Every. Single. Time...

[spectre6000]

So far, I've attempted to rebuild a handful of watches. Mostly watches I didn't expect to be able to resurrect just to get the hang of manipulating tools and parts, but there have been a half dozen or so that I should have been able to get back on the road. To a one, every single watch ends up with abysmally low amplitude. The one time I didn't have low amplitude, it was so high it rebanked due to an incorrect mainspring; once I got the correct mainspring in it, like clockwork (rimshot), low amplitude. I just tied a bow on an NOS French movement, so there's no way someone else has been in there and messed something up, it's just worn out beyond repair, or anything else. The only answer is something I'm doing is wrong. So what is it?

The factor I think is most suspect is my use of 9415... That seems like a pretty viscous grease in a location that doesn't need any unnecessary friction, but that is literally what it's for... For the watch sitting on my desk now, I put the grease on the pallet jewel impulse face, let it run in for a half hour or so, then pulled the pallet, cleaned the jewels, and put it back together. Visually, it looks like I have between 60-90° amplitude (obviously won't register on the timegrapher). Is that SOP for 9415?

Is there any sort of thing I could be doing habitually that would result in low amplitude every single time?

Edited September 4, 2020 by spectre6000

[Nucejoe]

What kind of amplitude you have before you pull and clean the pallets? 

[spectre6000]

Same before and after with the most recent watch. 60-90°. I feel like that seems pretty typical.

Edited September 5, 2020 by spectre6000

[BrianB]

I had the EXACT same problem with the Unitas 6498 I took apart, cleaned, lubed, and put back together as part of Mark's classes. I too bought a NOS, genuine ETA/Unitas movement. My thought being - genuine Swiss movement, basically brand new, so if anything isn't right at the end it's because I screwed it up.

I was meticulous during all of the lessons for the class, using brand new Moebius oils of the correct type, using magnification to ensure that the quantity applied was what Mark was recommending. Examined end shake and side shake, train spins smoothly throughout all the gears with the balance/cock not installed, etc.

I had put it on the timegrapher before doing the teardown and rebuild and the amplitude was 270, the beat error was 2.3ms, and the SPD was -117. After it won't even register and I can visually see that the amplitude is about 60 to 90 degrees.

I too used 9415.

I too think 9415, or more likely my overapplication of it.

Though I did not announce the underlying motivation behind my question, the above is what led me to post a thread on 941 vs. 9415. Candidly I'm a little embarrassed that it didn't turn out perfect because I am a VERY detail oriented person and I felt like I had done a great job with everything. Your post gave me the confidence to uncloak on this. :-)

Like you I did as Mark suggested and applied the 9415 to the exit pallet, let it run in, and then removed the pallet fork, cleaned it, and put it back in.

Now I think what I need to do is remove the pallet fork and escape wheel, clean the bejeezus out of them, and put 941 on them and put them back in. That said, JohnR725 posted a very interesting document in a post in that thread that talked about how precisely 9415 needs to be applied. Part of me wants to try following those instructions, but part of me wants to see the damn movement run correctly again first.

I have been somewhat doubtful of the root cause because during reassembly I did make one pretty big boo boo. In trying to get the balance and cock back in place I fumbled it and the bottom pivot of the balance was in its jewel with the weight of the cock hanging on the hairspring (which of course is connected to the balance). 

Best I can tell the hairspring looks evenly spaced and undamaged, the pivots of the balance staff look fine (not bent or broken), and the jewels look fine, but I've been harboring the doubt that the hairspring is damaged and that is the source of my woes. So much so that I found someone selling a balance complete with cock for the 6498 on eBay and ordered it. It's coming from Poland and doesn't look like it's going to get here anytime soon so now having read your post I think I'm going to order some 941, strip out the escapement, clean it, and see what happens with 941.

If that works great then I'll know the balance is happy and I can take that all out, clean it again, and try my hand at using 9415 correctly.

