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Chemman

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Hi everyone.  Just recently took up watch repair.  I have been a auto/motorcycle mechanic, Navy jet aircraft mechanic, chemist/physicist, industrial mechanic/electronics technician, DOD photographic technologist, ski lift electronics technician, and now a hydroelectric communications, instrumentation and relay technician.  Whew, that is a list and a half.  I have long been interested in watch repair but not until the last couple years and after inheriting my grandfather's Elgin Grade 345, great-grandfathers Grade 180, and a Grade 581 Master Navigation watch did I take the hobby up.  The Grade 581 had a broken balance staff so that was my first experience with watch repair.  Getting the balance poised and now timed has been a great challenge.  Finally have it running within a second an hour, just today.  

 

Cant hardly wait to read the messages in this board so I am off a running.

 

Chuck

 

Ps. Here is an image of the old broken balance staff from the GCT I shot with my scanning electron microscope I have in my living room.  Couple regular shots of the 581 too.  Sure glad my wife understands and even promotes my obsessions!  

Staff-1_BAN.jpg

20181208_131155.jpg

20181208_131228 (1).jpg

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    • Hello everybody, sorry for the late reply. Thank you all so much for your help and your tips. I got lucky and found a replacement wheel bridge for cheap which actually ended up being in decent condition. I decided not to do anything about the mainspring barrel pivot since I didn't have the right tools and the barrel didn't have much endshake anyhow. I am happy to report that the watch now runs great, I have regulated it to about +-10/s day which is fine by my standards. The timegrapher result looks decent as well, although beat error is around 0.6ms which could be better I suppose. Amplitude reaches over 230 quite consistently which I'm happy with also. My lighter fluid has also been replaced by balance spring cleaning solution and now the springs don't stick to themselves anymore - who would have thought. I'm super happy with this watch, it might not be worth a whole lot but it's awesome that I could restore it and it makes me wear it with pride. To me it's a genuinely good lucking watch, it'll be my daily driver for a while. Thanks again to everybody for their input! I couldn't have done the repair without your help.   Here are some images for those interested, the bracelet isn't original but I don't really mind:    
    • Balance-hairspring system is oscillator with big Q-factor. When all in the movement is OK, the rate (frequency) is verry close to the own resonant frequency of the balance-hairspring. But in some cases, the movement (with foult) will force the resonator to work on pritty different frequency, sometimes faster, and sometimes slower. When this happens, the amplitude is always weak. So, the first thing to ask is what is the amplitude. If it is more than 180 and the hairspring doesn't touch itself and anything else, then for sure it is 'short'. If the amplitude is weak, then the first thing to do is to understand why and rectify the problem. At this time no point to check timekeeping. But, if one doubts that the hairspring is not correct, then He needs to calcullate the rate of the movement, then to 'vibrate' the balance-hairspring out of the movement and to measure the free oscillations frequency (period) with timer in order to ensure that they comply with the rate. If we have pictures, then it will be easier to tell something about that wheel.
    • So much work has gone into this! Thanks again @Jon. I will go back and check my adjustments from last weekend. A few questions for you, if you don't mind. In the reset position, I can understand the problem if the gap between the hammer and the minute counter heart is too big (slide 77) but what is bad about both hammers being in contact with the cams (slide 76)? I read somewhere that Landeron recommended grease on the runner cam, but the minute counter heart should be dry. Is that so, and why? How many tads in a ligne?
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