Watch is running extremely intermittently, sometimes for over a day, sometimes for not even an hour

[GregG]

I recently serviced a watch and the operating behavior is very bizarre.  In my experience, a watch I service will fall pretty firmly into one of two categories: either it runs very well, or it has some flaw that forces it to stop operating after a few seconds/minutes, maybe an hour, tops.

But this watch I recently serviced, which has a run-of-the-mill lever movement, operates in both of those domains.  Sometimes I wind it, and it runs very well, accurate to within a minute a day without dying down.  Other times, it won't even run for an hour.  The watch is always in the dial-up position, and the ambient conditions of my apartment don't change enough for me to suspect that a temperature change would be to blame.  Does anyone know what could cause this sort of behavior?  The watch was cleaned/oiled as per the usual treatment guidelines and the old tired mainspring was replaced with a nearly identical white alloy.

[jdm]

5 minutes ago, GregG said:

But this watch I recently serviced, which has a run-of-the-mill lever movement

And what is that exactly?

 

5 minutes ago, GregG said:

Does anyone know what could cause this sort of behavior? 

Almost always, watches stops due to problems in the balance (including hairspring) and escapement. Examples are, hairspring touching, debris setting and leaving somewhere, pallets, etc. Sometime a look on the timegrapher is very helpful, other time a longer visual and aural inspection is needed. The calssical "troubleshooting" steps which I'm sure have been details many times much better than what I could do here.

[GregG]

7 minutes ago, jdm said:

And what is that exactly?

 

Almost always, watches stops due to problems in the balance (including hairspring) and escapement. Examples are, hairspring touching, debris setting and leaving somewhere, pallets, etc. Sometime a look on the timegrapher is very helpful, other time a longer visual and aural inspection is needed. The calssical "troubleshooting" steps which I'm sure have been details many times much better than what I could do here.

Thank you for the reply.  These are all things I understand can cause a watch to stop.  But why would these seemingly not affect it sometimes, but other times drastically affect it.  I suppose my question is not, "why is it stopping?", but rather, "if these problems exist, why isn't it consistently problematic?"  And the difference is so pronounced, over a day vs under an hour.  I wouldn't expect it to be so different just by random chance.

Edited November 16, 2021 by GregG

[jdm]

6 minutes ago, GregG said:

but rather, "if these problems exist, why isn't it consistently problematic?"

I gave you an example above already, a small price of debris get in between teeth. It happened to me once, and I was puzzles because the watch was running perfectly, then running erratically, or stopping at random

 

6 minutes ago, GregG said:

And the difference is so pronounced, over a day vs under an hour.

I have seen watches doing exactly that due to an hand touching the crystal.

 

6 minutes ago, GregG said:

I wouldn't expect it to be so different just by random chance.

I suspect that your watch runs erratically even before stopping. That is why I suggested that you look at it on the timegrapher, before anything else..

[GregG]

4 minutes ago, jdm said:

I gave you an example above already, a small price of debris get in between teeth. It happened to me once, and I was puzzles because the watch was running perfectly, then running erratically, or stopping at random

Ok, when I'm back later, I will check for obstructions.

4 minutes ago, jdm said:

I have seen watches doing exactly that due to an hand touching the crystal.

There's no crystal on it yet, and I've swept the hands around and they're not hitting eachother.

4 minutes ago, jdm said:

I suspect that your watch runs erratically even before stopping. That is why I had suggest you look at on the timegrapher, before anything else..

I will check this again when I get back but I don't remember anything out of the ordinary.  When I can I will post screenshots. Thank you for the suggestions.

Edited November 16, 2021 by GregG

[JohnC]

As an example, suppose the hairspring touches the arms of the balance wheel, but only when the watch is at high amplitude, and this causes it to stop. Maybe the watch gains and loses amplitude because of some fault in a wheel or pinion, so it seems to happen erratically. I second the timegrapher suggestion.

[watchweasol]

Hi  in addition the the previous comments it is wise to remember when gears/wheels and pinions run to gether for some time they establish wear patterns and are sympathetic to each other. When you dismantle clean and re lubricate they have to then re establish these patterns and any anomolies as mentioned could well be the culprit

[GregG]

9 minutes ago, watchweasol said:

Hi  in addition the the previous comments it is wise to remember when gears/wheels and pinions run to gether for some time they establish wear patterns and are sympathetic to each other. When you dismantle clean and re lubricate they have to then re establish these patterns and any anomolies as mentioned could well be the culprit

Interesting, I didn't know that.

