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Mr chris johnson


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Hi everyone .this is a very new thing for me,my late dad was a clockmaker buy trade.and as y do some things stick with you a specially when you've been watching  him work for many a year.I do do small repairs if I can .just of late getting more ambitious, with some scrap watches. Getting very intrest in. Should have taken  it up when he asked me to but was young then, I have a question. About a automatic  watch that a friend  gave me to have a look at. When wearing it it looses a lot of time like probably 1 hr in a few hrs.but if I take it off and put it down it gains. At one point if I turned  it upside down it stopped. Then right way up it started again.is this an air spring problem. Or needs de magnitising.   Chris

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Hey, Chris! Welcome to the forum! We're all learning every day, so ask away.

So it sounds like you have positional error caused by a damaged balance staff, combined with possibly oil travel to the hairspring or magnetization causing two of the loops of the spring to stick together, thus shortening its travel time. When it's face-down, the pivot is gone so it grinds to a stop, face-up it goes too fast because of the hairspring. If you have a microscope, carefully take off the balance cock/bridge, take a look and see how the pivots of your balance staff look. If there are no tiny projections to rest in the jewels or bushings, you have a messed up staff.

While you have it apart, also take a look at your balance jewels and make sure there is no damage. I don't know the make and model you're working with, so there are a million ways it can go, but that's my instinct for now. Let me know what you find out, and good luck! If you need any step-by-step instructions, feel free to post photos or movement info so we can give you precise help.

Just take it slow, respect the timepiece, and keep your tweezers and screwdrivers sharp. We're here to help.

 

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Hi all again got some photos for you to look at now.had a really  close up look found a hair in the spring,unsure  where that came from,don't  know  if it was there before or came from me.or my friend is the culprit as he'd had it of at some stage.think to remove the spring balance is one screw,very tempted to take it off but don't  want to make things worse.and not be able to put it  back as was. As it not my watch to be playing with.please see whScreenshot_2020-06-12-17-19-13.thumb.png.e47fcca4585c5bad1373ecfd7ca0c4e4.pngat you lad think.   Chris

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Hope these can be of some use to .should I take the spring balance  of and have a look. If it's broke I can't do anything with it it would have to go in for repair  some where. I had  four lathes at one point but sold them for a ridiculous  cheap price.all his stuff that I thought  I'd  never want,but hindsight is a wonderful  thing.if I could turn  clocks back,having said  that I wouldn't  know  exactly what I was  doing. ..   chris

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