Baumgartner BFG 866

[Jon]

Hi,

I teach watchmaking to complete beginners at Epping Forest Horology Centre, close to Epping and this is one of the lessons on the BFG 866.

I wanted to show my class a classic pin pallet (Roskopf) movement and how to service it, as many watchmakers won't touch these watches as they hold no monetary value. 

 

Turn the setting lever screw 1 to 1 and a half turns to release the winding stem

A piece of watch paper or small plastic jiffy bag to protect the dial, whilst removing the hands

The driving pinion is part of the friction fitted minute wheel on top of the barrel. This work in a similar way to a friction fitted canon pinion to set the watch hands

 

Remove the keyless work: setting lever, held in place by the setting lever screw, screwed from the other side of the mainplate, then the yoke, which sits on top of the clutch (castle) and also the winding pinion.

I have three other lessons on this movement that cover bringing the watch 'into beat' as well as taking apart the friction fitted minute wheel from the barrel, lubricating and staking back on to achieve the correct friction setting and finally how to remove the centre seconds wheel safely and refit using a staking set. Many people leave the friction fitted minute wheel on top of the barrel, not realising the amount of old grease that can't be cleaned out from it, as well as not removing the wheel of the centre seconds arbor and again not cleaning out the pipe which has old grease inside.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial? More to come....

 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Jon
one too many pics

[watchweasol]

Hi Jon   That's great  pictorial and easy to follow.  Should be great help to the less experienced In identifying all the relevant parts and sections.   

 

[gina]

This is perfect Jon. I'll be looking out for your other tutorials, they are beyond helpful.

Have a great day. 

[berniethebolt]

Dear Jon thanks for the tutorials on the BFG 866.you say you have four but i can only find three.i am interested in the removal of the minute wheel from the barrel!can you help?

Edited October 23, 2020 by berniethebolt
misspelling

[Jon]

Lesson 17. Baumgartner 866 Barrel friction fitted wheel.ppt

[Jon]

1 hour ago, berniethebolt said:

Dear Jon thanks for the tutorials on the BFG 866.you say you have four but i can only find three.i am interested in the removal of the minute wheel from the barrel!can you help?

I've just posted a PowerPoint presentation of removing and re-fitting the friction fitted minute wheel.

Hope it helps. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask, as I expand on the lesson in the class room, so end up explaining more than is in the pictures and captions

[Nucejoe]

Hi jon, I fully agree with weasol, great pictorial.

My question which you may not cover in your lessons, is; would you happen to remember the CGS for bfg 866 hairspring. I still have about fourty of them waiting for restoration and am short of hairspring and if you know where to source HS for 866 and  springs out of what other bfg caliber is compatable with bfg866. 

BFG movement have long been obsolete, so is information on them.

Finally I have spare new and used parts to the caliber, should you need any I might have ,  be gift wrap them for you.

Regards joe.

[spectre6000]

Excellent! A number of these popped up in the 404 Club recently. Pretty sure I ended up with two of them... Thanks to your minute wheel post, I now know better than to attempt them until I get a staking set!

[berniethebolt]

2 hours ago, Jon said:

Lesson 17. Baumgartner 866 Barrel friction fitted wheel.ppt 15.29 MB · 9 downloads

thanks jon just what i needed.

[Jon]

1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

Hi jon, I fully agree with weasol, great pictorial.

My question which you may not cover in your lessons, is; would you happen to remember the CGS for bfg 866 hairspring. I still have about fourty of them waiting for restoration and am short of hairspring and if you know where to source HS for 866 and  springs out of what other bfg caliber is compatable with bfg866. 

BFG movement have long been obsolete, so is information on them.

Finally I have spare new and used parts to the caliber, should you need any I might have ,  be gift wrap them for you.

Regards joe.

Thanks Joe.

As you said, they are obsolete and many won't work on them because of there low value, but I think it is always good to get good at as many movements as possible. I've got many spares for this movement, but thanks for the offer. Much appreciated. If I need anything, I'll PM you. 

I don't know where to source hairsprings and balances for this, other than scrap movements, which I've been doing

[berniethebolt]

On 10/23/2020 at 2:21 PM, Jon said:

I've just posted a PowerPoint presentation of removing and re-fitting the friction fitted minute wheel.

Hope it helps. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask, as I expand on the lesson in the class room, so end up explaining more than is in the pictures and captions

HI jON just finished with a 866 under a Lectro dial.got it going nicely but when i put it on the Timegrapher it was all over the place.did some adjustments which improved it a little but is still not right as you will see from the photos.any suggestions .there only seems to be one arm to adjust,the other seems to be fixed!

[Jon]

On 10/25/2020 at 4:47 PM, berniethebolt said:

HI jON just finished with a 866 under a Lectro dial.got it going nicely but when i put it on the Timegrapher it was all over the place.did some adjustments which improved it a little but is still not right as you will see from the photos.any suggestions .there only seems to be one arm to adjust,the other seems to be fixed!