[jdm]

3 hours ago, BrianB said:

Best I can tell the hairspring looks evenly spaced and undamaged

That's for the horizontal plane, OK. Now look at it by all sides. If doubts remove it from the balance and place it on a stacking block. It must be absolutely flat, because even a minor slope will grow when is compressed, and will touch the balance spokes and brake. 

That had bappened a lot to me, most often im conjuctiom with hairspring accidents, but at the time people here was just saying clean this and and clean that. Which didn't help a bit. 

Actually the first way to look at this possibility, is listen to the sound, for ringing. Or look at the waveform for spurious peaks. The Chinese machine doesn't do that, but a good PC software doesn't. 

 

think I'm going to order some 941, strip out the escapement, clean it, and see what happens with 941.

Be reassured, it is not that. Lubrication problems or even absolute lack of it can, at moat change amplitude by twenty degrees or so. But if balannce swings feey, it's something major causimg that. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by jdm

[jdm]

Please excuse the horrible spelling of my posting above. I will now mentally block WRT from my phone - end of story.

[JohnR725]

 

4 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

Visually, it looks like I have between 60-90° amplitude (obviously won't register on the timegrapher).

decrease in amplitude does not mean crash and burn looking like it's on its deathbed. The Chinese timing machine really has issues with anything below about 100° that's not even considered a running watch.

one of my recommendations is once someone feels they can take apart their practice broken watch put it back together hopefully limitless broken than they found it then typically they want to start repairing watches except that's not my recommendation. You start with a new running movement one of the clones of the 6497 or 6498. Purchased eBay or wherever you purchase your Chinese watches from. If it's a brand-new running watch your preferably of a timing machine you verify its condition. Then when you practice taking that apart and putting it back together if you have an issue it's your issue. if you start with broken watches and thinking that cleaning will fix your problem you are probably mistaken. Now we ask for help we don't know if it's the previous problem that you did not diagnose or whether you have introduced a problem makes it very hard for us to help you.

 

6 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

I just tied a bow on an NOS French movement,

one of the problems with the definition of new old stock is it does not say wonderful perfect watch that happens to be old. Previously on this group there was a discussion of a new old stock German watch that discussion went on at least 10 pages and the watch never really did run well. The final conclusion is the reason it was new old stock was because they never sold in the first place because they were not good watches. So if it's new old stock of something that you recognize that you know is a running watch that's fine and when you get it if you wind it up to run your timing machine that's a good sign but if you have a new old stock is not doing great then at can be an issue.

normally I don't like what I call hijacking a discussion. This is where somebody comes in with my watches kinda like your watch help me out. The problem is I consider every watch a separate problem and it really should have a separate discussion. But were going to hijack this thread for at least a little bit.

it appears to be that BrianB's as exactly what we need started with a running watch knows what the amplitude was and now it's running itself into an early grave by dying on us. But we know what it was before that helps considerably.

Then as a general reminder to newbies it's usually the simple problems that you can't see because you don't have the experience yet. I'm not saying it's the obscure stuff that couldn't be there but if it was running before it should be running.

can lubrication be the problem where seeking here well ES but probably not. I saw the classroom situation where a watch basically couldn't even be timed after the students at service debts. I attempted the simulates what that student did by lubricating the entire watch with D5 which was the heaviest oil that we had. I'm suspecting that Greece was probably used on the pivots because even oiling the entire watch including the pallet fork pivots with D5 could not simulate how bad this watch was running. After that the school supplied the students with the lubrication's to avoid those complications. Using 9415 inappropriately will cause a loss of amplitude but not the loss were seeing here. Unless you apply it so incredibly heavy you would have to really really really tried to make it this bad.

So how bout experiments because your learning. Remove the pallet fork and escape wheel rinse them off in whatever rinsing fluid you have. Then and no need to scrub them or anything else I think sometimes aggressive cleaning of delicate watch parts could be an issue. Put them back in the watch run the watch with no lubrication other than re-oiling the escape wheel pivots. But no lubrication on the escapement itself see what happens?

