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Omega Seamaster - Regulation using screw and/or regulating arm?


NJD1977

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Hi All, new joiner here and looking for a quick bit of advice.

I've recently had my Omega Seamaster (15yrs old) serviced, but when I got it back, the timing wasn't the best (about -30secs per day). I'd always fancied tweaking the timing myself and after plenty of reading up I made the adjustments to the regulating screw the other day and I've brought it to around -10s/day now. I've also got a Speedmaster which could do with regulating so I may do that next.

My question, more for the future, is how the regulating lever and regulating screw are connected. For example, can the lever still be manually adjusted with a toothpick etc. on this CAL1120 movement with the screw still in place or are they somehow connected / geared together? I may in the future buy a timegrapher and use it to keep my other watches in check so thought I'd ask this here.

Many thanks for any help.

Watch Question.JPG

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29 minutes ago, NJD1977 said:

I've recently had my Omega Seamaster (15yrs old) serviced, but when I got it back, the timing wasn't the best (about -30secs per day).

Out of curiosity as the watch just got serviced why didn't you send it back? 

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12 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Out of curiosity as the watch just got serviced why didn't you send it back

Just takes me an hour or so to drive to drop it off and another hour to go pick it up again and I'd always wanted to try regulating anyway. Guess the guy servicing it was just rushing it or something. 

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22 minutes ago, clockboy said:

I have serviced an Omega but the screw fine adjuster should be adequate. 

I think I'm right in saying though that once the screw hits the position in my photo, that's as far advanced as you can go without using the lever? If you turn the screw any further anticlockwise then it starts reversing the action?

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6 minutes ago, NJD1977 said:

Guess the guy servicing it was just rushing it or something. 

The problem is if somebody rushed the service then you have to wonder what else they did wrong?

Then if you want to regulate the watch I would really would recommend getting a timing machine. It's really easy when you start moving the levers to take the watch out of beat and without a timing machine you're not going to notice that unless you go extreme. Even just to regulate the watch a timing machine would really be helpful.

 

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19 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

The problem is if somebody rushed the service then you have to wonder what else they did wrong?

Then if you want to regulate the watch I would really would recommend getting a timing machine. It's really easy when you start moving the levers to take the watch out of beat and without a timing machine you're not going to notice that unless you go extreme. Even just to regulate the watch a timing machine would really be helpful.

 

Yeah I might do that,  but back to the original question, can the lever and screw be moved independently of each other?

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23 minutes ago, clockboy said:

After a bit of research using the adjusting screw of an Omega allows for +/- 15 secs per day which should be ample adjustment.

Yeah, its given me 15s per day at full extent,  but my question isnt about that, its about whether I can go further than this using the lever or is the lever locked to the range of +/- 15s when the screw is in place?

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The fine adjust screw will move only so far. The "screw" is an eccentric, so you are correct, once it gets to a certain point it will reverse the adjustment if you keep turning it 360°. Put the screw in the center position (the slot inline with the balance pivot) then CAREFULLY move the lever a fraction of a mm clockwise to make it slower or counter-clockwise to make it run faster. Once you are with 15 seconds +/- then you can use the fine adjustment screw to get it closer.

It's going to be rather a long process without a timegrapher, and we are all assuming that the beat error is within spec's.

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21 minutes ago, NJD1977 said:

Yeah, its given me 15s per day at full extent,  but my question isnt about that, its about whether I can go further than this using the lever or is the lever locked to the range of +/- 15s when the screw is in place?

Hello NJD1977, and welcome to the forum. Unfortunately your question is a bit more complicated than it may seem. I can show you the underside of the balance cock. I will take some pictures when i get home and post them here, but I do believe there is a gear under there. In addition to that, the 1120 movement utilizes the "etachron" system for regulation. The "stud" that you drew the line over actually has two posts that come straight down where the hairspring will go through. That can be adjusted to limit the space on either side of the hair spring to decrease it's deviation in the different positions and also help to regulate the timing. In addition, you can adjust the beat error by moving another lever, and then on top of that you have the fine adjustment screw. In order to make an adjustment to the "etachron" you'll need a special "etachron" key (they're about $40). All of this will require a timegrapher as you'd be making very small adjustments and then checking the timing. You'll also need to look at the timing in the different positions. I hope this helps. I would still recommend taking the watch back to the repair place as they may be better equipped to handle these adjustments.

