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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/17/21 in all areas

  1. How can the barrel wall be inspected without removing mainspring? or apply breaking grease in case its a selfwinder watch? Makers of those video's are welcome to join WRT and start learning?.
    2 points
  2. Need some help. I just finished my 3rd shot at making a raised setting to replace a gold setting on a ball Pocket Watch 3rd wheel upper setting. I made the setting out of brass and stilled the outer lip after all the other work. The setting sits perfectly in the plate. The original setting has small cut-ins in the setting to allow the two screws to screw in flush with the plate. How can I make these little 1/3 moon cut-ins? Here are some shots of the settings and my really messy desk:) now clean. I also made a YouTube video to show all the work. I’ll past the link in the video section.
    1 point
  3. ETA 2836-2 " is " the variant with day- date so no problem there. In my neck of the woods, folks wouldn't pay for extra options such as rotating bezel, I guess you would find those mostly on modern watches or perhaps watchcases that are marketted in Europe/ America, I can't say chinese made ones are inexpensive either. In case you didn't find a case you like, I don't think I run out of my vintage cases anytime soon, to which you are welcome. Regs Joe
    1 point
  4. Depends on the project you have in mind, ETA 2836-2 is very popular movement, came in different grades and many brands. Dials of different diameter fit on 2836-2, there is also the question of genuine Swiss or Asian made watches, vintage or modern? stainless cases or otherwise? and hands to fit. Its the NOS genuine dials that are hard to come by, used ones are not so rare nor too hard to find. I think I saw some chinese made dials on aliexpress or amazon. My late watch maker left tons of spare parts, scrap watches, his son lets me in his shop, so there is a chance I find you something and I have several stainless steel case which I'd be happy to gift wrap providing you like their vintage looks. At your service, Joe ? haha.
    1 point
  5. @nickelsilver or someone else, can you describe the tools and procedure for checking screw torque in a movement? I've never seen or used a torque wrench smaller than about 20cm in length, there must be watch-delicate torque screwdrivers. When we torque bolts, it's our standard procedure to mark the bolts so we know they are torqued. Are torqued movement screws not marked because that would marr the jewelry, or because these are non-critical components, and because the customer pays for the consequences? This problem should only happen once ever, then the manufacturer puts into place procedures to prevent the problem in the future. I guess it's these "dynometric torque cylinders"? https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/screwdriver-dynometric-torque-cylinders Not cheap at all! and you have to buy a different one for each torque setting, yikes
    1 point
  6. All things considered we do quite well on this group? Members all around the planet were English may not be their primary language. Auto correcting software that doesn't know what technical horological terms are. People using dictation software that never makes spelling mistakes. The ability use a spelling checker for any of this is problematic. Then horological terms always one of my amusements. If you look at books anything in print the last 100 years depending upon where you're located the terminology has changed over time. Yes I think were doing quite well all things considered.
    1 point
  7. I do make too many writing errors myself and apologize if my clarification seemed like pointless grammar police.
    1 point
  8. I really like this one. Just think of the time watchmakers would save if they didn't clean those mainsprings. As a reminder this is watch repair it spans a sizable amount of time. Because of that much time we run into all kinds of interesting problems. If the mainspring is blued steel it is probably set with time. It was lubricated with any lubrication they typically have a habit of going bad at least the earlier organic ones. If you have a set mainspring if the lubrication disintegrates you will have a problem. I once had an example of this a person etc. watch in had it serviced came back it didn't seem to run? He said it back it came back it still didn't run. I've seen the person's website and it advocated not to remove the mainspring the same reasons you said it's a lot of work it's big problem don't do it. The person obviously didn't have access to a timing machine either. When it was wound up it ran with 245° in a dial down position. It's always recommended multiposition on the timing machine. This was a pocket watch crown down it dropped to about 200° that's barely acceptable. 24 hours later you can see the effect of not taking the mainspring out Dial down it dropped to 243° which is very acceptable. But in crown down it was now running at 154° that is very unacceptable. The original mainspring I don't remember about the lubrication but it was definitely blued steel and it was set. So I reclaim the watch put a new mainspring in. Now are getting 300° of amplitude in all positions when it was wound up. Dropping to 260° in its worse position 24 hours later. You probably won't always have this nice of the success but you cannot tell well ask you can if you mainspring is bad if you don't have enough power to run the watch for 24 hours that's an issue if you're amplitude is very very bad it's an issue. Unfortunately This watch repair it's not always the simple. Can the mainspring issue cause all of this definitely. But a whole bunch of other things can cause the same problem. For instance assuming as newbies typically do that cleaning will fix all problems that Is a false assumption also. Positional errors relate to the balance wheel and hairspring. If you have super low amplitude then everything gets magnified considerably. The usual rule is that when the watches serviced it really should have better than 200° it should be much much closer to 300°. If you're amplitude socks you definitely have an issue and then everything else is going to look much worse. So you need to get the amplitude up then you can look at all the other problems which conceivably you could also have. A lot of this depends upon how old the watches in other words how many times has it been serviced before you possibly inappropriately. A unfortunate problem and watch repair is lots of specialty tools are required. Some tools you almost never use but when you do there worth their weight in gold. Other tools like the mainspring winder conceivably might use every single time you service a watch. If it's a modern wristwatch you can purchase a new mainspring They are usually mounted in a ring if it's the right mainspring it just pushes and you don't need a Winder. At the very minimum you need to take the lid off and look at the mainspring you can't just assume hold that your four head and assume that it's functionally perfect. But if you take the lid off and it looks nice and clean no lubrication which will find on modern Springs because they don't need lubrication that shouldn't be the issue. But you do need that lubricate the arbor.
