Static poising is "destructive?"

[JohnC]

Hi all,

Sorry for the click-bait title, but I want to get a discussion going here. A few days ago I found the website below, which is maintained by Dewey Clark, a Wostep-certified watchmaker based in Baltimore. The website is well-written and full of good advice. Perhaps he is even on this website?

One portion of the website is devoted to watchmaking "myths." One in particular that he has a problem with is static poising. An extended quote:

Almost every watchmaking tome encourages the reader to "poise the balance" with the poising tool. This practice is only useful when doing new work.  Countless precision watches have been destroyed by people who took this as fact from writers such as Fried.  They either used balance wheel undercutters, filed the underside of the screw heads or turned the heads down in the lathe to do a first class botch job.

Totally unnecessary and destructive in repair/restoration work.  

Think about a Hamilton 992 Railroad watch that never was sold and is still in its original factory sealed container.  It is out there somewhere.  Yes, the balance was poised when first staffed.  But then, it was "adjusted to 6 positional rates".  This was done by timing the watch in the positions and then moving  or changing the balance rim screws.  By definition, the balance left the factory "out of poise"; but adjusted to hold 5 seconds per day across 6 positions!

And further:

Think about it, all those authors stated the use of the poising tool as an article of faith without ever explaining why in the world anything done in restaffing would change the factory adjustments; other than poor technique.

In other words, if you've done your re-staffing right, then you should not have to do anything to the balance to poise it, as the original dynamic poise should not have been disturbed. By assuming that you've disturbed the dynamic poise when you haven't, and then static poising, you are destroying the dynamic poising and effectively vandalizing the watch.

Link below. Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.

https://www.historictimekeepers.com/Myths.htm

[watchweasol]

After reading the text my conclusion is The man talks great sense.  What ever you do you will never achieve the factory setting when NEW.

[JohnC]

@watchweasol I agree. The one situation I can envision is if the balance hole is already enlarged, and you have to spread the rivet a lot. In that case I guess one would go straight to dynamic poising. I feel like he makes a good case for not just poising automatically. It seems kind of obvious, but then again why would people like Fried say otherwise?

[nickelsilver]

Dewey has some views I don't really agree with (like it's not possible to vibrate a new hairspring and achieve original performance), but I agree with him on this one- pretty much. If I make a staff and install it, I might check on the poising tool, but even if there's a clear error I don't touch anything until I've checked it on the machine. You can end up doing a dance where you have to undo work static said was necessary after checking dynamic  poise.

 

But static poise isn't worthless. He chose a poor example of the high grade Hamilton; I'm certain that balance would check out just fine on a poising tool. I did a staff for a LeCoultre 104 for a colleague,  it had something like 100s delta (which isn't unheard of on these- the official timing spec is within 1 minute on a cyclotest machine, haha), he begged me to poise it, which I did on my Levin poising tool. Ended up under 30s delta, which is unheard of on these. This is a caliber that is about 1mm bigger than the LeCoultre 101, smallest in the world.

 

Odd thing on really small delicate calibers, the dynamic poising procedure actually reverses sometimes. Never figured out why, and other truly expert timers have observed the same, with no idea why. On that 104 I might have chased my tail for 2 days dynamic poising, where static poising gave far better than factory results.

 

So I agree with Dewey, except for when I don't.

[Klassiker]

Glad you brought this up! The same question occurs to me every time the poising tool is mentioned.

Our very own WellAdjusted makes a similar argument to Dewey Clark in his blog, https://adjustingvintagewatches.com/smooth-alloy-balance-wheel-poise/ and I think it's a very strong case. His point about not knowing whether to add or remove weight is especially convincing. I certainly wouldn't spend a lot of time perfectly balancing the wheel on the poising tool, knowing full welI that I would be undoing a lot of that work later when fully assembled and swinging. I've got a poising tool, but I've only used it when the balance was way out of poise in an obvious way (e.g. screws missing).

[rodabod]

I've mentioned this before here, but more often than not, I find that balances which have been "had at" by people trying to poise are more often than not in worse poise than those which appear untouched.

Secondly, I generally find that re-staffing does not spoil poise. However, you do need to remember that the balance roller may not land in precisely the same position afterwords, and you may achieve a different amplitude with newly-polished pivots.

[JohnC]

Right, so I guess I am confused by the sense in which a balance could be destroyed by static poising. Supposing you take it out of dynamic poise by static poising. You could always put it back - with maybe the caveat that you have done more filing / undercutting than necessary, and may have to add washers. Is "destructive" not overselling it a bit? I get that you don't want to spend days going around in circles, though.

