Jump to content

Please help identifying this movement


Yasser

Recommended Posts

Dear friends,

I hope someone can help me identify this movement below (see photos).   I thought it was a BFG movement but on closer inspection, I noticed the letters ‘FB’ on the plate but unfortunately no calibre number.    The mainspring is broken inside the barrel and would like to get a replacement if I can find the calibre number.

Many Thanks,

Regards,

Yasser.

DBBD506D-5CEB-44A3-86F8-967DA3699D52.jpeg

F0BE7BFB-6084-4C45-AC89-D2D531A4932D.jpeg

AB41B3FA-39AF-4102-93B9-ECAD67324DE6.jpeg

E7A19640-1F47-4D5B-A8B8-962D616412F4.jpeg

66EB1BCE-D384-4DB3-9208-2ED2C46EE17A.jpeg

F5B996A9-13FC-49B1-ACE4-8E790928577D.jpeg

5383F770-EA9B-4E4B-8AB4-C74E9A64C6B2.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One other point  Identification can be checked via the bestfit books of which there was a download link posted by Old Hippy some months ago They are to big to send as pdf's but find able via the search option on the top right of the screen,  worthwile finding them and downloading a copy.      cheers

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, watchweasol said:

One other point  Identification can be checked via the bestfit books of which there was a download link posted by Old Hippy some months ago They are to big to send as pdf's but find able via the search option on the top right of the screen,  worthwile finding them and downloading a copy.      cheers

Sorry but would you have the link.  I tried the search but can’t seem to find it.    What shall I search for?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

Looking at the Bestfits catalogue, it seems it is a LAPANOUSE movement. Which one, it’s hard to say as atleast 2 of them are very similar on Pages 155 and 156.       The Ligne size is 13’’’ -13.5’’’ when measured on my movement.  Upper plate and bottom plate sizes have a 0.5 ligne difference.    The catalogue has some 13’’’ ligne listed but the parts don’t match.   However,  the two which do match are ligne sizes 10.5 and 12 respectively.

I guess as Joe and yourself suggested and to move this forward, it’s easier to measure the mainspring’s H x W x L and then see what’s available on Cousins.

Thanks for all your help guys. ?

Regards,

Yasser.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Guys,

I have taken out the mainspring and here are the measurements with some additional comments:

1.  H x W x L  (in mm)

1.5 x 0.1 x 567 (please see note about the length.)

The 567mm was the total length of the two broken parts of the mainspring.  I rechecked and noticed that 6mm was folded over at the end which goes against the barrel wall.  Please see photo.

So, is it correct to assume that actual total length would be 567mm + 6mm = 573mm?    If so,  I need to find one which is approx between 570mm - 575mm.  Please advise.

2.  Please see the other photos.    The mainspring end which goes on the Barrel Arbor is I believe a TR type?  Can you please confirm for me? 

3.  The diameter of the barrel itself is 16.6mm.

4.  I checked Cousins in the GR section but they do not seem to have anything which matches the length PLUS the TR type.    Any other websites you can recommend?

Regards,

Yasser.

 

2A9D8815-E30D-4584-83B8-6796C04B25E6.jpeg

2829EC10-7DA4-4201-90B0-41272939C172.jpeg

6B97323F-1A2E-42A2-841B-E67F6353F3FA.jpeg

Edited by Yasser
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that the inner diameter of the barrel? That's the number you want. Regardless, it's a very wide barrel with a very long mainspring for that width and thickness, from what I've seen available. The bridles are standard.

The closest spring that I think would fit on cousins is

1.50 x .105 x 480 x 11.5 Non-Automatic

GR4143

It's a lot shorter than yours but there isn't really anything of that length in that size. If you're worried about the upsize on strength/thickness you could try

1.50 x .10 x 360 x 10 Non-Automatic

GR4125

but that's even shorter. The shorter length shouldn't be too much of a problem, just less reserve. At this stage, I don't think total hours of reserve is your biggest concern.

You might try looking on ebay or other places for NOS springs, you might try with your bestfit number of 611 but you'll want a high letter (length), the highest I could find was 611P, which is 343mm. Not sure what letter 567mm is, X is 495mm, so ZZZ maybe?

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, KOwatch said:

Is that the inner diameter of the barrel? That's the number you want. Regardless, it's a very wide barrel with a very long mainspring for that width and thickness, from what I've seen available. The bridles are standard.