    1 point
  9. Normally with modern watches there's only going to be one. Then that one will fit. The older ones where we of the variations then you should be able to do exactly what I have quartered you have above it should fit. Where we get them problems is older watches. American pocket watches for instance staff numbers failed to disclose you can have several different pivots sizes. Or there's one particular Elgin watch that I think there's 12 different staffs for one part number. As because are several different pivots sizes for each variation there are several variations. So is not enough to use a part number. It's where the old Swiss numbering system you look on a parts list and you see that the balance complete is this part number but every single balance complete is the same part number. It's only a modern times did they grasp a problem and the parts all have unique part numbers. Then of course unhelpful is the parts list. Which I've attached for the original watch in this discussion. We see that the balance complete the 721 and it has a flat hairspring. With no form of shock protection but fails to disclose all the variations because this was the original parts list. Other sources a reference material are things like the bestfit books a two volume edition books are a bit pricey as an up and published in a very long time but you get the PDF at a bargain price. If you're into wristwatches providing they aren't new wristwatches sort of? The book was published in the Mid-70s. I'm attaching a page from the book. Providing you know what watch your looking for you to look up and get all kinds of part numbers. You can find out if there's another movement like a bass caliber for the watch. You look up the parts and see if there's variations. Suppose for instance and I did this a couple weeks ago you have a watch the candidate if I. You can use what's called the fingerprint system the setting parts on older watches are all unique. But I couldn't because the dial was on all I had was the stem and the backside of the watch. Which meant I measured the stem dimensions and in the book you look up stem dimensions. Found several that were close was an automatic watch I went to the section on automatic watches found one matched and were able to order parts. The book itself is available at this link https://mccawcompany.com/product/bestfit-encyclopedia-books-111-111a-digital-download-pdf-version/ Then no pictures they also have a online edition that is a little more money than the books. But if you're in the wristwatches in trying to find parts it's really helpful to have this. https://mccawcompany.com/product/bestfit-material-matsys-for-life/ How do curiosity I went to the online version which I have you'll notice several different balance completes. I also got the mainspring number even though we already had that. Then I went to the http://www.julesborel.com/ Website entered in the mainspring number and snipped out out so you can see it's available brand-new. Unfortunately finding watch parts is a interesting event that requires work sometimes quite a bit of work. You may spend more time and effort trying to track down parts than the actual repair will take. 2449_AS 1187,1194.pdf
    1 point
  10. Then the dial would be resilvered and a dial restorer would professionally have the numbers painted normally by an artist.
    1 point
  11. Not really. If you want to remove the doubt from your mind fit a new mainspring, isn't expensive and doesn't require a winder.
    1 point
  12. Excellent! Thank you very much Klassiker. I now have to explore why the previous tinkerer has widened both banking pins so they're at an angle. Perhaps to increase lock? These watches have metal contact pieces on the pallet, not jewels. They are the same shape as entry and exit stones mind you; this is not a pin-lever movement. The pallet fork is not strictly a 'fork': the pallets are on the side ( and the escape wheel on the side correspondingly). Anyway I might sound some experts out on this wonderful forum if I can't get satisfactory amplitude. Hello Nucejoe!
    1 point
  13. Like the OP, everything I've read advises against oiling, so I never do. I'd be interested to read references which recommend oiling, and arguments for and against. My guess is (and it is a guess, because I haven't compared with / without) is that the contact phase is a small sliding action under very low pressure with a little bit of rolling (so hardly any friction to be reduced) followed by a sudden separation of the surfaces in a more-or-less perpendicular direction. Even oils with a low viscosity will cause some drag in this case, due to surface tension, like when you pull an oiler out of the oil pot quickly. My guess is that oiling does not significantly reduce wear, but has a significant amplitude penalty. If I do a test, I will let you know.
    1 point
  14. Has anyone tried to build a watch cleaning machine from scratch? Looking at the ones that show up on the bay I am surprised at the prices they fetch here in the UK for what is essentially a fairly simple bit of kit that often needs a lot of work to get them up and running safely. Although my horological skills are so far not much to write home about I think I should be able to build something that would work but would like to avoid having to re-invent the wheel. I would be really grateful if you could share your creations. Many thanks.
    1 point
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