Oh and timing machine results we really need to establish proper timing machine procedures and pictures for us. All the watch companies for a fully wound up watch never time when it's wound up tight they let it settle down a little bit minimum would be 15 minutes maximum would be one hour. Then.just dial down dial down and dial up and at least one crown position pick one you like crown upper crown down. Minimum of three positions. Then allow us settling time in other words each time you change the position allow at least 30 seconds and then measure for at least 30 seconds. Also adjust your timing machine averaging 20 seconds usually works pretty well it helps to stabilize the readings. Then give us pictures.

Without lubrication on the escapement it should run and it definitely should run better than 90°.  no matter what it does get us results pictures the timing machine. T

so this message does not get incredibly long that lets go to this point and Guinness results. I could go on explain everything but it's going to make for a really really really long message

3 hours ago, jdm said:

That's for the horizontal plane, OK. Now look at it by all sides. If doubts remove it from the balance and place it on a stacking block. It must be absolutely flat, because even a minor slope will grow when is compressed, and will touch the balance spokes and brake. 

That had bappened a lot to me, most often im conjuctiom with hairspring accidents, but at the time people here was just saying clean this and and clean that. Which didn't help a bit. 

Actually the first way to look at this possibility, is listen to the sound, for ringing. Or look at the waveform for spurious peaks. The Chinese machine doesn't do that, but a good PC software doea. 

 

the reality is when your new and you start off with your new pocket watch you really should pay attention to the hairspring is going to be the biggest problem in watch repair for you and all of us. It's amazing what a hairspring can do if it's not where it's supposed to be. It's also really really hard from a lot of people to see where it's supposed to be or not supposed to be. This is where ideally with your new watch you would stare at it you look at as the balance wheel swings hairspring opens and closes. You let the power off and look at it carefully and see if you can tell how far it is above the arms that one is a lot of times really hard to see. As opposed to it looks right and you never really paid attention until oh dear I seem to have a problem then you have no idea what it's supposed to look like because you weren't paying attention in the first place probably has none of us told you you should really pay attention in the first place.

Just in case your watch is not magically spring the life which I doubt it will we should have some pictures the balance wheel and hairspring along with your timing machine results

7 hours ago, BrianB said:

So much so that I found someone selling a balance complete with cock for the 6498 on eBay and ordered it. It's coming from Poland and doesn't look like it's going to get here anytime soon

 

personally I'm very happy your balance wheel isn't getting here anytime soon. It have to be careful with 6497's in that they've gone through multiple generations and you do have to make sure you get the right one in the meantime censuses watch repair let's see what we can do about repairing your balance wheel.

I should've been paying more attention to your message because if you screwed up your hairspring and then my suggestion of dealing with the lubrication issue is a waste of time but let's do all of it at the same time. Photograph would be nice to see if you get a photograph of the balance wheel looking straight down in one looking and sideways. One of the unfortunate realities of watch repair is you need to learn how to fix hairspring issues or even more important you need to billet diagnose hairspring issues. All of us unfortunately from time to time will have issues and if you can fix those issues. Going to be way ahead of everybody else. Because you cannot always get a balance complete

 

oh I remember I hijack the discussion to discussions in the same thread how fun

10 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

So far, I've attempted to rebuild a handful of watches. Mostly watches I didn't expect to be able to resurrect just to get the hang of manipulating tools and parts, but there have been a half dozen or so that I should have been able to get back on the road. To a one, every single watch ends up with abysmally low amplitude. The one time I didn't have low amplitude, it was so high it rebanked due to an incorrect mainspring; once I got the correct mainspring in it, like clockwork (rimshot), low amplitude. I just tied a bow on an NOS French movement, so there's no way someone else has been in there and messed something up, it's just worn out beyond repair, or anything else. The only answer is something I'm doing is wrong. So what is it?

of the watches you've worked on have you successfully yet got any watch to run decent?

