New Movements For Practicing On, Very Cheap.

[rogart63]

I don't either, but the answer is "yes".

 Rumor says that Rolex doesn't take their movements apart . Leaving the bridges and balance in the movement and cleaning it as it is . Then new oil on the jewels and so on . 

[steve855]

Ok, now I get it. Maybe I'll soak a complete movement in turpentine, then give it a guick dunk in good old WD-40!

[BlakeL]

I didn't have any luck with the one I was working on... Still have 9 left. Now that I have an ultrasonic I'm going to try a deeper cleaning at some point and hopefully that will free things up.

[steve855]

I'm in the process of cleaning another one now. I've had everything soaking in acetone overnight, except the pallet fork. Here something interesting which I forgot to mention earlier; after I cleaned the first one in naptha in my ultrasonic, there was a little blob of something left in the naptha after I removed all the parts. It just floated around in there. If I tried to move it with a toothpick it would separate then come back together again. It reminded me of a lava lamp. I'm guessing this was some of the old lubricant, and the naptha was enough to take it off the plate and bridges but it would not actully dissolve? It was strange. Anyway, we'll see how it goes with cleaning attempt #2.

Edited February 3, 2015 by steve855

[DrRock]

At the risk of making Steve feel bad (it's not deliberate or personal, I assure you), I got my couple of packs of the same movements from the same seller.

 

I pulled one out of the plastic pack, gave the crown a couple of winds - and it worked. The **BLEEP** thing WORKED!

 

So I thought - that must be a sheer fluke, after reading the posts on here, so I pulled the middle one out of the second pack of 5 (my feeble attempt at a random selection) - wound it - and IT WORKED!!!

 

So out of 10, I've tried two, and they both worked. I've had them both on the bench for about 5 days now, winding each time I go past them, just to see if they seize up - but they're still working.

 

So I'm now going to let them run right down and stop, then see if they will start again with a quick wind up.

 

Haven't had time to sit down seriously with them yet, but I'm hoping to do that on the weekend and try the other 8 movements.

 

All I can say is - AMAZING!  Or as Gen Y or Z or something would say: "Amazeballs"...!

Edited February 3, 2015 by DrRock

[steve855]

Hey! ! You hurt my feelings! Haha, not really of course. That's great for you that they run, but none of mine would go at all as received. I wonder why? Maybe the longer trip to you shook things loose? I should ship mine to Oz and then back to me.

Actually no worries here. I bought them to practice and work on my technique, so if I get just one running properly I'll consider it money well spent. Then I can resume working on some watches that interest me.

Edited February 3, 2015 by steve855

[bobm12]

Hi Steve, did you cleaned the barrel also? The blob you refer to sounds like barrel grease.

 

Cheers,

 

Bob

[steve855]

No I didn't put the barrel or mainspring in with the other items. I popped the cap off and it looked very clean so i just left it alone for now.

[steve855]

At last, I think I've got one running decently.

https://vimeo.com/118975995

This is the one which I did the full cleaning and oiling on. I took out the pallet fork and installed one from another movement and it worked. I'm not sure why, I looked closely at the pivots and jewels on both and could see no difference. Maybe I just didn't have or seated in the jewels correctly before.

When i assembled it before, I hadn't removed the anti shock on the balance cock and i think the jewel still had old dried oil in it. It seems to run stronger after i addressed this. The first time I tried to replace the anti shock spring it took over an hour and ended with me going to make a tool for the job. Now that I have the tool it takes only a minute or two. So there is some progress being made here at least!

Thanks to all who offered advice and encouragement.

[DrRock]

It's a beautiful thing, Steve, isn't it? Making something work that didn't work before.

 

Well done, both for the persistence, and for the skills learned. I still haven't had a chance to try any more of my lot yet - very busy work-wise. So I'm still at two samples tried and two working, out of my 10.

[steve855]

Thanks Dr. Rock, it's nice to know that I've made some progress. I was beginning to think the batch I got was NOS because they were defective, but I just needed to keep at it. I have two runners now but one is rather weak. Installation of the balance is still difficult for me. It seems that the center wheel overhangs the balance wheel so that the balance spring always snags on it. Need more practice, I guess.

[Geo]

Well done Steve and keep practicing. If you had been using old used and abused movements, you could have had a lot more difficulty due to issues with movements. At least using NOS, apart from being gummed up they should all be runners.

Just a wee aside, remember NOT to oil the escapement lever jewels, they should run dry. Everything else will need lubed though. :)

[BlakeL]

Great job!  I hope I can get one working once I go back to working on them.