It's hard for me to say, as I don't know the condition of the watch, mainspring, pivots, holes, etc. There's a lot of variables, I suggest looking at how the pallet pins lock with the escape wheel teeth. How did you grease this? On the pins or on the escape wheel 'root' of the tooth? Is it locking evenly on both pins and deep enough, as the 'draw' is vitally important on these and they 'lock' much deeper. Check your hairspring is dead flat to the balance and it isn't magnetised and how does the hairspring 'breathe' between the curb pin and boot on the underside of the balance cock? Did you clean and re-grease the mainspring and arbor and peg out all the holes and clean all the pivots and pinions. Did you lubricate the top cap jewel and bottom polished metal cap? Did you completely take the top jewel out of the setting and clean to a mirror finish before replacing, screwing into place and oiling through the oil sink and push the oil through with an adapted oiler that has been honed down. You can see why many don't like working on these, as they are easily worn to the point of being thrown away, because if the low quality of parts on a cheap 'pillar' construction watch

[watchweasol]

They may be old , cheap, and simple in design but they were fitted to many watches. They were workhorses of their day. Repaired quite few of these and still have a few workers.  A bit like the old Timex people did not repair them but replaced them, but in my opinion still worth doing if you can get the parts.

[Watchtime]

very nice walkthrough Jon, thanks...

[berniethebolt]

22 hours ago, Jon said:

It's hard for me to say, as I don't know the condition of the watch, mainspring, pivots, holes, etc. There's a lot of variables, I suggest looking at how the pallet pins lock with the escape wheel teeth. How did you grease this? On the pins or on the escape wheel 'root' of the tooth? Is it locking evenly on both pins and deep enough, as the 'draw' is vitally important on these and they 'lock' much deeper. Check your hairspring is dead flat to the balance and it isn't magnetised and how does the hairspring 'breathe' between the curb pin and boot on the underside of the balance cock? Did you clean and re-grease the mainspring and arbor and peg out all the holes and clean all the pivots and pinions. Did you lubricate the top cap jewel and bottom polished metal cap? Did you completely take the top jewel out of the setting and clean to a mirror finish before replacing, screwing into place and oiling through the oil sink and push the oil through with an adapted oiler that has been honed down. You can see why many don't like working on these, as they are easily worn to the point of being thrown away, because if the low quality of parts on a cheap 'pillar' construction watch

thanks Jon will redo everything and start again but i will shove to the back of the queue and try and actually enjoy working on a watch again! but i will return to it as i have plenty of time to kill with whats going on.B.

[Nucejoe]

Hi jon,

True no high value pieces but some of its vintage pieces are rare, collectable and sought after, for the complications put on bfg866 base. They are increasingly getting hard to find.

I collected and have a few calender pointers by patrius brand,  wish I had collected some with other rare complications, there were so many different types of them.

Following your lesson with much interest. 

Regards

 joe

[luiazazrambo]

Hi Jon,

thank you for taking the time to put this together and thank you for sharing. Did you also post how to remove the fixed seconds hand wheel? I could not find it, not sure because it was not posted or i just simply failed to find it?

Take care,

lui

[spectre6000]

Disregard.

Edited March 16, 2021 by spectre6000

[Jon]

1 hour ago, luiazazrambo said:

Hi Jon,

thank you for taking the time to put this together and thank you for sharing. Did you also post how to remove the fixed seconds hand wheel? I could not find it, not sure because it was not posted or i just simply failed to find it?

Take care,

lui

Hi Lui,

I'll post a Powerpoint of that fixed centre (seconds) wheel removal and refitting sometime tomorrow.

[Jon]

22 hours ago, Jon said:

Hi Lui,

I'll post a Powerpoint of that fixed centre (seconds) wheel removal and refitting sometime tomorrow.

Here you go... I've just posted this.

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask

[luiazazrambo]

Absolutely fantastic! Not just the instruction how to remove the seconds wheel, but the whole thing. I don't have a wheel remover or hand levers thin enough, but I am going to look around to see if I can buy something. I am not in a rush its a scrap movement and i am servicing it for educational purposes. Thank you.

[RemovedUser10118]

Nice post.
The friction fit minute wheel sometimes needs adjusting. I’m not sure if you covered that, but it is important when this movement is used as a jump hour. It’s not unusual to find that it slips too much to allow the minute indicator to move the hour indicator over its click. 
 

The solution that I use is to remove the minute wheel from the barrel, remove the arbor from the minute wheel tube and flare out the tube on the minute wheel end ever so slightly to increase the friction. 

[Jon]

23 hours ago, PinLeverPete said:

Nice post.
The friction fit minute wheel sometimes needs adjusting. I’m not sure if you covered that, but it is important when this movement is used as a jump hour. It’s not unusual to find that it slips too much to allow the minute indicator to move the hour indicator over its click. 
 

The solution that I use is to remove the minute wheel from the barrel, remove the arbor from the minute wheel tube and flare out the tube on the minute wheel end ever so slightly to increase the friction. 

Thanks, I use a similar method to increase the friction whilst the minute wheel has been re-fitted to the barrel cover. I use a domed punch and a staking set to then flare the collar holding the minute wheel, then feel the friction and repeat if it isn't enough.

It's one of the lessons I haven't posted on this forum, because when I try to there is a 'server error'

[jdm]

9 minutes ago, Jon said:

It's one of the lessons I haven't posted on this forum, because when I try to there is a 'server error'

There should be no problem attaching PDFs but if happens again please post in the below section with a screenshot of the error. https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/forum/25-help-support-with-this-website/

 

[Jon]

Baumgartner 866 Barrel friction fitted wheel .pdf

Here is the last instalment of the BFG 866 lessons I wrote.

This lesson shows how to remove the friction fitted minute wheel from the barrel cover, clean, lubricate and adjust the friction setting, so when in 'hand-setting' mode, the hands set correctly without being too sloppy or too tight when turning the crown. Some overlook removing this friction fitted wheel, but as you will see, there is a lot of old grease that doesn't help when left to congeal. Enjoy...