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Here is my cat "Lew" helping me adjust a pocket watch and adding a hair to places one should never be.

I’m working myself through Mark Lovic’s “Watch Repair Lessons & Courses”. Before enrolling I wasn’t sure the courses would be worthwhile to me, as I had spent a huge amount of time researching the Internet on how to service watches, and had serviced several Vostok 24XX movements (very affordable movements, BTW). Now, in hindsight, the courses have proved to be extremely valuable to me. I’ve learned things that I just haven’t been able to find elsewhere, like how to easily transfer watch oil from the bottles to the oil pots, how the get the right amount of oil onto the escape wheel teeth, how to remove rust from pinion leaves, that I shouldn’t oil the pallet fork jewel bearings (and why!). The list could be made very long. Anyway, yesterday I finished the level 2 section of the course, named “Lubrication and Re-Assembly”, and as I beheld the magic of seeing the movement come to life again I shoot a slow-motion video of its beating heart, i.e. the balance wheel. For anyone interested you can see the video here. Thanks for reading!

To wrap this up.... There was indeed a jewel with my Seitz tool that seemed to be in the right direction ( 0,9 mm OD & 0,11 hole) so no excuse for not trying. And it turned out well with the balance wheel fitting nicely and spinning forever when tried without the hairspring. The hairspring turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. Appearing nice and flat on the wheel still on my table, it tilted heavily once the stud was pushed in. I spent several hours trying trying to grasp the dynamics of that thing and what influences what. Finally a tiny push a few mm’s from the stud levelled the spring to flat and parallell with the wheel. I suspect there must have been different materials used in hairsprings over the years? This one was really soft as butter and made very little resistance to maintain its shape when applying any kind of ”force”. After cleaning and oiling it now runs reasonably well with a decent amplitude. I attached a photo. With the clean and undamaged dial, I guess it’s an ok piece from the period or...? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Clearly you are trustworthy and of respectable character. Cats just know this. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How lovely to see your cats in a loving home.