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Who Bent My Banking Pin?


nichod

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I'm rebuilding an Elgin 683 grade wrist watch.  Don't know how I managed to miss it, but the inner most banking pin was bent toward the other pin.  Enough so that the pallet won't swing.  I didn't notice until reassembly.  Of course I moved it....Some......Before it broke off clean at the plate.

I suspect that was pressed in and with the right tooling a fellow could make one and put it back in there.  I simply found a cheap parts movement on ebay and ordered it.  Hopefully, it will be good.

But any ideas on how that might have happened anybody?  Could that happen in an ultrasonic bath?  Seems unlikely to me.  Some guy put it back together that way and it never ran again?  I'm awash in curiosity.  Other than rusty stem and setting lever the watch was in very good condition as though it had sat for many years.

Edited by nichod
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Hi, Hopefully the coming mainplate is in good enough of a condition, to replace the old one, so proper escape can easily be adjusted for, though old American pocket watches are said to be less sensative than swiss, so far as banking pin positioning.

Keep us posted on how the repair goes, please.

Regards 

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I just hope that couldn't have happened in the ultrasonic cleaner.  It would have to have been a bridge striking it and the bridges are very light.   This is a very small movement.

(That pallet fork is the smallest I have attempted so far).

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If you're 683 grade wrist watch Is like the one found at the link below you have movable banking pins. That means you can unscrew the broken one and replace off the movement you are getting. Unfortunately because banking pins can be movable people feel they should move them and on rare cases if moving them around didn't make them happy bending them is the next thing somebody does.

Then there are legitimate reasons to bend a fixed banking Pin and for that the Swiss make a tool I've attached an image of that.

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Elgin_683

Tool banking pins.JPG

movable banking pins.JPG

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2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

If you're 683 grade wrist watch Is like the one found at the link below you have movable banking pins.

movable banking pins.JPG

Wow.  I wish mine was like that!  Alas it is not.  Mine are smooth on the dial side of the plate and almost appear to have been peened into position.  Perhaps it could have been rotated from the top which would mean it probably just rotated into the bad position.  Probably exactly what happened!  I might have twisted it a bit and returned it to normal.

Oh well.  I'm still learning.  I've a number of pocket watches with slotted and rotatable pins but it just never occurred to me to try and move them in that way.  I recall de Carle's book and the picture of bending those pins and I gave it an ill fated try.  Guess that's how we learn.

Thanks gentlemen.  I'll have the watch on the  "Watch of the day" thread one day.  I swear it!

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On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 PM, Nucejoe said:

 

Keep us posted on how the repair goes, please.

Regards 

Got the parts car today....Interestingly it is a close serial to mine but a year or two older.  The pins are apparently pressed in with no sign of the other end on the dial side of the plate and obviously no screw slots.  Also they are straight so no adjustment would have been possible.  My old movement's pins were curved.

Nice parts, but the pilot hole for the pin end of the stem is missing, appears to have been a bodged repair whereby someone ground the plate away and stuck a chunk of metal in it's place with a ready made hole...   OK.  Maybe I can do something similar.  The stem was broken flush with the movement.  Whoever had it must have been hell on stems!

Is there a mathematical formula for how many movements a fellow would need to purchase on eBay to finish a watch?  Variables would likely be related to age of caliber and amount available to spend plus or times the total desire to see it play again :pulling-hair-out:

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