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Time to give up!!


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Well I’ve battled with this pocketwatch for a few months now, it’s a cylinder escapement Swiss movement with no makers mark or name anywhere. It’s just on 45mm in diameter.

First off it’s not mine, I tool it on and a fusee for a friend that said they were family heirlooms, well both were missing hands, the fusse I haven’t and won’t touch. The cylinder escapement had obviously been tinkered with. The hairspring was mangled, I managed to work on that for about a week, eventually getting it reasonably true, then it snapped!! After measuring I found that a smiths hairspring was the same size but not enough in length.  The search began I bought many movements from eBay trying to find a matching hairspring. I came close so opted for that one.

Next the click snapped, so I had to make another from scratch, it’s not perfect but it works as it should, I then noticed the escape wheel had 3 of its 4 spokes broken, so it wasn’t running true, more hunting in the spares and the bay, I found a lot with approx 50 escape wheels for cylinder movements on the bay ( more expense ) and guess what, not one was the same!! So I had to solder the spokes with the tiniest amount of solder possible to bring it back to true.

Not long after it was all back together ( not for the first second third or fourth time ) and was putting the balance in, in itvwent and away it went, woohoo I thought,  I then had it running again for testing, generally I’ve had running for overnight etc but it would just stop for some unknown reason. This time as I turned it over to dial down it stopped, too much end shake on the balance, a quick tweak of the balance cock and it will be fine, so off comes the balance wheel and I push down on the clock to bend it ever so slightly to lose the end shake when...........

SNAP!!!!!! The regulator snaps! Like an idiot I didint dismantle the regulator. Again more searching through the spares and the bay, eventually I found a lot of 100 on eBay, delivered yesterday I set about today to match one up, holy crap!!! Not one matches.

ive managed to get one to work with some modification, sovagain all back together again and it ran like it was a runaway, well too fast, so I swapped out the hairspring for a longer one and it ran a bit slower so I thought I’d put the dial on and hands.

As soon as the dial was laid on the movement it stopped, nothing was touching, I took the dial off and gave the balance a nudge, it doesn’t bounce into life, it ocillates maybe twice and stops like it has no endshake whatso ever.

im afraid that I’m now finished with this movement/watch, I’m not a pro and know when I’m beat, I’m not charging for this work but I’m out of pocket atleast £60 for parts etc from the bay and a good few hours of my life.

A long post people, hope you enjoyed the read.

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Don’t be too disappointed. There are times when you just have to say no. You have done your best in trying to repair the impossible. I bet you have learnt a lot, so put that down to experience. You also have some stock, which will come in handy. Old reference books/ catalogues come in handy for very old watches so look out for them, they come up on ebay.     

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Cheers Anilv, I don’t think he’ll mind, he was quite happy when I told him I wouldn’t work in the fusse, to be honest I think he bought them off eBay and thought he’d give them to me to fix up on the cheap ( ie I’m not a pro watch smith with overheads etc ) and sell them on for a profit, so I’m quite happy to let him know it’s not going, it’s more down to personal pride that I find out what’s wrong and rectify it. It needs no more parts now ( fingers crossed ) so hopefully with fresh eyes I might sort this out. 

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