[GregG]

19 hours ago, JohnC said:

As an example, suppose the hairspring touches the arms of the balance wheel, but only when the watch is at high amplitude, and this causes it to stop. Maybe the watch gains and loses amplitude because of some fault in a wheel or pinion, so it seems to happen erratically. I second the timegrapher suggestion.

I've attached the timegrapher plot.  Those few errant plot points are from ambient noise.  I also moved the watch around and didn't let it settle, which I think accounts for the slightly changing accuracy.

[jdm]

2 hours ago, GregG said:

I've attached the timegrapher plot. 

This mobile app graph does not show amplitude, which is an extremely important "health" parameter. The pattern is also not very good, with significant non-linearity toward the top. We don't know what watch exactly this is, but 3.9ms beat error is generally unacceptable.
If you can't get something that measures amplitude to work, you can try posting a video of the balance with good sound on YouTube and post the link here. Then to try determining amplitude, someone can  make a visual judgment or feed the sound into a timegrapher.

[JohnR725]

On 11/17/2021 at 7:15 AM, jdm said:

This mobile app graph does not show amplitude, which is an extremely important "health" parameter. The pattern is also not very good, with significant non-linearity toward the top. We don't know what watch exactly this is, but 3.9ms beat error is generally unacceptable.

Somebody beat me to my own question. One of the problems of not having amplitude is you could have a watch that looks pretty decent on the timing machine if you only look at the numbers and you don't look at the amplitude. Except in your case your beat is unacceptable and the lines are will moving around a little bit they should be much straighter

On 11/16/2021 at 8:21 AM, GregG said:

I recently serviced a watch

Others have asked but in order to have a proper discussion we need to know exactly which watch and ideally a picture is nice so we actually know which watch it is. For instance was in the Timex watch? Does it have jewels how many in the absence of any other information to be nice to know the number of jewels. Because if you have a seven jewel watch the pivots can wear the holes and they can be out around that can cause issues.

On 11/16/2021 at 8:21 AM, GregG said:

The watch is always in the dial-up position, 

It's fine whatever position you want to keep your watch in but for proper diagnosis you have to look at your watch in a variety of positions. At the very minimum one of the dial positions and it being a wristwatch may be ground down otherwise pocket watch crown up. But ideally you want to look at the watch dial up then dial down and at least one of the crown positions because you're looking for problems or you just verifying the watch really is running properly. Being excited that the watch runs in only looking at in one position is not adequate as you'll miss a lot of problems.

On 11/16/2021 at 9:55 AM, watchweasol said:

Hi  in addition the the previous comments it is wise to remember when gears/wheels and pinions run to gether for some time they establish wear patterns and are sympathetic to each other. When you dismantle clean and re lubricate they have to then re establish these patterns and any anomolies as mentioned could well be the culprit

One of the problems as mentioned when things where you can get interesting power fluctuation issues. Sometimes visually their impossible to see. If you have access to the right timing machines have a different way of displaying things which she calls at a time plot you can see the effect of gear train power fluctuations. The other way if you don't have a fancy timing machine is when you're running your timing app or whatever watch it over several minutes do you see a fluctuation of oh wait you don't have that? Newer is if you're looking at the amplitude does the amplitude go up and down over time or is it consistent? Because you often see if you watch the watch on the timing machine you'll see the amplitude slowly going up and down with gear train issues. The always be a little of that because gear trains are always nonlinear on power.

 

[anilv]

Hi Gregg,

By lever movement I asssume you mean pin-lever? These are notorious for being cheaply constructed and if worn they are not easy to get to run right.

They usually have a low jewel count and they usually have strong mainsprings to overcome a lack of jewelling. Not that bad if they are serviced regularly but they are usually cheap and cheerful watches and fall into the 'dispose' rather than 'repair' category.

One area I've been quite wary of in these watches are the pivots, ie the holes in the plates as well as the pivots themselves, as they can wear really badly and this will throw the timekeeping off in every which way.

I would re-look at all the pivots from the barrel to the pin-lever and check for endshake as well as hole-fit (or sideshake). I've seen holes go oval which pretty much renders the watch scrap.

Anilv

Edited November 19, 2021 by anilv

[Nucejoe]

Caliber is needed. 

Does it act the same in all positions? 

I would reduce that beat error at least, I guess its a fixed stud holder so hairspring must have been removed.

Check shakes on staff, fork arbour and escape.

Sounds like a spec of dirt is having fun somewhere inside the movement.

Regs

[GregG]

Hello everyone, sorry for the silence, just bought a house so that's been occupying most of my time.

I grabbed a picture of the movement (jewelled lever, not pin lever) and some slow-mo's of the watch running in the dial-up and dial-down positions.  Amplitude is very poor in dial down position.  Runs better in dial up position so I'm thinking worn balance staff.

