Watch only works upside down

[jakobvinkas]

Hello, today I picked up an old, not working watch that i have had lying in a drawer a long time. It did not tick at all and I am quite sure the main problem was that the pallet fork was stuck in its jewel sitting and could not move at all.

I cleaned and re oiled the movement and not it only works when I lay it upside down, or at least it does not work with the right side up. It ticks a few seconds but then stops. 

Any tips on what could be the problem? I know that there are about a hundred different possible problems but since it works fine upside down and not at all otherwise I figured someone might have had the same problem. (It seems to be worse during a specifik time of each minute, but not just at one point but rather during a 15 sec period of each minute).

Thankful for any answers, Jakob 

[margolisd]

There are quite a few things it could be but I would suspect a cracked balance jewel or a broken balance staff.

[yankeedog]

That would be my first guess as well, something amiss with the balance staff.with the watch dial down gravity would tend to pull it down so the impulse jewel would engage the pallet.With the watch dial up its sounds it might not be.  

[Nucejoe]

You can check the staff pivot visually. The wheel comes in contact with the fork bridge or pivot shoulder sits on jewel housing hole, if the pivot is worn short enough.

[jakobvinkas]

Thanks for the answers, I will take a look at the watch again soon

[Nucejoe]

If pivot not broken, check end shake ( staffs axial play) 

Check end play on fork arbor , escape arbor, escape wheel and pallets.

[AndyHull]

.. all of the above, and check for foreign bodies obstructions that may have been introduced while cleaning.

I had a small hair mysteriously appear in one watch that I was working on, which caused a similar issue. Worst of all, the watch worked reasonably well till I cleaned it.

The hair was nicely attached to the top plate and dangled down when the watch was face up, obstructing the palette fork, but moved nicely out of the way when the watch was face down. The hair looked suspiciously like one of mine, but I didn't do a full DNA test.

[Burruz]

Same thing happened to me. Cleaned and oiled a movement and would only work upside down. I noticed a couple of the coils on the balance spring were stuck together (from my poor oiling) so I re-cleaned and it worked fine.