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Hey Guys,

Keyless works and I don't seem to get along.  I'm working on an Elgin 12s Grade 303 Model 3.  I have both the original movement (bad balance staff) and a donor movement and both are terribly hard to wind.  With the movement inside the case using the crown I can only get about 5 winds (probably half winds) before my fingers are in pain and I can't wind anymore.  I got around 5 hours of run time from that.   with the movement out of the case but using the crown and stem I can wind about 9 times.  Using my bench key with the movement out of the case I can get about 19 half winds.  the crown does not look excessively worn.  I'm using the old mainsprings.  The movements are clean/lubed and I'm not seeing any unusual movement that looks like binding in the winding mechanism.

I have a waltham giving me similar problems.  

is this normal for these old watches?  would there be anything related to the mainspring or barrel that would cause difficulty winding.  Has anyone else had similar troubles and figured out the problem?  Thanks for reading and any advice provided.  Arron.

 

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More info helps.

Try winding through ratchet wheel?  

Loosen barrel bridge screw a bit and try winding.

Disengage the keyless and try winding. if you take the stem and winding crown out, you have eliminated the keyless.

Fault diagnostics is mainly a process of elimination of possible culprits. 

Regs  

Joe

 

 

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Have a look at the recent post about a Rolex which was difficult to wind. You need to use a process of elimination as Joe suggests.

You've got a train of arbors/wheels winding: crown - stem - winding pinion - crown wheel - ratchet wheel - barrel arbor.......... each interface can be tested in isolation.

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Hey Aaron,

Just wanted to chime in here.  I'm currently working on the exact same Elgin movement. I too had a broken balance staff and actually replaced a broken mainspring. After reading your post, I tried winding my movement and it too is stiff but I have a new mainspring and it may account for some of that resistance.  Unfortunately I don't have the pallet fork installed so it starts running as soon as I start winding so I can't tell how many turns I would be able to complete.  Was wondering if you inspected your old mainspring for corrosion? Any friction within the mainspring will cause you problems.  Also, are you sure you have the correct spring? Have you verified that your spring matches the specs for the Elgin 12s?  I believe there are a couple different sizes for the 12s. Just something else for you to think about while troubleshooting.  Good luck.

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10 hours ago, JHargrove77 said:

Hey Aaron,

Just wanted to chime in here.  I'm currently working on the exact same Elgin movement. I too had a broken balance staff and actually replaced a broken mainspring. After reading your post, I tried winding my movement and it too is stiff but I have a new mainspring and it may account for some of that resistance.  Unfortunately I don't have the pallet fork installed so it starts running as soon as I start winding so I can't tell how many turns I would be able to complete.  Was wondering if you inspected your old mainspring for corrosion? Any friction within the mainspring will cause you problems.  Also, are you sure you have the correct spring? Have you verified that your spring matches the specs for the Elgin 12s?  I believe there are a couple different sizes for the 12s. Just something else for you to think about while troubleshooting.  Good luck.

Sounds like a culprit with this caliber which progressively gets worse.

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I second OH's advice: strip her down and inspect all parts, and how the parts interact with each other.
Something occurs to me.  Is this a movement which uses a two-piece stem, with a sleeve in the pendant to hold the female section?  I've had to back out a sleeve that was screwed in too far and was causing hard-winding when assembled.  Something for you to check, if your stem is the same kind.
As the others have mentioned, there are several things that could cause this, and sometimes it's the way certain parts mesh as well.  Diagnosing is always fun!

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On 8/2/2021 at 9:29 PM, arron said:

I have both the original movement (bad balance staff) and a donor movement and both are terribly hard to wind

 

On 8/2/2021 at 9:29 PM, arron said:

I have a waltham giving me similar problems.  

is this normal for these old watches? 

I see a pattern here you have three watches they are all hard the wind?

then are they normally hard the wind no.