 

 

[Nucejoe]

Hi G, that balance wheel is out of round and unlevel. Speed shoots up all of a sudden, is this a video effect or real? 

 

 

 

 

[GregG]

16 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Hi G, that balance wheel is out of round and unlevel. Speed shoots up all of a sudden, is this a video effect or real? 

 

 

 

 

Hi Joe, that's just part of the video recording process.  The video starts at normal speed and then changes to slow-mo.

[Nucejoe]

 A side view close up vid of the coil including when its running would reveal more and if the coil is good.  I suggest you then remove the spring and be ready for a balance-complete rebuild, truing the balance plus a decent poise. as is , balance wheel being out of round, you will see wide range of rates variations in vertical positions, thats in addition to any pivot or jewel problem.

Regs

 

 

 

 

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

that balance wheel is out of round and unlevel

I think the video is a little bit not clear it looks like it's round but definitely it's not flat its wobbling up and down which I think is giving may be an impression that it's not round.

On 11/16/2021 at 8:21 AM, GregG said:

recently serviced a watch and the operating behavior is very bizarre.  In my experience, a watch I service will fall pretty firmly into one of two categories: either it runs very well, or it has some flaw that forces it to stop operating after a few seconds/minutes, maybe an hour, tops.

But this watch I recently serviced, which has a run-of-the-mill lever movement,

One of the problems when helping people and watch repair is generalized descriptions like you have. Then we get the picture the watch and we can see that it's a seven jewel watch. Big of a lot of troubleshooting stuff depends upon what kind of a watch it is like it had 17 jewels versus seven jewels the quality of the watch while this does have a lever I wouldn't call it a high quality watch.

Then there's a bit of a mystery with this watch? It's a pocket watch a good the pocketwatch database you can look it up and to databases wrong. I know the databases like the Bible for pocket watches but it isn't always right in this case it's definitely not right. I also have a link with his other watches and there's even one like yours and you'll notice they give a date of Basically hundred years ago. But Look carefully at the other watches the same age do they look the same no the watches of 100 years ago have a very definite look at yours looks newer in my.

It still has a Swiss looked to me but it does say US and it doesn't seem to have a import code should be a three letter code if it was imported from somewhere so it wasn't imported. It be interesting to see the dial side of the watch.

When you service the watch did you take the mainspring out and replace it? Then because it is a seven jewel watch I would go and check every single pivot carefully to make sure that the whole isn't worn which is easy to do if it's been run for any length of time the holes will be out of round. Especially look up things like the center wheel the mainspring barrel arbor make sure there's no play their.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/guide/company/ingersoll-watch-co/serial-number-lookup

 

[GregG]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

Big of a lot of troubleshooting stuff depends upon what kind of a watch it is like it had 17 jewels versus seven jewels the quality of the watch while this does have a lever I wouldn't call it a high quality watch.

Ingersoll watches were always mass produced metal-stamped watches with no jewels.  They did briefly go into the market for jeweled watches.  I bought this watch for $10 I think.  If I can't get it running perfectly, I'm not worried.  The potential investment into additional tools to get this running, like a poise and staking set if I want to do a balance rebuild probably aren't worth it.  Although admittedly I have been looking into staking sets so I might table this until somewhere down the road.  And a proper timegrapher to measure amplitude is on my list of stuff to get.

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

But Look carefully at the other watches the same age do they look the same no the watches of 100 years ago have a very definite look at yours looks newer in my.

This particular one is called the Reliance, which according to Wikipedia, was made in 1917.

Quote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingersoll_Watch_Company#Watches

In 1917 they produced another popular watch with 7 jewels called the Reliance.

 

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

When you service the watch did you take the mainspring out and replace it? Then because it is a seven jewel watch I would go and check every single pivot carefully to make sure that the whole isn't worn which is easy to do if it's been run for any length of time the holes will be out of round. Especially look up things like the center wheel the mainspring barrel arbor make sure there's no play their.

The mainspring barrel didn't have any significant play, but I will check the rest of the pivots.  And yes, when I serviced it, I replaced the mainspring.

Edited November 19, 2021 by GregG

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, GregG said:

Reliance, which according to Wikipedia, was made in 1917

Even with my poor math skills realize that the watch was made slightly over 100 years ago. It's looking really good for 100-year-old watch if that's when it was really made? But it really was made 100 years ago depending upon how much you sick gods or whether was ever serviced in between time so I got even more use there is the potential for wearing out. I see that with Americans seven jewel pocket watches the holes start to get oval in shape. But the biggest concern is 100 years of use so you have the holes are worn I would also look at every single pivot and make sure it looks good.