stops dripping) to dry the parts with moderate warmth. Prior to that I tried just lighter fluid (eg. generic zippo fluid) and just soaking / swirling parts in the glass jars, but the movements did not run at all well afterwards, they were still acting gummed up. The proper solutions make a world of difference & the watches now work as they should!    
    • Have to agree with you. Will not do another. Did not enjoy the time spent. However, it was worth it to know that I understood how to disassemble, look for defects, repair and then assemble. Timegrapher? No facility to alter anything other than the stud. Everything is metal to metal.
    • Couple of things H. There surely seems to be a reoccurring fluctuation pattern  of somewhere around every 5 minutes. More noticable with your crown left trace having a large peak gradually reducing to 2 small peaks and troughs then back up to another large peak. Nev posted a download link to a book by Harold Kelly not so long back that i started to read while i was away. There was a good section on wheel and pinion ratios, rotation periods of wheels of different beat frequencies that's worth a read. Then something that bugs me comparing the amplitude and timing rate changes with your dial up trace which i chose to avoid wheel imbalances . The amplitude fluctuates by an extreme of 30 ° and the rate fluctuates by an extreme of 21 seconds as per your reading. In normal circumstances a movement dropping its power over the course of the mainspring unwinding, a hairspring acting isochronical will maintain its rate almost to the end of the power reserve. Similarly power wound into a movement increasing its amplitude from 265° to 295° a hairspring again acting isochronical will again maintain its rate aside from a brief few moments until it settles into it's rate. From that it seems to me that because the amplitude difference isn't big enough to affect a rate change then the amplitude fluctuation cause is not coming from anywhere but from the balance. So its whatever is causing the rate to change increase and decrease within the balance is also slowing and speeding up the hairspring swings. I'm not quite sure if I've just gone around in circles with that, it made sense to me when i started  😅 We did have a discussion a while back when i asked if rate could come from that point as well as from the regulator pins. This area can be electro stiffened in high grade hs i remember was the answer. I remember that over Ross's issue with balance endshake.
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Or is it? What is the purpose of the images up above in other words what exactly would use this test for? The real purpose this test is show the effect of amplitude on timekeeping. Or specifically you're looking for mechanical issues that are causing fluctuations in amplitude which unfortunately shows up  with timekeeping. or basically everything affects timekeeping but amplitude is affected by the mechanical characteristics of the watch from the mainspring to the balance wheel and unfortunately as it's a mechanical watch your always going to have power fluctuations. so how do we rule out unacceptable fluctuations versus the natural characteristic of the watch? Usually if you can find a repeating pattern you can narrow it down to the offending components for instance I'm attaching a PDF. on the second page of the PDF it talks about 21st-century equipment versus paper tape timing machines. Then they give an example of timing problems solely caused by a faulty component. although off you have a user's manual for a paper tape machine it does explain that you can find faulty components by looking at the variations on your paper tape seeing how often they repeat and do the same thing without the fancy software. Even though it was claimed that you couldn't do that in other words you couldn't find a pattern? One of the problems that comes up with modern LCD-based timing machines versus software is limited screen size. In other words it makes it very hard to look for patterns you'll see variations in numbers but it's hard to tell what's going on which is why the display above is really nice to see if there is a problem. for instance here's a paper printout from a witschi timing machine it does look distorted because I changed the speed at which the image would move across the screen. 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Then did you know that Rolex at least in Geneva as I visited their service center replace all the screws in the watch every time they service the watch. then why did they do that because they use power screwdrivers and tighten those things down as tight as you can get them which has a problem. How many times can you tighten screw down really tight before the hints break off. So they replace the screws every single time. So personally I don't think they have to be so tight that you're in danger snapping head off that's too tight in my opinion. but the screws definitely shouldn't be falling out either which I've occasionally see and where people just don't tighten their screws tight enough.   Horologica Times -- May 2004 From the Workshop witschi time plot.pdf
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