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Posted

Hi there,

Being brand spanking new at my hobby, I began by supporting the Swiss economy by buying some of their tools and utilized other sellers as well whenever possible.  I cleaned out a vacant room and established a work area.  I soon realized the value of a good work light and was thankful I bought the tools I did.  My first watch repair efforts are still in progress, having bought by lot a group of junk, non-working movements for cheap.  Those movements were the only cheap things I bought.  These tools are expensive after awhile.

The only watches I've worked on are old pocket watches.  My first was a Waltham which I got working, at least to where it would tick for about 30 seconds.  I'll go back to it another time to see if I can get anything more out of it.  The second one was an 1889 Illinois which had a broken pallet stone and a bent safety pin.  Failure on that one.  The most recent was a 1904 Elgin with a 289 movement, not running.

I dis-assembled it, the Elgin, and did not take pics of that process, thinking I could manage on my own.  More confidence than smarts it turned out.  After cleaning by hand with alcohol I put the parts in an ultrasonic with L&R cleaning solution, new.  I was dismayed to see a jelly-like substance on the parts and floating around.  Verdigris?  I then cleaned in the matching cleaning solution followed by dipping in alcohol.  The alcohol removed the material, whatever that was.

While cleaning I inspected all the parts and found that a couple of train pivots were damaged and someone dropped a glob of something, maybe shellac, on the top of the entry pallet.  But I soldiered on.  Re-assembly was difficult as I should have taken pics.  Lesson learned.  I also thought I was clever by installing the center wheel first as it's secured by the barrel bridge.  Well on this watch it's better to put the wheels in from the escape wheel to the center wheel and then install  the barrel and its bridge.  This took more time than it should have.  I hadn't messed with the mainspring because I just wanted the watch to work, then if it did I'd go back to it.  But, no power was coming from the spring and after spending, again, more time than necessary I realized someone had installed the arbor upside down.  Lesson learned there too.  I had a heck of a time trying to figure out how the "floating arm" could stay engaged with the ratchet wheel.  This floating arm is a bar which has the crown wheel, per se, in the middle with an intermediate wheel on either side, and these wheels engage with the ratchet or minute wheel, respectively.  I had no crown or stem so I had to use a bench tool with a pin vise to try to keep the thing engaged which was tricky for me.

I finally got the thing together.  Oh, and the mainspring was all bent up at the terminal where it meets the arbor.  Didn't break fortunately.  Gave it a little wind, dropped in the balance, and yes, it works!  Not well, really badly actually, but it runs for a few hours.  I think the other end of the mainspring may not be seated in the barrel properly or is broken as I think that's why I don't get the power I should.  I'm not going to spend any money to find out, I'm just happy it works.  Well, I'm content, hence the use in the title. 

I'm not having parts fly away anymore, or at least they fall on my desk now rather than ping around the room until being sucked into a black hole. 

I wanted to share my trials and modest success with you.  On to the next junk movement for me.  Thanks for reading.  BTW, I call them junk movements because that's how they were described to me when I bought them off ebay.  To me they are really beautiful works of art and science.  The engineering and craftsmanship which went into these old watches is spectacular and it does in fact please me to get one ticking when it wasn't before, for who knows how long.

  • Like 5
Posted
On 5/24/2021 at 1:01 PM, watchweasol said:

Welcome to the forum you have been busy.  Seeing as you are no stranger to the anatomy of the watch I have attched a couple of documents you may find useful as you venture deeper       cheers. 

TZIllustratedGlossary.pdf 4.2 MB · 2 downloads Witschi Training Course.pdf 4.65 MB · 2 downloads

"...I have attached (sic) a couple of documents you may find useful..."

May find useful!  Yes, for the duration of my hobby.  This training course is like a gift which keeps giving, so many thanks watchweasol!  I will spend much time learning and scratching my head on this material. 

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    • it would be nice to have the exact model of the watch the or a picture so we can see exactly what you're talking about. this is because the definition of Swiss watch could be a variety of things and it be helpful if we could see exactly the watch your dealing with then in professional watch repair at least some professionals they do pre-cleaned watches. In other words the hands and dial come off and the entire movement assembled goes through a cleaning machine sometimes I think a shorter bath perhaps so everything is nice and clean for disassembly makes it easier to look for problems. Then other professionals don't like pre-cleaning because it basically obliterates the scene of the crime. Especially when dealing with vintage watches where you're looking for metal filings and problems that may visually go away with cleaning. Then usually super sticky lubrication isn't really a problem for disassembly and typically shouldn't be a problem on a pallet fork bridge because there shouldn't be any lubrication on the bridge at all as you typically do not oil the pallet fork pivots.  
    • A few things you should find out before you can mske a decision of what to do. As Richard said, what is the crown and all of the crown components made of . Then also the stem .  The crown looks to have a steel washer that retains a gasket. So be careful with what chemicals you use to dissolve any stem adhesives or the use of heat. You might swell or melt the gasket unless you are prepared to change that also . The steel washer maybe reactive to alum. Something I've just used to dissolve a broken screw from a plate. First drilled out the centre of the screw with a 0.5mm carbide . Dipped only the section that held the broken screw in Rustins rust remover. This is 40 % phosphoric acid. 3 days and the screw remains were completely dissolved, no trace of steel in the brass threads. A black puddle left in the solution.
    • I suppose this will add to the confusion I have a roller jewel assortment. It lists out American pocket watches for Elgin 18 size and even 16 size it's a 50. But not all the various companies used 50-50 does seem to be common one company had a 51 and the smallest is 43. American parts are always interesting? Francis Elgin for mainsprings will tell you the thickness of the spring other companies will not even though the spring for the same number could come in a variety of thicknesses. But if we actually had the model number of your watch we would find it probably makes a reference that the roller jewel came in different dimensions. So overlook the parts book we find that? So it appears to be 18 and 16 size would be the same sort of the arson different catalog numbers and as I said we don't have your Mongol know which Log number were supposed to be using. Variety of materials garnered her sapphire single or double but zero mention about diameters. Then in a section of rollers in this case rollers with jewels we do get this down in the notes section Roller specifications but of course zero reference to the jewel size. I was really hoping the roller jewel assortment would give us sizes it doesn't really. But it does show a picture of how one particular roller jewel gauge is used  
    • Seems to still do it through my mobile data, I use an android phone almost exclusively, but I'll double check it. Thanks mark Strange, I'll try my laptop that utilities edge. I've been on site half hour since I got home, it hasn't done it yet. Thanks John
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