Edited November 19, 2021 by JohnC

[nickelsilver]

3 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Right, so I guess I am confused by the sense in which a balance could be destroyed by static poising. Supposing you take it out of dynamic poise by static poising. You could always put it back - with maybe the caveat that you have done more filing / undercutting than necessary, and may have to add washers. Is "destructive" not overselling it a bit? I get that you don't want to spend days going around in circles, though.

In the case of a really pristine high grade watch it is a shame to muck around with the balance unnecessarily. Most watches it's not really a big deal- unless you're paying your bills with this work- then you find the fastest way to the best result. For me that's usually dynamic poise, but if there's a glaring error on the static tool, well, I'll at least take note of the position.

[ifibrin]

If a balance wheel pivot was slightly bent, such as due to the naked movement being dropped, what would static poising do to it?

[nickelsilver]

2 hours ago, ifibrin said:

If a balance wheel pivot was slightly bent, such as due to the naked movement being dropped, what would static poising do to it?

If it wasn't bent enough to affect the actual running it would show up as a poise error in both static and dynamic poise

[ifibrin]

12 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

If it wasn't bent enough to affect the actual running it would show up as a poise error in both static and dynamic poise

What would happen if you tried to poise it statically or dynamically? Would you just end up going around in circles forever, since static or dynamic poising methods wouldn’t be able to correct the bent pivot?

[nickelsilver]

1 hour ago, ifibrin said:

What would happen if you tried to poise it statically or dynamically? Would you just end up going around in circles forever, since static or dynamic poising methods wouldn’t be able to correct the bent pivot?

The bent pivot does in fact create a poise error, so you would correct that, but you've corrected the wrong thing. If you then straighten the pivot you're out again, or if it eventually gets restaffed, out like crazy.

[JohnR725]

On 11/19/2021 at 10:23 AM, nickelsilver said:

Dewey has some views I don't really agree with (like it's not possible to vibrate a new hairspring and achieve original performance),

What's interesting on his view on vibrating hairspring is that basically it's impossible. To be specific he's very clear on individuals can never ever vibrate a hairspring as well as the factory did and as such he threw away as vibrating tool. Except Doesn't wostep teach hairspring vibrating so why would they waste time torturing their students to do something that's impossible to do?

Then have you seen as PDF  I have a link below?

https://www.historictimekeepers.com/documents/Watch Adjustment.pdf

 

 

[nickelsilver]

19 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

What's interesting on his view on vibrating hairspring is that basically it's impossible. To be specific he's very clear on individuals can never ever vibrate a hairspring aI've read through Dewey's site pretty much since it went up. I haven't met him but we have several mutual friends, and I have no doubt of his ability (very good watchmaker). s well as the factory did and as such he threw away as vibrating tool. Except Doesn't wostep teach hairspring vibrating so why would they waste time torturing their students to do something that's impossible to do?

Then have you seen as PDF  I have a link below?

https://www.historictimekeepers.com/documents/Watch Adjustment.pdf

 

 

I've read through Dewey's site pretty much since it went up (including that document), and though I haven't met him I know several folks who have and he's a clearly dedicated and capable watchmaker. But yeah, I don't agree with his views on hairsprings. I think he's referring to what's called the "Q" factor in watch engineering, which is the overall efficiency of the balance, spring, pivots, jewels, oil, and there's a formula for calculating it. Certain watches have a very high (good) Q factor, other's less good. The better the Q, the easier it is to do precision timing and the better results that can be had. A good wristwatch might have a factor of 200, a deck watch perhaps 300 or 400, and a marine chronometer over 600. I think he's got it in his head that you'll never hit the original level, and I know from experience that that is simply not true.

 

I still like looking through his site though! It has a factor Q of at least 300.

[JohnR725]

On 11/19/2021 at 7:18 AM, JohnC said:

In other words, if you've done your re-staffing right, then you should not have to do anything to the balance to poise it, as the original dynamic poise should not have been disturbed. By assuming that you've disturbed the dynamic poise when you haven't, and then static poising, you are destroying the dynamic poising and effectively vandalizing the watch.

In his example he talks about the Hamilton 992 and he talks about dynamic poising. Even makes a reference to  Even in the US, W.H. Samelius was aware of these procedures in 1944. But I'm confused? My confusion is I looked it up the Hamilton 992 came into existence in 1903 was upgraded modified or something in 1931 basically improved and continued on until 1940 when it was replaced by the Hamilton 992B. So not saying it's impossible to do dynamic poising but how exactly did Hamilton dynamically poise a watch in 1903 when there were no timing machines? Plus he even references somebody having knowledge in 1944 which is four years after this watch was discontinued wasn't that clever of Hamilton to know how to dynamic poise in 1940?

Then in case you're curious I think the earliest reference I have to a timing machine is 1934. But it's time standard is another watch and basically electronically compare your watch to that watch. Then it displayed the discrepancy on an analog meter.