3 hours ago, oldhippy said:

caused by lack of lubrication or worn or broken parts

from your description it sounds like everything's been cleaned and lubricated but lubrication especially grease is really important here. One thing he might do is take the mainspring barrel out and put the watch back together and see how hard the winding mechanism is without the mainspring barrel in see if you're having a problem before you get the mainspring.

Then I snipped out an image which mainspring did you put in? Apparently when you look at the parts book it shows two mainsprings it doesn't always explain why there's two mainsprings or what the difference is. So hopefully put the right mainspring and because one of the slightly taller than the other that would definitely be an issue. This is why always like to measure whatever was in there before and compares whatever you getting.?

On 8/2/2021 at 9:29 PM, arron said:

I'm using the old mainsprings.

as you're using the old mainspring is wanted they look like? Are they set after set mainspring that's not good. Do they look like a new mainspring or do they look like a set mainspring? Yes sometimes you're lucky and the mainspring in there is a white spring it's still in good shape so we can probably get by with using it but it with the blued steel spring and it set that would definitely be a running time issue probably just won't have the power for enough time because of this

 

Elgin 12 size mainspring issue.JPG

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Sometimes with these types of pocket watch the winding is different and it can depend on the key setting inside the sleeve of the watch case, you have to adjust the inside sleeve to get the correct distance between the teeth of the wheels in order for it to wind correctly and for the setting of the hands.

This is what the sleeves look like that screw inside the case tube.

 

Watchmakers-lot-of-Dennison-pocket-watch-sleeves.jpg

  • Thanks 1
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Apparently I didn't have my notifications set properly so I wasn't informed that I had so many thoughtful responses.  I assumed it was an un-interesting topic and set the watches aside to think about some other time.   Now I have some things to consider and try over the weekend.   Thanks guys.  Arron

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Good Sunday afternoon.  

I believe i've tried all the suggestions mentioned above but still have not solved the problem.  without the mainspring inserted, all the parts in the keyless work smoothly.  once i insert the MS into the barrel and try it, it's still hard to wind.  That seems to indicate that it's the MS or the barrel arbor.    I swapped barrels, arbors, and mainsprings with the donor movement and i was able to get two more partial winds (for a total of seven) but still too hard to wind to be practical.  

The mainsprings from the original (2.0 mm/ .08 inch wide. picture attached) and the donor (1.9 mm/ .07 inch wide) look identical although the donor is slightly narrower.    those dimensions look comparable to what John posted (thank you) if i'm correctly reading the third column to be inches and the fifth column to be millimeters. They are both blue steel.

 

I'm curious to hear back from JHargrove77 when he gets his put back together to see if it's still hard to wind.

 

If anyone has other thoughts, i'm all ears.  Thank you and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

mainspring elgin 12s.jpg

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You haven't mentioned anything I suggest so I take it the winding is the same as in most watches. What is the wear like in the barrel and cap and on the arbor. Is there any sign of wear or rubbing on the bottom  plate and underneath the barrel bridge plate, any signs of wear on the ratchet teeth? and finally the spring must fit properly when inside the barrel, the barrel cap should fit so it sits in line with the edge of the barrel. It also sounds to me that the spring could be too strong.    

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10 hours ago, arron said:

all the parts in the keyless work smoothly.  once i insert the MS into the barrel and try it, it's still hard to wind.

it would be nice to see pictures. Also exactly which lubricant are you using and where?

29 minutes ago, oldhippy said:

wear like in the barrel and cap and on the arbor.

when you're checking everything out did you have the barrel and arbor in the watch together but without the mainspring? Then even if he did there is one of the problem with this method? Often times if there's problems like pivots and holes that are round for instance or things that have friction the friction problem doesn't show up until there's pressure then there's a problem. So conceivably you have a problem put the parts together like you did without the mainspring you try to wind it everything is effortless but as soon as you put a little friction things will bind up.

oh one other little question? Tell us exactly how your putting the mainspring in the barrel? The reason I ask is this is a key brace mainspring that means the T part of the mainspring has to go into the slot the barrel. now what you can't just shove it in like you would a normal Swiss mainspring. So in the mainspring is in the barrel you should build look at the slot in both the lid and the barrel and make sure that that part is there otherwise you won't build a close the barrel lit properly and you'll definitely of issues.

