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Adds a whole new twist to the question of what calibre it is....

I would try daveswatchparts.com in the states he knos his waltham and elgin watches.

Best way to keep the eyeglass is a wire headband. Done working just pull it up, and it will be ready when starting again. No effort by facial muscles to keep it in place and can't fall. Wearable on top of glasses if these are needed. Raise head, other eye keeps normal vision to identify objects and people around. It's something almost always present the head of watchmakers in pictures. There is a reason why good old ways are still the better ones. All the rest are IMHO useless contraptions.

This popped up in my Facebook feed earlier. Haven't seen the like before. https://fb.watch/cqPhUD8PBQ/

You fellas who are getting rust after using water mixed with (fill in blank), and deciding water based cleaners cause rust- please remember that there are professionals (like me) with many years of good, rust-free results with water based cleaners that were made for cleaning watches. And for the some-dozenth time, no problem at all to dip your balance and fork in alcohol to soak off water used for rinsing. 15+ years of using water based cleaner and doing just that, never lost a roller jewel or pallet stone.

The tool at the top of the last image is part of a roller table remover set.

For years I worked as a field service engineer, servicing kitchen Appliances in those days it was standard practice (It was for the firm I worked for) to do a Microwave leak test whenever we worked on a microwave (we did both domestic and industrial) and in all that time working with getting on for a thousand microwave ovens, I only ever saw two that registered a leak, one had a cracked door choke which only lust failed the test and one had a large slit burned through the back grill, that one failed big time. If you put your watch in the oven then it will do two things, one is boil the oil off, the other is to ark across and air gap between the metal parts. I doubt with even a leaking microwave it would do anything to a watch outside of the cavity. Remember to fail the test the oven had to produce more than 5 mW/cm2 at approximately 2 inches (5 cm) from the oven surface, how much does your mobile phone output and that's next to your head most of the time. It was said that a simple test for leakage was to put your mobile in the oven, close the door (DON'T TURN THE OVEN ON SILLY) And then try to call you phone with another phone, if it rings there may be some leakage, don't know for sure if that works as we didn't have mobile phones in those days or the ones we had were too big to fit inside a microwave Paul

If all is OK up to the train of wheels running freely then it’s the mainspring or mainspring barrel has too much wear. Either can cause lack of power through the watch causing low amplitude.. If you know the caliber of the watch check it has the correct strength mainspring fitted. If you follow Chronoglide Watchmaking on youtube one of the vids shows what to check with mainspring barrels and how to fix.

I would have thought the only logical reason is so they can be lubricated without removal. However surely as they are open and no protection from dust etc so they still need cleaning so IMO just a bad design.

That's what I'm thinking too. Then someone in an higher echelon identified who theorized that being able to freely add oil without cleaning is a good idea, the additional cost for the special jewels, sent him back to assembly work and the novelty quickly disappeared.

I ink mark the escape and third wheels , give it several a tiny wind to see if it stops at same point.

Actually I am surprised to find out that it’s a mixture of hydrocarbons and not miscible with water. It just displaces water. It’s supposed to be quite smelly and needs good ventilation to use safely.

Thanks ifibrin. It doesn't really say on there what it actually is. It says what it isn't and what it does and its characteristics. Could that be because they don't want to give away the ingredients or that is simply just an alcohol that is easily available at a much cheaper price than they are offering.

It’s a waterless rinse for use after washing with Elma Red.

I agree water based cleaners can give excellent results, and have been used traditionally. However, in the hands of hobbyists without the correct equipment or technique can lead to rust! This is normally due to leaving in water rinse for too long, or leaving wet before drying for too long. Interestingly, I never had rust developing in Elma red (max 5 min) but only after rinsing with water. I think if you’re not using the integrated machine you have to be really quick with your water rinse then wash in the alcohol solvent.

Benzine has been used for decades by watchmakers, its tried and trusted.

Yes, ammonia is very aggressive and can dissolve/precipitate the tin out of the brass, then dissolve the copper. The resulting substrate, even if dementionaly unchanged, is also much more brittle and prone to cracking. I use ammonia for removing copper fouling from rifle barrels and would definitely monitor its' use.

Good old jdm still on about lighter fluid. It never done any harm to hairsprings or pallets or shellac when I used Ronsnol lighter fluid. I have left hairsprings in it for days and pallets.

It depends. If using my machine with the distiller integral, I will go straight into the alcohol, then dump it and let it refill (about 6 minutes) for a clean rinse. I have another ultrasonic (pics below)* with 3 little tanks that gets used a lot for general quick cleaning of a part or two; the first bath is the water based cleaner, 2nd is the 1st alco rinse, which takes off the bulk, and the 3rd a clean alco rinse, dryer is to the right. For clocks I use a water based cleaner that I mix up from a recipe from the Finnish watchmaking school. To conserve alcohol, with those parts I rinse in water, pat dry with a towel (what I can conveniently), then into alcohol, then on a larger Greiner dryer. I know Elma recommends distilled water followed by Suprol Pro to displace the water prior to drying. As I have always used Greiner solution, I stick to their method of alcohol, or water then alcohol. * This little ultrasonic is another example of the Greiner cleverness- the 1st and 3rd tanks have ultrasonic transducers in them. The 2nd one is just a simple bath. By switching them around, whichever one in the 1st position will turn on its ultrasonic transducer if the number is facing forward. Works by induction. Super cool!