Anything that resembled a running watch before like my exempla starting with the new Chinese clone of whatever you have one of those that we can start with

then as I think I said above problem is starting with broken watches cleaning them in oiling them will not always fix the problem. This means now you're going to figure out what the real problem is.. But exactly as I said above take to escape wheel out rinse it off rinse off the pallet fork put them back in again no oil on these watches at least on the escapement and let's see how much better or worse they are. That will remove your suspicion that it's the escapement grease.

oh and of minor effect is there is the lift angle factor if you don't have the lift angle right that changes things but not super dramatically. It's more of a concern for obsessed people wanting absolute perfect amplitude

so pick out one of the watches that you think should be running an amplitude is crap and let's work on that watch rather than a general theme of a whole bunch of watches it makes it too hard for diagnosing.

 

[spectre6000]

Lots to respond to... First off, the 60-90° amplitude estimate is visual. The timegrapher won't register. It attempts to figure out the beat rate (21.6K for what it's worth), lands on something random in the neighborhood with a wildly erratic trace, then attempts to figure out the beat rate again. When I set the beat rate manually, it's just a wild trace, and it can't make any sense of it for any other parameters.

I also dropped the balance cock off the side of the movement with the balance wheel in its lower pivot. The pivots looked fine, and the hair spring looks fine. I have two problems to overcome with this watch (and all of them). Most immediately, the movement is quite small and oblong, and to get it into any of my movement holders, it sits pretty low in the smallest set of notches. Getting the balance in is very challenging due to a lack of accessible angles for doing so remotely on plane.

The other hurdle is optics... I'm pretty sure I made a bad choice when I purchased optics. It's another conversation entirely, but I have two clip on loupes (3x/5x and 4x/7x). There is no way for me to be able to see what I'm doing AND do it at the same time. This is most problematic with oiling... I can barely see where I've placed the oil, or I can place the oil, but there is no possible way to do both in any sort of temporal proximity. I have to assume this must not be the end of the world, because it's not like watchmakers had stereo microscopes 100 years ago... 

My problem may very well be the hairspring. Maybe I'm just generally rough with them? 

Quote

of the watches you've worked on have you successfully yet got any watch to run decent?

Noop. The Westclox I took apart was the roughest watch I've ever seen in person. I had no expectation of getting it to run well, and it did not disappoint. I borked a shock setting spring in a Tongji, so no idea if that would have run. I had a Seiko 5 that stopped running after a violent car accident, but it turned out to have possibly been salvageable had I not been the one attempting salvage; I borked the hair spring. I took apart the replacement Seiko 5 hoping to salvage parts, and it turned out to be a different generation; I borked its hair spring. I ordered a replacement balance complete for the latter, and borked it too. The pallet fork of the Grana has been obviously messed with in the past, and the two sizes too large mainspring tells me I'm not the first to be stymied by it; I might be close on this one, but I'll have to figure out how to manipulate pallet jewels first, and I think that's a lesson for a later day. Then there's this Lorsa I'm working on now. I have 6 more mostly identical watches to get it right.

Assuming I borked the hairspring on this one too, I think what would likely benefit me the most here is some sort of video or something on how to handle and manipulate balances and related. I often see them removed very early "to get them out of harm's way", but also often not. Some people place them on nails with the cock hanging down, some place them just off to the side. Placing them, I often see the balance and cock held simultaneously in tweezers, sometimes dangled down into place and the cock placed after. That variability tells me this is on the "art" side of the spectrum. 

I'll pull the pallet fork and escape wheel, clean them, and see if it runs. While I have the balance off, I'll look super close at the hair spring. Maybe pull a balance off another watch... ?

[rodabod]

Don’t get too hung up on lubrication - you should still usually get reasonable amplitude even with the movement completely dry. 
 

I wonder if you may be on to something regarding the handling of the balance. Perhaps send a photo of your hairspring?

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

Some people place them on nails with the cock hanging down, some place them just off to the side.

I think it might help to start with one of those Chinese pocket watch movements there only around $40. Start with something big then have fun try all kinds of lubrication because I think you'll find that you can go really really bad before it's bad. Makes it a lot easier to see things just overall better to go with the pocket watch Chinese  movement.

the nail thing I like the. If you watch school at some point in time beget the play with the lathe and make things. One of the first thing is is a balance tac. as I like your terminology a nail on a base. The purpose of which is to torture your balance wheel. They will place the bridge on the pointy nail that the balance hang Byatt snack stretching out it's hairspring. They sell these commercially almost every students makes one obviously the super popular my experiences been it's not good for the hairspring. Then I don't like ;-) things anywhere where I can get my fingers on them.

