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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/19/20 in all areas

  1. To improve the accuray of measuring the thickness of a mainspring take 3 or 4 winding together and divide the measurement by 3 or 4. Easy and more accurate.
    2 points
  2. Hi Bernie - you haven't been very generous with giving us a movement ID or photos to help determine that! But those tracks in the date driving wheel? ... could this be a France Ebauches 140-1 C? There's a good pic at https://17jewels.info/movements/f/fe/fe-140-1c/ which should let you see how that date jumper spring locates in relation to the calendar guard / cover plate and thus pushes on the date jumper part. Hope this helps.
    2 points
  3. John raises a good point. I have ordered new staffs but have found them under size. Personally I think closing holes etc carries to many irreversible risks. I normally purchase from balancestaffs .com who give the dimensions of the staff.
    2 points
  4. Good old trick :-)! I went one step further by taking measurements in-situ before removing an old mainspring. There is always at least one good spots to stick in the caliper's jaws while mainspring is still inside the barrel :-). Then divide by 10, 11, etc and voila! Measuring just one "coil" with such caliper as shown below (in mm) is not always appropriate. How do you measure 0.125mm mainspring when your caliper has some limitations with resolution and jumps from 0.12mm to 0.13mm? Right, you measure 2 coils.
    1 point
  5. images.jfif bulova marine star
    1 point
  6. Hi Precision Time Corporation (Jaro) American made, see link has some data https://timepeaks.com/shop/Precision_Time_Ltd/
    1 point
  7. Hi Bernie just in case you need it the tech sheet. cheers 2853_FE 140,140.1,140.2 (1).pdf
    1 point
  8. My experience with aftermarket staffs a lot of times is there deliberately made over size. The watchmakers supposed to reduce them to size to fit. But what if they don't have a lathe or grasp that there are over size? For instance the I was helping somebody restaffed the Hamilton 992B. There's only one staff it's friction fit. So I was explaining how to put new staff in you should hear a tap tap thump when it's down and all we heard was tapping? It never went down all the way and normally my rule is always measure but why measure staff that only comes in one size? Yes it was oversize. I've had Hamilton 992 B's where the staff doesn't fit because the whole is too big. This means you have to go through all your staffs to see if one might be big enough. Problem is the components in the escapement really don't like to be stretched or shrunk too much for that matter get away with a little bit but not a lot.
    1 point
  9. There are Problem is, it will also damage the crown if it's made of steel, I think that's the case here. I prefer another method, that is to cut around the crown just enough to grab the stem with pliers or a pin vise (pliers worked better for me). This can be done with a lathe, or a manual milling device. Since neither tool is not to an owner or repair enthusiast, I suggest that the OP looks for a competent watchmaker to do the repair. If he says that the cut can't be done, look for another.
    1 point
  10. Remember that sometimes the roller’s hole may have been enlargened.
    1 point
  11. I did not need them, but could not resist. I don't know the type of the movement they belong to though. Maybe later when I gain a little bit of more experience, i learnt a lot just in one day by reading and watching videos and cleaning a movement. If you will ever need one, I am happy to send you one or two for the cost of P&P. ( I hope it does not violate the no sales rule. )
    1 point
  12. It will need re- bushing or inserting a hole jewel. However both methods require a decent about of thickness of the plate. If too thin then a replacement bridge will be the way to go.
    1 point
  13. Welcome Dan, enjoy the forum.
    1 point
  14. Wear mostly occurs due to dried up oil, when the wheels rotate in dry holes dirt is also present and will cause sometimes wear on the pivots and its more common to the holes, brass is harder than steel. The more modern the clock it is more likely to be what looks like brass, certainly not the real hard stuff from way back. I have restored hundreds of long case clocks which are weight driven and wear occurs in both plates. I can tell you central heating is not good for any clock as it a form of dry heat and will soon cause damage so never stand or hang a clock near gas/ electric radiators.
    1 point
  15. Hello Dan and welcome to the world of Horology enjoy.
    1 point
  16. It worked!!!! I am so F***** dumb! The thing really needs a working coil to work. Now I need to buy coils.
    1 point
  17. Always best to avoid surprises is to measure the old staff and the new staff and verify that they actually are the same size.
    1 point
  18. Hi Skippah. In case spares turn out to be too pricy, you might want to consider reusing the original part you have, stem extenders cost a few dollars, of the part you show, Stem is in good shape, where it counts. I can't tell from the pictures, if a piece of stem has remained inside the crown threads, if so, alum dissolves the stem and does'n hurt the crown, as for damage to socket, no big deal, can be fixed. First thing to do is to get a price quote for new parts, we can then decide which option to take. Happy holidays and stay safe. Joe
    1 point
  19. Welcome to the forum Dan and good luck with your journey.
    1 point
  20. Hi Dan and welcome. I am a musician also but moved into the watch refurbishment and restoration business around 4 years ago. It can be done so go for it and enjoy the journey.
    1 point
  21. Now I have to clean this mess up in the living room...
    1 point
  22. Darn, now i have to find one on-line:) They look good. Just got my second X4 smaller Marshal holder today.
    1 point
  23. Recently purchased a pocket watch with a chipped dial. You can see the copper substrate. This is unsightly and distracting. As an experiment i dug out a damaged old dial I had and a small bottle of white nail polish. After about 3 coats I gave it a light wipe with a shop towel wetted with acetone. It only took a couple very light swipes to achieve the look I wanted. All in all it looks pretty good. Yes there are a couple bubbles close up but it's nearly impossible to see from a normal viewing distance. My next goal is to see if I can find a black pen with a fine enough point to attempt to restore the black minute index lines. I consider this an open experiment, I want to try other dials with other colors of enamel besides white.
    1 point
  24. Pebeo 150 porcelain paint is better than varnish
    1 point
  25. That alignment didn't look good. I had to go back and look at mine too. And sure enough, when choosing another pair of tools, it got misaligned in nearly the same way. The I had to investigate the reason for this, since when one push a straight tool through both holes one can see they are aligned. But the hole where the tool goes seems to be reamed in an odd way. It seems instead of having a straight broach they used a conical one which gives a small bevel in the front and back of the hole and a nice pivot in the middle. So, when one fastens the tool bit with that screw in the back it rises a bit in the front and the centering is lost. One can see that on your picture too. The front toolholder is centered so a dirty fix for this problem is to fasten the one with the screw on the top after you pushed it onto the screw. But the correct fix for this is to drill a new hole and fit a new straight brass bushing in the hole.
    1 point
  26. I thought I would follow up on this, since I bought one of these inexpensive screw removal tools. I used it today, and though I managed to get the screw out, I spoiled the area around the screw hole a bit with scratches. This is partly because the tool has a misalignment of the two bits that are supposed to apply opposing force on the broken screw. See here: O Other than this significant defect (which maybe I could correct by bending the frame), the tool seems fine. Everything else fits well and seems to perform correctly. More photos:
    1 point
  27. 05 - What else ? : I'm a daredevil ... so I cliped the bezel off and on several times for a ultimate test. My "experimental" method worked perfectly and the rotating bezel is now almost NOS I procedeed the same way with my "Black Rallye" Kelton and the bezel is perfectly repaired. Thanks for reading and hope it helps.
    1 point
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