You have to be careful when running things in the cleaning machine too long? If you're using ammonia-based professional watch cleaning fluids you definitely do not want to run for 20 minutes. As if you start going past about five minutes you could experience etching of the plates. Then when you get super dirty watches like this even the professional watch cleaning fluids are not going to clean that you have to pre-cleaned all of that stuff off because it just isn't designed to dissolve something like this. It also try the hairspring rinse solution for dissolving some of that.

As this is a single roller it was probably held In with shellac at least at one time it's probably washed off or disintegrated with time. Whenever you lose a roller jewel you should always search the movement if you're lucky you might find it. And yes some watch companies much later on like in the 40s when they change the production methods did use friction jewels but not a single roller like this. You also have to be careful with which assortment you get because American pocket watches used two different lengths of roller jewel's depending upon whether was a single roller or a double roller. So basically out to find an assortment that has the longer length of jewels that you need for the single roller escapement's. Which is becoming harder and harder fine for the large size pocket watches. Then just for future reference they do make special tools for sizing roller jewel's. Plus I threw in a few more pictures of what the tools would look like even though you didn't need the tools. More for future reference

Noticed the amplitude is very low indeed. If it was me I would re trace back through the train starting with the balance and h/spring.If visually all looks good and not too much end and side shake clean and lubricate the cap jewels and check again. If no improvement the next to check is the pallet folk. A few year ago I had a similar issue and found one of the pallets stones was loose. If still no errors then check the train of wheels are running freely ie with a tiny wind on the mainspring the train should run freely and NOT stop abruptly. This is the fun of horology enjoy

The really annoying thing is that this can happen without you even realizing! Especially in smaller movements where the center wheel is very close to the hairspring and it can get twisted imperceptibly during installation, causing the hairspring to be slightly off level.

Drain the barrel and put the oil in the mower sump looks to be enough, then proceed as normal, The Carb cleaner is good I use it my self along with brake cleaner for removing tough stuff. the watch has had a pretty interesting past for sure.

I’ve bought the one with the speed control

I think you can clean the movement plates and bridges using water and soap in the ultrasonic cleaner without risk as long as you don’t clean steel containing parts such as screws, the hairspring, hairspring stud etc. In practice, that would preclude the entire balance cock, the train wheels, keyless works, screws, springs. For those steel containing parts it’s best to clean in benzine. If you get rust on pivots which are made of steel you are going to have to polish/burnish them.

I have used lighter fluid, gasoline, turpentine in my ultrasonic cleaner before. They can remove the dried up oils but leave the surface looking a little dry and lifeless. Now I use L&R #111 Cleaner and #3 Rinse. Although they are really expensive here in Singapore, I don't think I would go back to before. Unfortunately the rust stains cannot be removed by lighter fluid now. Probably a supervised soak in phosphoric acid would work. @Nucejoe would probably recommend soaking it in Coke. ( the cola kind )

Funny, nope

I waited it out for a few months until the right one came along and it did. Less than 200 for a really good lathe with loads of extras. Bide your time something will come your way. Do good things and the universe will reward you . Then when I've got what I want I go back to being naughty again.

It doesn't strike me as much quality tbh. His feedback rate isn't too bad but his negatives won't load. Personally I would pass, but that's me

Never heard of them, and Ranfft only list the one model, but Cousins stock at large range of parts for that model, including the click!

Hairspring could still be rubbing. Did you check the end shake on all arbours? How did you clean the fork? Are you sure you completely bypassed the chrono complication? Did you remove cap jewels , clean and peg the jewels? if you are not sure and might still have dried oil rsidue in the jewels, what I do is to drop a bit of lighter fluid on cap jewels, the fluid will penetrate the setting and temporarilty frees the pivots. Good luck

I have the same one without the spindle and accessories. If you can not get it to work I am willing to part with it as I only needed the spindle to get my set complete.

Hi, I got the roller jewel from stsupply. They sell 700 random pallet stones and roller jewel for old american watches. I had to dive in to find the one that fits the roller table and palet fork. I also had to improvise and create a roller holder with a pair of tweezers because I don't have the right tool yet jjj. Below you'll see some pics.

I can't quite see the financial cost difference for the manufacturer, between making a shed load of cheap flimsy parts for a watch against half as many chunky reliable parts. I suppose if you sell a cheap watch that is ok and affordable and does the job hopefully you can sell another one when it breaks. But if you are selling a good quality watch that lasts a lifetime you might only ever sell that same person just that one that they initially bought. I might have this wrong and probably have , occasionally I have some sound logic. It does happen not often and when it does I have to make the most of it, and then I have to go lay down because my head is very sore

Thanks for the intro, welcome to the WRT forum! I'm also relatively new and I'm in the middle of my first service of an Elgin Grade 313 movement. Once upon a time I was "collecting" but I suspect that aspect is in the past (unless you consider non-running movements).

Hello Ivan and welcome to the forum.

For practise, try to get a watch advertised as running. Do an ebay seach for handwinds under USD25 (with free shipping!), there are a lot of garish watches from India which although hard on the eyes, represent good value for a beginner watchbreaker maker. If you can take it apart and get it back together and running then thats a big motivational boost for you! If you start with a watch which is not running you may be stuck and lose heart thru no fault of yours. For a simple handwind you'd need A simple caseback opener A loupe (10 x ) A pair of decent tweezers (*) Some decent screwdrivers (*) A bottle of Zippo fluid (or equivalent) for cleaning watch parts. Some Rodico (funky green plasticine which watchmakers use) Some watch oil (*) mainspring winder parts organisor Misc tubs and containers. For Items marked with (*) try to buy quality stuff as poor tools will make your work so much more difficult. Anil