Then unfortunately it's really hard to describe what I do pictures would be better except I'd need five hands to do it. When I left the balance bridge out I'm very very careful to try not to pull on the hairspring too much so the balance doesn't move I set the bridge back down an attempt to get the tweezers under the bridge the pool of both up together. Then and this is the part that hard to describe what I set it on the bench I flip it over. If the balance bridge is down the balance is resting on the bridge there is no pressure on the hairspring everything is fine unless you put something on top of it.

for lubrication I'm attaching an image it's only a sampling it was one watch was done for a purpose of a lecture. In see the effect of as I went through lubricating the watch and you can see that nasty horrible grease putting on the escape wheels didn't seem to really be in effect. But much later today we might get a better answer I was thinking of going to work today and I have a practice 6497 that I was using for another lubrication experiment I think I'll go wild and crazy with the escapement grease for you and will see if I can make it run really bad.

then there are probably some minor technical errors in that chart in that the final amplitude of 340 Something Is Way too high. But it kinda gives you an idea of what happens with lubrication. Strangely enough lubrication actually causes a decrease in amplitude at least initially. If you left the metal dry expressly metal on metal it would weigh hair and wearing out metal would introduce new worse problems. So in the long term lubrication is good and on the short term at least for the picture I have it doesn't necessarily look the best but in and things looked better. This is why you would have to try really really hard with lubrication to have a amplitude that both of you for seeing it's probably something else.

 

[jdm]

27 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

If you watch school at some point in time beget the play with the lathe and make things. One of the first thing is is a balance tac. as I like your terminology a nail on a base. The purpose of which is to torture your balance wheel. They will place the bridge on the pointy nail that the balance hang Byatt snack stretching out it's hairspring. They sell these commercially almost every students makes one obviously the super popular my experiences been it's not good for the hairspring. Then I don't like ;-) things anywhere where I can get my fingers on them.

Exactly my thinking and experience. Hairsprings are supposed to be flat, a dandling weight  cannot help in retaining that property.

Once I asked a member here what is the exact benefit of a balance tack, he said that it to see things, he didn't said what exactly so I tried myself, sadly I couldn't see anything really. 

Quote

Then unfortunately it's really hard to describe what I do pictures would be better except I'd need five hands to do it. When I left the balance bridge out I'm very very careful to try not to pull on the hairspring too much so the balance doesn't move I set the bridge back down an attempt to get the tweezers under the bridge the pool of both up together. Then and this is the part that hard to describe what I set it on the bench I flip it over. If the balance bridge is down the balance is resting on the bridge there is no pressure on the hairspring everything is fine unless you put something on top of it.

Which of course is the correct technique.

And I put it back the same way, even if that means that sometime it won't be in between the fork on the first try. Previously my mistake was that I wasn't looking at the lower pivot while driving it to the hole, sometime I spent hours trying going blindly. Nobody had told me, I don't know if it's in the books, found by myself and it works for me. 

Another great improvement was to go to cheap brass tweezers from the expensive steel one which some people think one can't do without. They grab perfectly and there are no more minute scratches on the cock or balance. 

[KarlvonKoln]

I have no balance tack.  I've been wondering if I should get one, and what all would be done with it.  But so far, I also have just been getting by with carefully placing the balance complete upside down in the parts tray.  I will read a bit more about these balance tacks, but I don't know if I will get one if I do not need it.

I like my brass tweezers very much.  They require attention sometimes to keep them straight and the tips lined up.  But I don't mind that.  They grip fine and do not mar the parts.  My steel ones have their place for other things, but I reach for my brass ones most often.  They work plenty fine.

[BrianB]

It's hard to get pictures of the mainspring and balance, but I managed to get a couple decent ones.

