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Tinkering with a Verge Watch

duncanbootmaker
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duncanbootmaker Member

duncanbootmaker

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Around a month ago a good friend of mine, Bernard, who’s a watchmaker, gave me a, circa 1800, verge watch to have a go at restoring; he figured I had the patience for it :D
The case is a much younger brass one, and it was missing hands and a crystal. I’ve since made a pair of brass hands to tide it over, make it look more complete, and to see how it’s going in regards time keeping. Yeah… about that :D

It would seem that sometime in it’s past a healthy chunk of the hair spring got broken off, and it was gaining 1/4hr per hour. I’ve reduced a length of music wire to approx the width of the original, by about .0015” thick, and hope to wind up a 4 coil test replacement (the current one has 3 coils, which some of the old watches made do with, but I’m going to give myself a bit of room to move). But that’s a story, and experiment, for another day.
The verge has had problems with getting enough depth, sometimes going into ‘palpitations’ and running double speed, and the ‘scape wheel has no spare end-shake to increase pallet depth. I remembered that the verge’s top bush (in the balance cock), apart from being quite worn (making a suitable sized drill bit was one of my, unsuccessful, excursions today :) ) was drilled a little off centre, whether by design or sloppy workmanship I don’t know. Double checking it’s placement showed that it was about an hour’s rotation off being in line with the ‘scape pivot and closest approach.
The drawings roughly show where things were before adjusting.

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I carefully scribed a faint reference line across the top surface of the bush, going ‘North-South’ in relation to the balance cock foot, whittled a bamboo press pin and tapped out the bush into a little hollow in a block of wood, re-aligned the bush and pressed it home.
The end result is that the watch is running again (seems not quite as fast as earlier), and in all positions; recently it had stopped working in ‘pendent up’ position, kind of the most important position for a pocket watch :)
So, did a new thing today and it’s not as scary a prospect making a new bush for it in the near future (once I’ve successfully made a suitable drill bit), a bush that I think I might put a screwdriver slot in the top of to help with adjustments. I would like to make, at some stage, a two part bush with a ‘dead hard’ steel ‘end stone’, similar to some they did back then.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my little discoveries today.
Cheers
Duncan

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oldhippy Distinguished Member

oldhippy

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The verge was ether to shallow or worn to start with, that is why it was skipping a lot. Do not expect it to keep time like todays watches. If it varies by 10 minutes in 24 hours that is expectable. Parts that are worn in a verge will have a considerable effect on its time keeping.

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Tmuir Distinguished Member

Tmuir

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Nicely done.

If you have to replace the hairspring the link below may interest you.

It is a post I did a while back on Facebook for Guenter Best who is a master watchmaker at the school I study at.

He had to repair a Verge watch that amongst other things needed a new hairspring.

He found a Waltham pocketwatch hairspring close to the right size, shortened it and then carefully rubber it on fine wet and dry paper to reduce the spring height until it was of the correct strength. He also had to make a new hairspring collet and fit a replacement balance staff

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=685132705015586&id=284491725079688&__xts__[0]=68.ARBZQ-pilMoqwnfYH3Iqtq8fVnFWIp_km-CUe3yonMmv8Hvl6Lld57RMNgg2dz8dPqG5ndXE7xuvFxxfiOYuXY8hRZRPFViHunHITPnaqGl_dQpBAgsX79DOWVOwwgsNvnSAVm-y_dPYnPVC6_hYXJVIOKd7J4gue1ziruvZ5cmnpgqVktPKG2PrLRmDvyZKmPkeQAEg-HXjjkjB3Di-H-aU4HN-RuRz4qfMGR7CGNTbbraG5tqWpwWZIGWkkBebTUc2aSwaKW6Jy0c4G73wAffEG2yQ51Yo5wn48I1uITU8Qto0ZahHFa4VJ6h9PyOmMgZILCXFNfPEQXJfnCpHdvg&__tn__=K-R

 

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duncanbootmaker Member

duncanbootmaker

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G'day @Oldhippy, Yes, I know it won't keep time anything like a lever watch. Bernard said that if we can get it to within 15mins a day, then we've got a good one. But at the moment it's gaining nearly 5 hours a day! I have two other, mostly complete, verge watches that I'm practicing on for fusee disassembly/clean etc. I love working on/with very old tools, mechanisms, watches because of the large amount of hand work that went into them, and the much simpler tools used in their creation.

Thanks @Tmuir. Glad to see there's a watchmaking school over there. All the best with your studies.
Cheers
Duncan

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