[steve855]

Thanks Geo. My next phase will be doing exactly that- I have a small pile of old 61xx series seikos bought off the bay which I want to fix up. I'm sure I'll have a new set of trials and tribulations but at least spares are fairly cheap. Funny thing about those watches though- some of them look like they fell off the back of a truck and skidded down the road, but they still run.

As to the escapement lever jewels, I actually remembered to leave them dry! I did not oil the pallet stones either- I don't yet have the recommended oil (9415?) so I figured better to leave them dry. It looks like applying the corrrect amount in the right place is a touchy affair anyway, so I'll save that for a later date.

I just checked and movement #2 is still beating away!

Steve

[steve855]

Blake- my best advice is to be very thorough cleaning and pegging the jewels. That old oil is tenacious. Some of the jewels needed a lot more cleaning effort than I expected. Nothing seems to really dissolve it, either. I had the main plate and bridges soaking in acetone for over 24 hrs and still needed to do a lot of manual removal of the dried oil. Acetone is usually quite agressive as a solvent and degreaser, but it didn't do much in this instance. Naptha didn't seem to do any better.

Inspect those jewels with whatever your highest magnification is before you start reassembly. I know this is basic info to most people here, but I was surprised how tough that oil dried up oil is.

Steve

[BlakeL]

Blake- my best advice is to be very thorough cleaning and pegging the jewels. That old oil is tenacious. Some of the jewels needed a lot more cleaning effort than I expected. Nothing seems to really dissolve it, either. I had the main plate and bridges soaking in acetone for over 24 hrs and still needed to do a lot of manual removal of the dried oil. Acetone is usually quite agressive as a solvent and degreaser, but it didn't do much in this instance. Naptha didn't seem to do any better.

Inspect those jewels with whatever your highest magnification is before you start reassembly. I know this is basic info to most people here, but I was surprised how tough that oil dried up oil is.

Steve

Thanks for the info. What oil did you start out with?

[steve855]

I bought 9010 and HP1000 to start. The high cost of the oil keeps me motivated when things get difficult. I have too much $ invested to give up now, ha ha.

[steve855]

Just to add some information to this thread, here's one of the jewels before cleaning. It's pretty well gummed up with old dried oil.

[BlakeL]

Just to add some information to this thread, here's one of the jewels before cleaning. It's pretty well gummed up with old dried oil.

Did you actually remove them all to clean or is that from one of the other's?

[steve855]

I removed the two for the balance wheel. One in the main plate, one in the balance cock. These are the only jewels with shock protection. They're easy to remove, not so easy to replace! I don't think you could clean them properly without removal though.

The other jewels I just cleaned in place.

Edited February 8, 2015 by steve855

[steve855]

Well folks, movement #2 has been running since Friday at 9:45pm EST and it's still chugging away, not too bad! Of course this is just a bare movement but I'm still pleased that it has run over 48hrs on a winding. I did install a little minute hand made from Rodico just for fun. I have no hour wheels for these movements though. I also got movement #3 cleaned and reassembled and it's running too. So that makes 3 runners out of 5, I still have 2 that I haven't taken apart yet. I'm getting pretty well acquainted with the 233-60 at least.

I think part of my earlier problems with balance springs may have been due to the resistance of the old dried oil on the lower balance pivot causing me to use more force than I should have when removing the balance initially. I have complete movement #4 soaking in solvent in an effort to minimize this.

[steve855]

If you need to pull the escape wheel out and its reluctant to come out.. make sure you pull it up square otherwise you'll break the pivot. Same for the pallet fork.

A pre-soak in Napthpa for an hour will ease the disassembly.

Anil

Thanks again for this advice. This is what made me think me think that maybe I need to pay more attention to how I'm initially removing the balance assembly before cleaning. I think I was pulling too hard on the hairspring trying to lift the balance wheel from the lower pivot, while holding it by the balance cock. Live and learn.

[Geo]

You've lived, you've learned and you've got a good result. Well done Steve! :)

[steve855]

Thanks Geo, for the link to these back in December and the encouragement along the way. Amazingly enough, #2 is still running, from 9:45pm Friday! I'm starting to worry that I did something wrong. The PR for this movement is listed as 49 hours, and this one is closing in on 57. Is it due to reduced drag from lack of hour and seconds hand, or reduced friction attributed to modern synthetic lubricants? Or perhaps inept assembly? I have no idea if this thing is keeping reasonable time. Maybe it's running way behind and dragging out the power reserve? At least I can be reasonably confident that I cleaned the jewels properly.

Steve

[bobm12]

Good job steve!