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Could you clean & oil a watch on the space station?


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If it were me, I'd anchor several pieces of pith wood to something, and just stick every part in those.  I'd have a mini-vacuum (like something smaller than a Dustbuster) with pantyhose wrapped over the nozzle, so that if something tries to float away, I could suck it back.  But then we get to the cleaning and oiling, and I don't have too many ideas there.  I think you'd need a purpose-made centrifuge-like washer to keep the cleaning solution in the jar and agitate it.  As to the oiling process, I think you'd just need to be really careful.  
I wouldn't want to be the first guy to try to fix a watch in space.  For me I think it would be frustrating and time-consuming in the extreme.  And a lot of forethought and preparation would be involved.

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 Sure you can, its osmosis which has nothing to do with earth's gravitational field, you ought to wait until you get back to earth to check for positional variations though.?

Well ofcourse not if your watch is a tourbillon.

 

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I think a large block of Rodico would be use full to hold all the bits and a large bag to work in.   cleaning using,  solution would prove difficult though, would have to use pressurised gas  and fluids.  Again done insise a bag to collect all the residue.  Would be an interesting experiment.

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I know myself well enough to know that I'd play around with trying to fit plates to wheels rather than the other way around. Ring toss versus throwing darts...

Work would have to take place in a vapor hood sort of situation so that rogue parts are at least contained, and will eventually lose enough energy pinging around to be able to be recaptured. Additionally, flashed off cleaning fluid would need to be contained and filtered. I'm certain that's not something the air scrubbers are designed to deal with. As a bonus, the whole faceplate could be one giant magnification lens for light duty magnification (the movement would need to come out of the hood for anything more). Assembly/disassembly would all be primarily about maintaining control. Kneejerk, I'd have a large "clean" Rodico wad, and a similar "dirty" Rodico wad. Any parts not being actively manipulated by a tool in one hand or the other lives in one wad or the other. As long as the hood is large enough and has a large enough opening for a lathe to get in there (with its own dust collection), I think that would about cover it.

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