Like I said...I'll post some pics of everything I'm talking about later tonight when I get home from work.

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27 minutes ago, mousekar said:

Hello NJD1977, and welcome to the forum. Unfortunately your question is a bit more complicated than it may seem. I can show you the underside of the balance cock. I will take some pictures when i get home and post them here, but I do believe there is a gear under there. In addition to that, the 1120 movement utilizes the "etachron" system for regulation. The "stud" that you drew the line over actually has two posts that come straight down where the hairspring will go through. That can be adjusted to limit the space on either side of the hair spring to decrease it's deviation in the different positions and also help to regulate the timing. In addition, you can adjust the beat error by moving another lever, and then on top of that you have the fine adjustment screw. In order to make an adjustment to the "etachron" you'll need a special "etachron" key (they're about $40). All of this will require a timegrapher as you'd be making very small adjustments and then checking the timing. You'll also need to look at the timing in the different positions. I hope this helps. I would still recommend taking the watch back to the repair place as they may be better equipped to handle these adjustments.

Like I said...I'll post some pics of everything I'm talking about later tonight when I get home from work.

Great, thanks mate. Is the etachron key to allow loosening and tightening of the brass element? I presume if you don't want to loosen that part, you just move the lever without an etachron key?

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10 minutes ago, NJD1977 said:

Great, thanks mate. Is the etachron key to allow loosening and tightening of the brass element? I presume if you don't want to loosen that part, you just move the lever without an etachron key?

Yes that's exactly what it's for. It will move the two posts hanging down closer or farther apart. The idea being that you want to get as close to the hairspring as possible without completely restricting it. My concern would be that I don't know what adjustments the previous repair included. I wouldn't want to assume that that was adjusted correctly but the find adjustment was not. It's all symbiotic, if you know what I'm saying. That would be my concern. 

The reason I'm more familiar with this is because I happen to be working on my own Seamaster with an 1120 movement. I've done a lot of research and  homework before beginning this project and am taking it very slow. There's just so much to know!

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6 minutes ago, NJD1977 said:

As I understand it from my research, the brass element is like a locking element that creates a slight nip in the hairspring to hold its length at a certain position. 

Kinda. Don't go turning at the brass element if you don't know what you're doing. You can kink the hairspring if u turned it too far. 

Anyways I don't know why it took this many long winded replies but, here you go. The answer is: yes.

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17 minutes ago, CaptCalvin said:

 

Kinda. Don't go turning at the brass element if you don't know what you're doing. You can kink the hairspring if u turned it too far. 

Anyways I don't know why it took this many long winded replies but, here you go. The answer is: yes.

So when a watchmaker is rebuilding a watch, how do they regulate the watch if it's limited to +/-15s per day? Do they only fit the micro adjuster after they've already set using the lever?

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5 minutes ago, NJD1977 said:

So when a watchmaker is rebuilding a watch, how do they regulate the watch if it's limited to +/-15s per day? Do they only fit the micro adjuster after they've already set using the lever?

The idea is they would center the screw and then use the lever to get it within a few seconds of +/- 0 and then sort out the rest of those seconds with the fine adjustment screw. It's really difficult to regulate with precision of down to the second with just the lever so the fine adjustment is there to help with that. 

Edited by CaptCalvin
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14 minutes ago, CaptCalvin said:

The idea is they would center the screw and then use the lever to get it within a few seconds of +/- 0 and then sort out the rest of those seconds with the fine adjustment screw. It's really difficult to regulate with precision of down to the second with just the lever so the fine adjustment is there to help with that. 

Great, I think you've answered my question then. So you can just make the gross regulation with the lever and once its within 20s or so, you can tweak using the screw?

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Yes. Just friction. Gross adjustments using lever. Fine adjustments using screw. I would get it a lot tighter than 20 seconds before using the screw however. Using the lever to regulate with precision of +/- 5 isnt hard at all. It's when you start going for tighter than that is when the screw comes in handy.

Edited by CaptCalvin
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