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Here is an excellent lesson by jon on this caliber.

Repaired this old Luch 2209 for a friends birthday because he gifted me my very first book about watchmaking. The reading has payed off I would say hehe. The full walkthough will be posted in the appropriate forum soon.

What have you checked? I know full plate watches are a pain, but it's still important to check train freedom with the fork out, endshakes, and on these old American watches the escapement in particular as they tend to get messed around with quite a lot. The bankings tend to get messed with first, but it's important to do a full escapement check: drop lock, run to banking, full lock, fork horn shake and guard pin shake. Also, these will almost always have a single roller, which is less secure than a double roller, and the guard pin needs to be adjusted correctly or it will jam against the roller. Perhaps your balance endshake is too much now with the shim (shimming a balance cock would get you in big trouble in a professional environment or school), maybe the guard pin isn't performing it's job- face up, with too much endshake on the balance, could very well get the roller table out of engagement with the pin. Did you check the pivots of the new staff with the balance jewels? They can be several sizes for the same caliber family on these, maybe the pivots are too small, thus not fitting the jewel holes, and thus the lack of endshake. If that's the case and the pivots are simply contacting the entry of the hole, you will have extremely bad performance in the verticals or it will stop completely. (Also- the jewels could have been changed at any time in the past, maybe only one, so important to check both with its pivot).

Hi. This may sound obvious but until its mentioned it can easily be overlooked . Check your blood sugar, I don't mean literally with a meter that's going a bit too far. Low blood sugar becomes much more noticeable at smaller scaled activities. Very slight hand shakes would be a first sign before more prominent symptoms eventually start to appear like lethargy and headaches, the average adults hunger hormones would normally kick in well before that though. A simple fruit juice drink may reduce the effects enough to stabilise your blood sugar levels and steady your hands. Everyone is different but give it a try, or you may be ready for a meal before your stomach tells you.

Bend the hairspring right after it leaves the stud to get the terminal curve parralel to the rest of the coil to have a concentric evenly breathing coil, level and flat as well. Like this https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180729/7befd83fedcdfb43dd5b01920111f015.jpg

If the watch is running ok its best left alone at this point untill you need to service it as doing a half job on it is may cause problemnsi. Attached is the sheet for the BFG 866. 2529_BFG 866,866.31.7 (3).pdf

I have used anti magnetic and the normal ones. The trouble with the anti ones you can't tell if any part of the movement is magnetic, but after saying that I always demagnetize the watch movement before starting the repair. Brass tweezers are good because they don't leave scratches but they are soft and very easily go out of shape. In the end I stayed with the two I suggested. I did have other types for hairspring work. For starters you don't need to those.

I just presumed you would want to service it, notice that hairspring coil is not centered, its likely to stick when worn. Regs

You can buy these Chinese contraptions for €6 https://aliexpress.com/item/1005004106298965.html

You can't really cut corners. One thing I have done in the past if a watch has a dirty hairspring you can clean that by putting it in ronsonl lighter fluid to wash it and then oil the pivots but I don't recommend it. If the watch is dirty then it needs cleaning and oiling, if left it can cause wear which will then end in irreparable wear.

Its all modern.

Covers off. No new info or markings except for component values as you would expect. The device is obviously custom made. It's built on "Veroboard" and the Chassis is perspex with panels glued together. Some components (large PSU capacitors) appear glued down. The ic's as far as my researches show are part of the Nixi tube driver curcuitry Fairchild 9390/7490 so no help there!

Maybe like any mechanical watch it's not that simple to just look at the gears. In other words what is the actual condition of a watch like the pivots and the oil used has it gone bad with time? Then for watch like this you really should have a service manual?

It does not make sense to buy Indian, no-roller drivers at USD 3.30 a piece when one can buy Swiss made, unbranded A*F for the same. Check previous posts. In light of the above that is an even worse purchase, lots of money for no advantage whatsoever.

Dumont No 3 is what I used for normal watch use and No 5 for fine work.

Power discharge due to malfunction of the click or loose ratchet wheel screw. You will be removing the auto device anyway, so why not clean it and epilame treat the reversers if you have the grease.

The anchor 9 piece set is a good set for starting out. I bought them for 30 dollars The blades were well tempered. I only had to dress them twice in one year but the set screws are very soft and you always have to tighten them or the blades fall out. The handles have a good weight to them.but if you can afford it I’d get a good set with 9 pieces that will hold up in the long run. I just purchased the bergeon 30081-s9 for 140dollars. So I hope it’s money well spent. I service movements as a hobby so I think it was a good choice. I have a timelab six piece set that I got for fifty bucks but they’re only good for pocket watches that need the thicker blades because I tried them in a spare seiko nh36 movement I had laying around and they were to thick so I thinned the blades down to fit the newer movement and after two or three screws there was already visible damage to the blades. So I’m gonna keep them thick and hope they hold up better like that. Just only use them for old movements with the thicker screw slots.

Hi Richard. I struggled for months with cheapish stainless steel tweezers and even spent a lot of time reducing the tension on them by taking down the thickness at the sprung end. I had a cheap pair of brass also with less tension but these wear quickly and need frequent dressing. Eventually I picked up a good ebay purchase of 14 pairs of dumont for 60 quid. Needed some work to bring them to order but still very serviceable and there was already a good range between them. Unfortunately very few of them were antimagnetic and sometimes drive me potty having to demagnetise them throughout a project. But all have great control and really easy to manipulate and spin over. My favourite are a pair of bent no.7 that have more varied use than a straight pair imo. Also consider titanium, lighter and stronger. I would spend time researching and learning to dress them as this makes a big difference when handling small screws. I'll leave you with a great tip, have a slightly rougher finish to the inside of the tips this will help with their gripping power though not so rough as to scratch anything or encourage fibre attraction.

Haha. Just remember, in future when your children or grandchildren are ecstatic over some seemingly trivial achievement, not to pour cold water on them.

I have had many brands of Tweezers over the years and always keep coming back to Dumont. Size 5 or 4 for hairspring work. Size 2 For general work. I personally have no use for any other size apart 5, 2 and from my brass tweezers which are around size 3.