The closest spring that I think would fit on cousins is

1.50 x .105 x 480 x 11.5 Non-Automatic

GR4143

It's a lot shorter than yours but there isn't really anything of that length in that size. If you're worried about the upsize on strength/thickness you could try

1.50 x .10 x 360 x 10 Non-Automatic

GR4125

but that's even shorter. The shorter length shouldn't be too much of a problem, just less reserve. At this stage, I don't think total hours of reserve is your biggest concern.

You might try looking on ebay or other places for NOS springs, you might try with your bestfit number of 611 but you'll want a high letter (length), the highest I could find was 611P, which is 343mm. Not sure what letter 567mm is, X is 495mm, so ZZZ maybe?

 

Hi KOwatch,

Thanks for the help.  The internal diameter of the barrel is 15.5mm.    Sorry I am new to watchmaking as a hobbyist - about 6 months or so.    I have never replaced it serviced a barrel.  I guess now is the time.  Hence, learning the ropes.  

Yes, I saw those options on Cousins website.  However,  as you seen thatbrhe length is not long enough but yes it will work.   Secondly, the 0.105 may just rub inside with the top/bottom when the barrel is closed.  I will check the depth of the barrel to see how much free room there is. 

There are few on eBay but the prices are like £20 delivered and the dimensions are not even listed by the seller.   So I don’t think I’ll be buying a NOS (possibly a wrong one) from Spain or Italy.    

I was hoping someone with old stock and/or a donor movement would read this thread and let me know. :).     Let’s see.  Otherwise I will just keep an eye out.   

I wonder, with the correct tools if it is possible to cut a hole/notch and make a bridle as the longer broken mainspring part is 380mm.   Just a thought!

Regards,

Yasser.

Edited by Yasser
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I'm reading your measurements correctly,

.10 or .105mm is the thickness of the spring, so this number helps fill up the diameter of the barrel when multiplied by the number of coils of spring. It is the primary variable for the strength of the spring, leading to higher or lower amplitudes of the balance wheel.

The width of the spring (1.5mm), is the same as the inside height of the barrel (as you say: top/bottom, or depth), so if you increased this it could rub on the top/bottom of the barrel, but you don't need to since 1.5mm is available. You could decrease it to 1.4mm and not suffer too much trouble, just some extremely slight extra play in the barrel.

Yes, you can make your own notches and bridles from old springs, there's discussion of the techniques in any classic watch repair manual. However, if your mainspring has broken, it will absolutely break somewhere else, the metal of the spring is already known to be compromised.

 

Edited by KOwatch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, KOwatch said:

If I'm reading your measurements correctly,

.10 or .105mm is the thickness of the spring, so this number helps fill up the diameter of the barrel when multiplied by the number of coils of spring. It is the primary variable for the strength of the spring, leading to higher or lower amplitudes of the balance wheel.

The width of the spring (1.5mm), is the same as the inside height of the barrel (as you say: top/bottom, or depth), so if you increased this it could rub on the top/bottom of the barrel, but you don't need to since 1.5mm is available. You could decrease it to 1.4mm and not suffer too much trouble, just some extremely slight extra play in the barrel.

Yes, you can make your own notches and bridles from old springs, there's discussion of the techniques in any classic watch repair manual. However, if your mainspring has broken, it will absolutely break somewhere else, the metal of the spring is already known to be compromised.

 

Thanks.  My apologies aa I wasn’t thinking straight.   So this means that as long as 1.5mm height is not exceeded, the thickness doesn’t really matter that much but the length will impact the reserve.   Hence, need to look for the longest length mainspring.

Regards,

Yasser.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you put a 1.4mm or 1.45mm width mainspring in a 1.5mm barrel, it won't make much of a difference. Technically this reduces the cross-sectional area of the spring, so you would compensate with a slightly thicker mainspring to maintain the same strength. There's calculators available online if you want to plug in the numbers.

There's other factors to consider, but from your description and photos we don't have any info on the watch. It looks like a very basic unjeweled movement with a pin-lever escapement? potentially lots of friction there. On the other hand, it looks like an old steel mainspring, so the alloy replacement of the same measurements and thickness might have a different spring coefficient. Lots of variables there. I'd try getting a mainspring that fits and seeing if you can get it to run.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

definitely looks like a Baumgartner! 844 seems to be missing that horseshoe shaped cutout in the main plate though.

@guidovelasquez has a very good implicit point here, that the mainspring you found in the barrel isn't necessarily the correct spring for that movement. The 844 is listed with a very different mainspring than the one you describe,  1.40 x 9.0 x 0.11 x 260mm (works out to 1.40 x .11 x 260 x 8 Non-Automatic GR3696 on Cousins) which is a lot more reasonable in length than what you had (but also thicker and narrower).

