LittleWatchShop

Thick as a Brick

I am working on this thing. It needs a new hairspring--I am searching. But what I wanted to mention here refers to the design of this movement. Notice that one large plate that wraps around one side of the movement. It is a real bear to get it installed given that one of the wheels is buried underneath and difficult to position while trying to manage the escape wheel. The later 6/0 Walthams (e.g., the 6/0-D which I have) splits this plate into two pieces. I am a neophyte and as such, have not seen a vast number of movements. Maybe stuff like this is common.

Put a couple in an envelope and send them to me. I will see if I can figure out what they are. 1) do some simple curve tracing, 2) crack one open and (hopefully) take a look at the die. I will send you a pm with my address.

No. Never did. The watch is sitting in my project queue for when I decide to solve the dial issue.

Not convinced it is a TI part. Check this Check one with a meter and see if it really is a PNP.

Another tweak this evening

Success!

I disassembled the lathe I got from my brother and parted out the Borel base and the motor to another lathe setup. Now I am back to rebuilding with another motor. But...no base!! So I decided to cut a base the same shape as the Borel base and build mounts using printed parts I designed for 3D printing. Here is my progress so far. Consider this a prototype. The woodworking is pretty lame, but once I prove the concept, I will rebuild with a nice piece of wood.

Still working on this off and on. Yesterday when messing with the crown issue, I discovered that the hack feature did not work. I am pretty sure it was working. Ugh. So today, I tore it down again to figure out what was up. Well...the shepherd's hook spring for the hacking function was broken! Kinda hard to believe. I have a huge assortment of springs, so it was an easy fix. The watch is back together...hands and all. Still have not proven a solution for the crown, but I am very close. Waiting for new stems to show up to complete my plan.

Taken guidance to heart and replaced toothed drive belt with 3mm TPU (I have lots and lots of TPU because I use it in my 3D printer when I am printing things that need to be flexible...stretchable). One benefit is that the lathe is quieter now.

That is a great feeling!! Nice work

Not a bad idea really. If I removed all of the handle, it would be easy to make a very nice 3D print replacement. I guess, it is seems too drastic to do that...dunno...for now it is functionally very good, so I will put it aside so that I can go kill all of the other rats...

Correct. I am still fiddling with this. I found a crown on another scrap watch that fits the stem, but now it appears that too much of the stem is consumed by the threads, so I cannot get it to seat properly for winding. I have more stems on order, so I can cut to the necessary size.

This may not look like an improvement, but it is. My dimensions were a little off, so this next iteration has some adjustments. I still have gaps, but this is not due to 3D printer limitations, it is my carving away at the drawbar material in order to get a good geometry to fit to. A hit and miss operation. Functionally, this one is pretty close. As I observe the handle while it is spinning, the outer perimeter appears pretty uniform. So, the structure is good. I am pondering some form of black putty or something to fill in the gaps.

Indeed...verified. The stem was a little rusty which pushed me to 6 but after checking...yes...7