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I think the problem here is we are not getting any photos. ( Except of the mainspring. )

Could the OP please provide us with photos of the mainspring barrel, the assembled watch, a close up of the keyless works.

Did you check Nucejoe's suggestion of winding the the barrel directly by the ratchet wheel screw?

Is the any endshake on the barrel arbor in the assembled barrel assembly?

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Hi Guys,

Sorry for the delay in reporting back; life keeps interfering with my watch repair hobby.

I went ahead and dismantled and re-assembled the watch again.  I couldn’t get the lid on the mainspring barrel to close tight, like the spring was preventing it from closing, so I used the barrel and spring from the donor.  I had tried that one once before  without satisfactory results.  This time I’d say it winds a little easier.  I was able to get about 14 winds while in the case using the crown and stem, but it got quite a bit harder towards the end.  Still that’s better than before.

I'm telling you, these keyless works will be the death of me.  They seem so simple, but they can be frustrating.  I just put back together a westclox dollar watch that was setting fine before i took it apart and now it's a bugger to set.  I guess if watch repair were easy everybody would be doing it :). 

Thanks you everyone who have suggested things to consider, which I have. 

To answer the questions that were asked in trying to help me diagnose this problem:

I did try winding it using the screw on the ratchet wheel.  That seemed hard to wind; although its hard to tell because the screw slot is so shallow that I had to press down hard so the driver wouldn’t slip out. So it was hard to get a good sense as to whether the internal parts were fighting me or just the downward pressure.

I checked and there is a reasonable amount of end shake on the barrel.

I do see some wear/friction on the arbor (where it’s dark on the picture). 

I also see some wear marks on the outer part of the barrel.  There were also yellow marks on the plate under the barrel.  I don’t know if those would affect the winding, because doesn’t the barrel remain still while the arbor is turning?

I also checked the stem sleeve which is unbroken.  It was screwed as far out as it can go.  I tried screwing it in a little but that didn’t help so I put it back out. 

With the mainspring out of the movement, it wound easily.

The ratchet wheel has a circular wear mark, but nothing etched into the metal (there is some staining on the wheel which I couldn’t get out; well, until I used vinegar which destroyed the shine on the up side 🙂 .

For the keyless parts and the MS arbor I used moebius 1300 (the red stuff).

I hand wound the MS into the barrel.  I don’t think you can use a winder because not only is there a slot where the T on the spring needs to go but there is also a hook (of sorts) in the barrel that needs to catch the hole in the spring.

 

arbor pin side.jpg

arbor screw side.jpg

barrel lid inside.jpg

barrel lid top.jpg

barrel MS.jpg

inside barrel.jpg

mvt 2.jpg

mvt.jpg

rachet wheel underside.jpg

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22 minutes ago, arron said:

I did try winding it using the screw on the ratchet wheel.  That seemed hard to wind; although its hard to tell because the screw slot is so shallow that I had to press down hard so the driver wouldn’t slip out. So it was hard to get a good sense as to whether the internal parts were fighting me or just the downward pressure.

while this is standard operating practice for Seiko watch and other Swiss watches it really is not recommended for American pocket watches. As you notice the screw head isn't really designed for that and American pocket watches require more force to wind is really a great opportunity to break the screw head off if you try hard enough.

25 minutes ago, arron said:

For the keyless parts and the MS arbor I used moebius 1300 (the red stuff).

I think you'd find if you would use a grease it would work a lot better than heavy oil. Try something like 9501 but I actually prefer 9504 it really does make a difference on American pocket watches.