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • I remember when I was in school the instructor would use whale oil on some problematic little tiny ladies watches because he felt it was a better oil. then for my birthday on my friends gave me a bottle of vintage nye watch oil. Complete with the advertisement inside which I have scanned below and what I find interesting is it hasn't gone bad in the model and it is super super thin I'm guessing the viscosity of water basically. then somewhere in the discussion group within the last year or so somebody purchased one of these bottles off of eBay and was using it on their watch. After all a bottle watch oil is? Apparently it was an expensive I'm guessing or it's what they had or something no idea what the final outcome was other than I found it amusing. then somewhere in the Internet somewhat it made up this interesting chart down below. I believe the first natural oil is there 8000 oil. Notice the friction properties in the first two columns in other words it's really good at reducing friction better than anything else.  But it does have additional specifications like contact angle which is almost never found in any spec sheet which has to do with how likely it is to spread. Big numbers are bad in those two columns and you can see spreading test it's very bad. So basically it's a really outstanding oil for a short period of time before it spreads away and of course being natural it has a habit of probably going bad very soon the best oil of course is Elgin oil at least the second version of their oil very good at reducing friction and very good at staying wherever you place it and still very fluid oil viscosity wise. then one of the most famous oils of all Swiss 9010 that I personally don't like and don't use quite a ways down on the chart personally prefer 9020 which unfortunately is not listed on this chart. It slightly heavier viscosity and has a little nicer contact angle those more likely to stay wherever you put it versus 9010 which universally requires epilam if you would like to stay wherever you putting it. then if you're in the viscosities here's an interesting chart that I found on the discussion group. ou will note there some minor variations between the viscosities listed here and the chart up above which may be attributed to the difference in temperature  universally everything is supposed to be at 20° C and the chart up above is at 40° C. Because what becomes interesting on the chart is 8000 is listed out of viscosity of 95 which does agree with their technical information and the PDF for the oil lists at 40° it is 41 where up above the chart everything is either listed as 50 or light whatever that means? Then Elgin oil is listed on the chart in a clever interesting way. you look on the chart at a viscosity of 125 you'll find Dr. Tillwich LGN oil which is the synthetic version of Elgin oil. Many years ago they had a request and gathered up a whole bunch of samples and synthesize the oil and for a while it was available for sale although it was rather expensive I had seen a bottle for about $100. and as far as viscosities go it does appear to be right in both charts in other words at 20° it's 125 and at 40° it's 50. So unfortunately it brings up the problem of viscosity or better yet contact angle determines the spread ability of your lubrication unfortunately we typically don't get contact angle we just get viscosity. So the casual trend is a heavier oil tends to not spread although as we can see from looking at the chart that isn't hundred percent true. As far as reducing friction goes viscosity doesn't necessarily come into play here either. Or basically we don't have enough of the right tech sheets to make a real proper comparison.
    • Somewhere in the back of my mind i thought you had the jewelled seitz pivot gauge, i was just asking if you had this scaled pin gauge as well. I might have just made up that thought  H. 😅
    • Yes, but the idea was that the OP wanted to be able to measure the diameter of the jewel holes in his collection of unordered jewels. Also, depending on the type of micrometre used one has to be careful not to dent the very small pivots (< 0.12mm) when pinching them in the micrometre. In my experience, the JKA Feintaster is safe to use also when measuring very small pivots. I don't understand your question, which I think was for me, no?
    • I didn't think there were any gauges under 0.1  .  I do like the old art deco tanks which are small sizes. My staff stash amounts to around half a mil. So i think I probably have that base covered. This 0.1mm set seems to be the most expensive, larger 100 piece set are about half the price. For around a 100 quid you can have sizes from 0.1 up to 4mm. Bugs me that they charge shipping for each seperate item so no combined shipping fee available.  Do you have the variable pin gauge as well ?
    • Yes, I understand that indeed.   Which is exactly what I am lacking, as I said. That's why the ring diameter matters to me.   That matches my anecdotal observation indeed. It could be the material or the modern backward curve that provides more power.   This is an interesting topic!  While these old oils were maybe thinner, their friction-reducing effect may still actually be lower than modern (even thicker oils), no? I man, some old, thin, organic oil may be less effective in reducing friction than a modern, thick HP1300 or so. What do you think?
×
×
  • Create New...