1A auto oiler drop size

[PeterS]

The drop of oil on the thicker endstone is always larger. I swapped the chatons but that didn’t make any difference. I tried it on my bench mat, I tried with the chatons in the main plate secured with the shock spring. For the past three evenings I’ve been trying all sorts but I always end up with a larger drop on the thicker endstone.
When I test it drop by drop on the main plate itself the drops are identical, absolutely perfect. Yet when I try to oil the incabloc it’s always larger on the thicker endstone.
It’s not as noticeable as it is in the pictures. I zoomed my phone x4 and put x12 loupe over the lens to take the pictures but it is a larger drop regardless.
This is the clone of the Unitas 6497. I have one or two scrap movements with incablocs and I’ll test it on them this weekend. In the meantime if anyone knows why this happens let me know.

[jdm]

Real pros can kick me. I'd be super happy with any of these droplets and move on to the next issue, of which there's never scarcity.

[Marc]

I wonder if the thicker end stone has a smaller radius of curvature to its top surface, resulting in greater magnification, like a stronger lens.

If so then identical size drops placed onto the flat surfaces of each jewel will look different sizes when viewed through the jewel, with the thicker jewel showing the greater apparent size.

.... just a thought. :-)

 

[GeorgeC]

Another reason could be that fix-o-drop / epilame agent could have remnants on one of the stones that appears to be a smaller diameter drop.

[Marc]

22 hours ago, Marc said:

I wonder if the thicker end stone has a smaller radius of curvature to its top surface, resulting in greater magnification, like a stronger lens.

If so then identical size drops placed onto the flat surfaces of each jewel will look different sizes when viewed through the jewel, with the thicker jewel showing the greater apparent size.

.... just a thought. :-)

 

I'm revising this theory.

Even if both jewels had the same radius of curvature to their upper surfaces, and therefore the same magnifying power, the greater separation between the curved surface and the oil drop on the flat surface in the case of the thicker jewel would still result in the greater apparent size of the drop when compared to the identical size drop on the thinner jewel when viewed through the jewel.

[PeterS]

Thank you all for your input.

I think George is right. I’m not sure whether they would go to the extra expense in China to apply epilame to the parts for clones but who knows. Certainly the surface tension is different on the two stones.
The diameter of the drops is different but so is the height (larger diameter – lower height, smaller diameter – higher height) hence I assume the amount of the oil is the same on both endstones.
I tried to capture it, you might be able to pick up on it. It’s very visible when you look at it with a loupe in the right light.

I also tested another incabloc and it’s absolutely spot on.

I was doubting the efficiency of the auto oiler because it takes some time to set it up to get the drop the right size, it certainly would have been much quicker to do it with a standard oiler but the size of the endstones is very much the same regardless of the size of the movements, at least the two I have. Below is a picture of the Unitas 6497 next to the other movement I used for testing, the endstones are almost identical in size. The smaller one is is smaller, but only a fraction.