 

9504.JPG

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Some of the old pocket watches can be rather stiff to wind if you are used to winding wrist watches.  But there are variables that can make matters more difficult.  Sometimes a heavier replacement spring can do that.  Sometimes a misadjusted stem sleeve.  Sometimes something else. 

And sometimes a watch is like that.  When I once complained of my 1919 Longines 18.5 being a hard winder, a friend mentioned that this was how you knew it was a real Longines. Apparently some of them are known for that.

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john, i'm wondering whether this DC Mkote DX paste grease would get me by for now; at least until i feel like spending more money on Moebius?  I don't recall where or why I bought it .  i must have been thinking it was the equivalent to M D5, but maybe not.

dx paste.jpg

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Mkote DX paste definitely better then oil. Other than the cost of having lubricants that never get used don't worry about that you have some I have a tube. I was once at a lecture and for some unknown reason it was needed but I never use it.

The second link has expensive oils and grease. If you look at the oil chart you'll notice now that the HP oils are recommended for ruby bearings. For brass bearings they are recommending D5. Which brings up the peculiar problem of the definition of the setting parts? which watch companies are still using HP oils? But usually it takes a while before tech sheets are updated if ever.

Then if you want to be confused and enlightened.  the first link is to a video three parts on lubrication this is the second part. you probably should watch the first part first but I'm giving the second part because part way and he tells you what kind of grease he likes and that apparently it's fallen out of favor. plus explains a little about what happens if two people in the room and discuss horological lubrication.

third link list of lubricants for sale. scroll down the page to PML Stem Grease W 10S interesting product and their description it's what I used to use. Fortunately when you work for somebody you can ask for really expensive lubricants and sooner or later they show up. Otherwise I use this for years on everything it works really really well.

fourth link should also work.

then just remember on the pocket watch any place that rotates all the way to the mainspring barrel or slides on metal should be lubricated a grease works really well here.

https://youtu.be/LAIPvxV5204

https://www.moebius-lubricants.ch/en

https://www.ofrei.com/page245.html

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292736388628?hash=item442872ce14:g:oAYAAOSwb4Vbo~Gr

 

 

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For starters the spring is bad and needs replacing the coils are almost touching each other near the arbor. You have wear in the barrel cap which i point out. The arbor doesn't sit right in the barrel cap. The ratchet wheel teeth are worn this you can tell by the marks. No matter how many lubricants you try they will not make much difference. 

 

The thing about Longines is utter rubbish. Where I worked we used to be a Longines agent and service all types of manual wind Longines and autos and I never had any such problems, the only difficulty with winding or not winding would be worn parts or the winding crown worn so smooth your fingers wouldn't grip it.   

148092323_barrellidinside.jpg.e3bce6ea3b633c49f5962906fe875c58.jpg

846931402_barrellidtop.thumb.jpg.71e3413f6179b52b0aef0eb2830554a6.jpg

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All good suggestions but I keep coming back to,

On 8/3/2021 at 12:29 AM, arron said:

before my fingers are in pain

 

Can you try just loosening the case screws that hold the movement in.  If that case was never intended to hold an Elgin 12s Grade 303 Model 3 or if the case tube isn't true to the case, those screws may be forcing a misalignment that all of winding parts must now try to average. This may explain why there doesn't seem to only be one truly offending component.   You can also check the serial numbers on all the major parts.  Elgin was very good at identifying a matched set.  Considering that I have intentionally mismatched everything in an Elgin 5, I can say, this will create some interesting problems to creativity solve.

I have an Elgin 12s Grade 303 Model 3 movement and, if it would help, I can work on it next.  Unfortunately I do not have it's case to see how they both interact afterwards.

Best of luck.

Shane

IMG_20210815_085211.jpg

Edited by Shane
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  • 9 months later...

I just finished my first repair and service project which just happened to be an Elgin 303. I had the same problem with it being overly difficult to wind. After monkeying around with it for a while I pulled out the click, and once I put it back it wound up fine. It actually ran for 30 hours from a full wind. I think I must have had the click in wrong.

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