What's interesting is his reference to Samelius  and 1944. Because the Elgin research Department released a publication on electronic timing machines July 1944. This is because things like watch factories would be the first to embrace any form of technology that would allow them to either do things better or faster.

On 11/19/2021 at 7:18 AM, JohnC said:

Countless precision watches have been destroyed by people who took this as fact from writers such as Fried. 

Find this really interesting points out one person even though he references that there were others conceivably every single person who ever is written the book on replacing a balance staff. But still we find out the roots of the evil is Henry B. Fried Who I bet you Clark has never even met? Strangely enough I've met him on at least three occasions and I still have Memories from two of the meetings. Strange he really didn't seem evil and bad but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

In case you're curious here's a link that talks a little about him.

https://hs-ny.org/scholarship

Now back to mutilation here's a link you want to scroll down until you get the section on titled Unit 5 - Poising Balance Wheels And you can download the PDF

https://mybulova.com/vintage-bulova-catalogs

The Bulova manual was the training manual of the Bulova watch school. That matter influenced a heck of a lot of people and still is a very popular book today. I do a minor disagreement with Clark in that he points out that screw under cutters basically have no control over what you're doing and if you know how to use them you have a great deal of control. By Jocelyn see that the book talks about how to use the under cutters.

But does bring up an interesting problem that Clark has pointed out and I'm going to references PDF now On page 31 he explains that removing weight from balance wheels is my interpretation the work of the devil. So he gives a good reason why you should never do it butIf nothing is ever changed why should you add timing washers any more than you would undercut so that's a problem.

Then there's another problem I'm attaching an image dynamic poising Look what Greiner has in their manual. Whether your static poising or dynamic poising if it's heavy you're supposed to remove weight.

We also get another problem which is Clark is working on a railroad grade watches preferably ones that have never been mutilated. What about all the other watches that are not railroad grade watches were they all dynamically poise I doubt it. I doubt they even dynamically poise anything except railroad watches and they couldn't really do it before timing machines and even then there is a confusion over what the heck dynamic poising is?I was looking at a book strangely enough you probably heard the name before it's the writings of Samelius I'll put a link to the book farther down below it really is a good book. But anything or any time he talks about dynamic poising he's more concerned about the hairspring not being centered not being flat and basically it's the hairspring there is almost no reference to anything related to the balance rim.

The other problem I comes up is what you do with already mutilated balance wheels? I've seen on other discussion groups are supposed to replace all the screws with new ones but most people don't have that option. This means you're going to have to equalize things and undercutting is still a valid thing if it's done with control. Whether your statically or dynamically poising that's no excuse for mutilating the balance wheel.

On 11/19/2021 at 11:17 PM, ifibrin said:

If a balance wheel pivot was slightly bent, such as due to the naked movement being dropped, what would static poising do to it?

If your static or dynamic poising the balance pivots have to be perfect. If you have bad pivots you're going to have bad results.

To give you an idea of how important the pivots are I know a shop that services a lot of Rolex watches. If they have anything resembling a timing issue a poise issue anything they just replace the balance staff. Which is why find it interesting when people are trying to dynamic poise watches with balance staffs at her hundred years old there obviously not going to be perfect enough.

Here's an amusing blank is that one of those devil worshiping tools I see? Then what is he doing to his balance wheel although he's not mutilating the screws so maybe it's okay. What's interesting with this example is he could've just dynamically poised it because it should have been really close in the first place.

https://www.great-british-watch.co.uk/how-to-poise-a-balance-wheel/

Then I was trying to find a link but are not finding it going to find anyone selling this book it comes up on eBay apparently finding hints that it's been there in the past " Watch and clock information please" by W.H. Samelius. Technically it's not actually a book written by him sort of? What it is he wrote answers in a magazine started in 1921 and somebody else took everything he wrote and put it in this book so you have almost 400 pages well with the indexing of 400 pages of answers to questions.

Even have amusing things like he's referred to the Dean of American watchmakers and is a really nice preface probably written by a friend as I existed at the same time you might have remembered his name from up above Henry B. Fried.

The book really is a nice reference but I move stay with poising the way in the back is a will section on poising just a reference a static poising the poising tool basically says what poise should be then he makes a reference to dynamic poising this is where things get really interesting. He does reference you need a timing machine. But before he talks about distribution of weight and also talks about they hairspring several times I've seen references to the hairspring is really important spends most of one column discussing hairsprings stuff then he finally gets to unequal distribution of weight on the balance rim or the balance rim itself may be out of flat. Is concerned about balance not being flat this is back to you have to be absolutely perfect to dynamically poise

just because my messages and longer enough even talks about workers that screw up the temperature compensation basically by adding or deducting away from the balance not realizing the position of the balance screws is an important factor when adjusting the watch for temperature changes .

Then rather than quote something I'm just going to scan a page that I find interesting.