Chinese clone horia tool

[Waggy]

55 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Thinking about other tools here's an example Of another Chinese tool. In Seattle we have a school sponsored by Rolex teaching professional watchmaking and one of the students who had met had one of these before and one of the current ones I know it purchased one and as we're talking about Chinese tools this is a perfect example. Not something I would ever use but apparently the students like it and this is what was done to it notice it has a familiar sound doesn't it?

All things considered, it worked very very well outside of the box but I did service the entire thing. Disassembled it, cleaned off all the manufacturing oil, polished the pivoting points and then lubricated everything. It now works phenomenally. 

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800157901825.html?spm=a2g0n.order_detail.order_detail_item.3.2e12f19cloFdqx&gatewayAdapt=Msite2Pc

I do curiosity to see what it cost from the Swiss here's what cousins is selling it for. Yes it does appear to be quite a difference in price.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/hand-fitting-multi-press-watch-bergeon-swiss?code=H40483

 

 

I also have one of these, its a little off target and on my to-do list to disassemble and tweak.

[Neverenoughwatches]

10 minutes ago, Waggy said:

I also have one of these, its a little off target and on my to-do list to disassemble and tweak.

Me too. The pushers are a good fit in the spindle, the anvils are a little slack in the base. Both seem to line up ok but occasionally need to adjust the anvil's position within the slack on a small jewel. The mating surfaces on both the pushers and anvils are a bit rough as is the base seatings on the anvils. This does need addressing, when practicing i have noticed the jewel doesn't always enter the hole perfectly square on. 

[valleyguy]

I'm about to order one of the horia clones from ali, this will my first jewelling tool, the ali ads are confusing me, when i read the different sellers ads some listing say 4mm&4mm, and then it also says spindle hole 3mm, table hole 4mm, in the same description.

Are the pushers and anvils both 4mm or are the pushers 3mm and the anivils 4mm.

What size did you get when you received your horia clone.

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by valleyguy

[valleyguy]

A review left on one of the ali sellers says the sizes were 4mm so i ordered from the same seller, fingers crossed i get the 4mm version.

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:18 PM, valleyguy said:

I'm about to order one of the horia clones from ali, this will my first jewelling tool, the ali ads are confusing me, when i read the different sellers ads some listing say 4mm&4mm, and then it also says spindle hole 3mm, table hole 4mm, in the same description.

Are the pushers and anvils both 4mm or are the pushers 3mm and the anivils 4mm.

What size did you get when you received your horia clone.

 

The one i have is pushers 3mm and anvils 4mm. 

[everyonesdesign]

To add to the topic of Seitz (lever) vs Horia (screw).

Some Seitz presses were shipped with "thickness micrometer" attachment. I was lucky enough to score one of those before knowing what exactly it's used for.

If the zeroing screw is taken out, it effectively performs as Horia tool (pushing down the spindle by screwing in the micrometer screw).

I've documented different variations of Seitz (lever vs lever + thickness measurement) here: https://imgur.com/a/hJALq7f 

Edited July 28, 2023 by everyonesdesign
Used more proper word for an example (jewel -> spindle)

[clockboy]

10 hours ago, everyonesdesign said:

To add to the topic of Seitz (lever) vs Horia (screw).

Some Seitz presses were shipped with "thickness micrometer" attachment. I was lucky enough to score one of those before knowing what exactly it's used for.

If the zeroing screw is taken out, it effectively performs as Horia tool (pushing down the spindle by screwing in the micrometer screw).

I've documented different variations of Seitz (lever vs lever + thickness measurement) here: https://imgur.com/a/hJALq7f 

Thanks for this I will personally investigate.

[Knebo]

On 6/1/2023 at 5:02 PM, Knebo said:

putting a mainspring into the barrel

Quick note on my earlier post (see above): DON'T DO IT like that. It worked fine once because the anvil happened to fit extremely well. The following 2-3 times it always failed and I had a messed up mainspring.

This approach is actually quite fail safe:

I use Rodico to stabilise the brass tweezers and to ensure that they push down on the barrel evenly. I push down the tweezers with one hand - important is to have a fair amount of pressure so that the barrel can't slip away. With the other hand I pry in the mainspring with a screwdriver (flat side). It hasn't failed me yet. 

I realise that this is off-topic, but wanted to make sure nobody follows my bad example above with the Seitz press. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Knebo

[VWatchie]

On 6/1/2023 at 5:02 PM, Knebo said:

- putting a mainspring into the barrel

This was interesting! It always feels a bit scary to press the spring down by hand. I believe it was Kalle Slaap who suggested that you should mainly press on the bridle to get the spring down. That is, when the bridle is in the barrel, the rest of the spring will more or less follow into the barrel automatically.

It looks like your pusher has a larger diameter than the spring. Does it really work, or is there a risk that the spring won’t come out of the spacer? Please tell us more about how you proceed!

[Knebo]

2 hours ago, VWatchie said:

This was interesting! It always feels a bit scary to press the spring down by hand. I believe it was Kalle Slaap who suggested that you should mainly press on the bridle to get the spring down. That is, when the bridle is in the barrel, the rest of the spring will more or less follow into the barrel automatically.

It looks like your pusher has a larger diameter than the spring. Does it really work, or is there a risk that the spring won’t come out of the spacer? Please tell us more about how you proceed!

 

Hi @VWatchie, please don't use this technique. It worked once by chance and then always failed. See this post where I point that out:

On 10/12/2023 at 9:36 AM, Knebo said:

Quick note on my earlier post (see above): DON'T DO IT like that. It worked fine once because the anvil happened to fit extremely well. The following 2-3 times it always failed and I had a messed up mainspring.

This approach is actually quite fail safe:

I use Rodico to stabilise the brass tweezers and to ensure that they push down on the barrel evenly. I push down the tweezers with one hand - important is to have a fair amount of pressure so that the barrel can't slip away. With the other hand I pry in the mainspring with a screwdriver (flat side). It hasn't failed me yet. 

I realise that this is off-topic, but wanted to make sure nobody follows my bad example above with the Seitz press. 

Edited January 10 by Knebo