Help with correcting beat error on Vostok 2409a

[Paumanok]

Hi all,

I bought some junker vostoks from Ukraine and was able to make two into one. I needed to transplant a hairspring+balance wheel from one movement to another.

 

Yesterday I was able to mostly correct the error and tg-timer showed a not straight but semi consistent plot. It barely lost a minute over about 16 hours so I wore it to work today, only for it to start gaining a minute or two an hour by the end of the day. I put it back on tg when I got home and the beat seemed to be off. I messed with it after watching marks video on correcting beat but I couldn't quite see the pallet stops or balance jewel to get it lined up, and thus threw it all out of wack again. I pulled open a very accurate kommandirskie and noticed the period at which the balance wheel spun on was much longer, which makes me think something else may be wrong. My office is full of static and I wonder if a potential may have magnetized it.

 

All advice is welcome.

 

I have a video but I need to shorten it first to upload it.

 

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[Paumanok]

Tapatalk won't let me upload a shortened video and the full 22 seconds is too large. Here's a Google drive Link for now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyAzhnmy2qx2H4ezAY71kV9Jfd3J_kyd/view?usp=drivesdk

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[Paumanok]

An update: I was able to luck back into a semblance of a beat rate, but it still has a problem with speeding up and slowing down, and not maintaining a constant rate. I'm going to let it run for a day and put it on tg after work. I'll also include a working watch to demonstrate tg being calibrated.

[clockboy]

The first thing I noticed is the movement needs cleaning. The second thing is it looks like the hairspring is not exactly centred. IMO before any further adjustments it needs cleaning and lubricating.

[yankeedog]

The hairspring is definitely out of center and possibly oily. remove it  place it inverted in a bowl  that you have filled with some sort of cleaner, non chlorinated brake cleaner from the auto parts store works well  a quick dip will usually remove any oil. See what that does..these can movements with some patience  be brought into line very nicely.if you have wavy traces you might have a wobbly escapement wheel from what I seen in vostoks , its the part that tends to wear out first.

[Paumanok]

The whole balance assembly is definitely dirtier than the rest of the movement. I only have mineral spirits on hand right now and no one dip.

I have a couple updates: first is the stud that is held in the beat error correcter was inserted far too deep. The adjusted stud can be seen in the first picture.

Second, it's now mostly in beat aside from a speeding and slowing seen in the second picture. From what was mentioned here, there's a good chance this is due to dirt on the balance. When I get some proper cleaner for a 1-dip, I'll revisit this. I also need to search the forums for a good set of oils as I only have one weight right now.

This movement was my first full tear down and repair, and being so new, I didn't remove the mainspring from the barrel for a clean either. Not the most professional repair but a good learning experience.

 

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Edited February 5, 2019 by Paumanok
formatting issue

[Paumanok]

9 hours ago, yankeedog said:

The hairspring is definitely out of center and possibly oily. remove it  place it inverted in a bowl  that you have filled with some sort of cleaner, non chlorinated brake cleaner from the auto parts store works well  a quick dip will usually remove any oil. See what that does..these can movements with some patience  be brought into line very nicely.if you have wavy traces you might have a wobbly escapement wheel from what I seen in vostoks , its the part that tends to wear out first.

The wavy traces is exactly what i'm seeing right now. Its only about +- 20 s/d which after a few days will hurt the accuracy. It was a junk movement sold for parts, so I'm not surprised. I do have a spare escapement wheel from the same movement the balance wheel + hairspring came from. If it gets worse, I can swap them out.

[yankeedog]

You have to assume these movements have seen no service and that they have have extreme wear. That being said they are pretty robust.as far as cleaning the hair spring, mineral spirits isn't the best, although  it works fine on hard parts such as gears and such. It does seem to leave a bit of a residue that makes the hairspring stick to itself.I just don't think it is refined enough. I have had good luck using naphtha and brake cleaner ,they are more volatile and evaporate more completely. You might want to order a few more of these movements, or even complete watches. they are cheap enough. It just seems that intact watches seem to work better. they have been left intact for a reason. just as bare movements have been disemboweled from their cases  for a reason, but,.nothing is a sure bet .

[Paumanok]

You have to assume these movements have seen no service and that they have have extreme wear. That being said they are pretty robust.as far as cleaning the hair spring, mineral spirits isn't the best, although  it works fine on hard parts such as gears and such. It does seem to leave a bit of a residue that makes the hairspring stick to itself.I just don't think it is refined enough. I have had good luck using naphtha and brake cleaner ,they are more volatile and evaporate more completely. You might want to order a few more of these movements, or even complete watches. they are cheap enough. It just seems that intact watches seem to work better. they have been left intact for a reason. just as bare movements have been disemboweled from their cases  for a reason, but,.nothing is a sure bet .

Thankfully the four I ordered were all relatively intact. According to a previous repairers scratchings on the caseback, some of these have seen work for better or for worse.

I originally left the balance alone with the mineral spirits. I decided to make due with what was on hand and give it a short soak in some Ronson lighter fluid. It's pretty pure but I'll be looking for something better later. I popped the cap jewel off and gave it a little oil and it seems to be running better.

One point I forgot to mention before was facedown, it was in beat, but face up it was way off. With the clean and oil it's running consistent both ways so I wound it up and I'm going to let it run overnight and see how it does.

I need to work on my eye and diagnosing skills a bit but I'm getting the hang of careful tweaser work at least.

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[yankeedog]

There will always be some positional differences . Gravity is funny that way. Large positional differences are generally indicative  of  worn parts..What you are doing is a great way to learn, trial and error is an excellent teacher.