To my very untrained eye it looks happy. Any particular shots I should try to get?

 

[BrianB]

When Mark was showing how to reinstall the balance complete and cock in the class he first moved the pallet fork to the rightmost position (toward the center of the movement), then used tweezers to hold the cock and let the balance wheel dangle on the balance spring, with the cock oriented about 90 degrees clockwise of its intended position. He sort of jockeyed the balance into its lower pivot, and then rotated the cock toward its final position and lowered it in place.

It sort of seemed like this was a lot of unhappy force on the hairspring, but obviously Mark knows what he's doing.

Does anybody do something different?

[rodabod]

12 hours ago, BrianB said:

 

 

 

It may be absolutely fine, but your stud height is potentially slightly high. As a very vague rule, usually the top of the stud will be roughly flush with the surface of the balance cock. 
 

Check that the entire hairpring is flat as you look across the side. 

[rodabod]

12 hours ago, BrianB said:

Does anybody do something different?

I think most people do the same, or a slight variation of the same principle which is to lift the balance cock with the hairspring hanging and carefully lower it in such that the pivot lands in the jewel hole and the impulse jewel on the roller is on the correct side of the lever notch. Some people use tweezers to hold the balance cock and balance wheel together, such that the balance wheel does not dangle. 
 

I’ve never had an issue with hairsprings being deformed by dangling balance wheels. I use my balance tack regularly. 

[spectre6000]

I do the same thing, though I often come from the outside rather than in. Maybe that sets up a scenario where it's more likely that the cock falls off the side of the movement rather than onto it... Seems like an easy adjustment.

What about when the movement has a center wheel that overhangs the balance, such that this method inevitably results in the hairspring hanging on the top of the center wheel while the balance is below it? This was the case both on the Lorsa I have on my desk now, and the Certina. That method results in significant jockeying after everything is down to get pivots to their homes.

[jdm]

1 hour ago, spectre6000 said:

What about when the movement has a center wheel that overhangs the balance, such that this method inevitably results in the hairspring hanging on the top of the center wheel while the balance is below it? This was the case both on the Lorsa I have on my desk now, and the Certina. That method results in significant jockeying after everything is down to get pivots to their homes.

And Seiko. Give it to my way, wheel and cock in brass tweezers, better if top jewel is removed to minimize chances of bending it. Find the best angle to look at the hole, leave cock on its posts or there about, then grab the rim alone and drive the pinion looking. After learning to do this you can also make the impulse fall in straight. Otherwise just lift the wheel a bit and in it will go.

[JohnR725]

the terminal curve of the hairspring doesn't look quite right but that's not going to be the problem.

it's really hard to get a photograph of because the depth of field when you're taking a close-up picture totally sucks. So you get stuck looking at the hairspring sideways C of its flat. You can use the upper balance bridge for alignment and of course the balance wheel. It should be perfectly flat if it's rubbing touching the balance wheel that's an issue.

Then I need to get some pictures labeled so you can see I did an experiment on Saturday the copious quantity a 9415 on a Swiss version of this pocket watch and I think it literally have to have the escape wheel swimming in the lubrication for it to be a problem. 90° because he applied the oil of the heavy is never going to happen. Okay it might happen if it's our chick cold or something in that oil would be really heavy but casually putting a super quantity of 9415 is not the reason why you're getting such pathetic performance there's something else going on.

 

[JohnR725]

somewhere else in our discussion group somebody asked a question related to escapement lubrication. I found an interesting video I'm pasting the link below. Conveniently he skips over which lubricants he's using. The real purpose the video in this particular discussion is that there is a little more to lubricating the escapement than putting lubrication on it.

this is where in watch repair especially when you're beginning it's assumed that you can purchase something off of eBay clean it oil it it should run and? It wasn't running in the first place cleaning it may not fix the problem. Then usually for beginners it's the simple things that cause problems. Things like the hairspring it is so easy to inappropriately bend and really hard to see that you've done such a thing.

 

https://youtu.be/Gy0o0KKBqeQ