Achievement, failure, learning. Elgin 345 movement #2.

[ManSkirtBrew]

I thought folks on their new journey like me might enjoy following my trials and tribulations. I just signed up for Mark's watchmaking course, but for now, it's trial and error on inexpensive eBay purchases.

Emboldened by my first successful teardown and rebuild, I dug into the second Elgin 345 I had here. Really beautiful dial on this one. The initial timing readings were...interesting.

About halfway through disassembly, a screw fell out of the movement. That could help explain the timegrapher reading. I also found a badly damaged 4th wheel lower jewel, and the lower balance hole jewel is cracked in half. Not having the tools or skills to replace them yet, I forged ahead.

Having seen balance tacks being used. I thought it was weird to let the balance wheel hang from it, but I thought that's what it was made for, so it should be fine. Well, I learned that it is not fine, and after some more research here, I learned that one does not store the balance on the tack for safety.

Mark has two great YouTube videos on repairing bent and twisted hairsprings, and I'm going to work on that, but in the meantime I stole the balance assembly from the other movement to see if I could get this guy running.

It looks like the mainspring was replaced with a modern one at some point, so not having a spring winder I just left it alone. After a full wind and about 15 minutes running:

I'd call that an improvement! My cell phone timegrapher doesn't show amplitude (my next purchase) so I shot a video to check it. Looks to me about 270 clockwise and 290 counterclockwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA20TURUUSA

As exciting as that is, the watch stops if I turn it dial down or crown down, so clearly we're not there yet. Could this be the cracked jewels' fault?

[watchweasol]

Got it in one, the cracked/chipped jewel is most likley the culprit. Judging by the state of the jewel the trace is not that bad under the circumstances.

[ManSkirtBrew]

9 hours ago, watchweasol said:

Got it in one, the cracked/chipped jewel is most likley the culprit. Judging by the state of the jewel the trace is not that bad under the circumstances.

Agreed. If it ran in all positions I wouldn't worry about it.

My first one had a mangled plated for the lower balance jewel setting. This one has several cracked jewels. I have one more 345 movement on its way from eBay. Hopefully I can put together one solid movement from all three. This dial face is too nice to leave in a drawer somewhere.

[ManSkirtBrew]

10 hours ago, watchweasol said:

the cracked/chipped jewel is most likley the culprit.

I did a closer investigation, and as I rotate the running movement from dial up to pendant down, the broken jewel lets the balance wheel rotate off-axis enough to contact the balance cock.

 

[Klassiker]

Check the pivot too.

[watchweasol]

As Mentioned by Klassoker with damage like thst to the jewew its always wise to check the state of the pivots .  Yes some of these watches are too good to be tossed in a drawer and forgotton or stripped for the working parts but some times the economics of the situation take over.  Anything can be repaired with the investment of time and money.

[ManSkirtBrew]

9 hours ago, Klassiker said:

Check the pivot too.

Ah, good point. I didn't think to, since this balance came out of a movement that (I think) worked in all positions, but it never hurts to check. This looks good to me, yes?

5 hours ago, watchweasol said:

Yes some of these watches are too good to be tossed in a drawer and forgotton or stripped for the working parts but some times the economics of the situation take over.

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. I always hate to see something this beautiful relegated to a drawer or spare parts, but sometimes there's no reasonable choice. At this point I'm also trying to fix everything because it's good practice.

Cheers, thanks for all the input!

[watchweasol]

Yep that looks ok   clean it up with pith and fit to go,  to damage the jewels like that its had some shock or hamfisted attempt at repairing ot.

[ManSkirtBrew]

The original balance doesn't look too bad either, but now I'm wondering if the balance assembly from the second watch is different enough that the pivot is just falling out of the bottom jewel.

Sorry for the blur--I'm still holding a loupe up to my cell phone and this is the best of the lot. But it definitely shows how well worn the other pivot is. This is the original one out of this movement:

12 minutes ago, watchweasol said:

to damage the jewels like that its had some shock or hamfisted attempt at repairing ot.

The fact that I found a modern mainspring and a loose screw floating around in the movement is pointing me to the latter.

[watchweasol]

A loose screw graunching around the movement would have repcussions if it got trapped some where, so its more like a repair gone wrong.. be careful of staff s   elgin/waltham have a variety if sizes as I found out repairing one, best heasure the staffs with a vernier for size.

[watchweasol]

By the way  Daveswatchparts.com in the states is a good source of parts .

[jdm]

1 hour ago, ManSkirtBrew said:

Sorry for the blur--I'm still holding a loupe up to my cell phone and this is the best of the lot.

Tape loupe to phone, rest subject and phone on the bench, shim and move around until they are at minimum focal distance.

BTW I can't tell for sure but it seems to me the impulse jewel above is chipped.

[ManSkirtBrew]

On 1/14/2022 at 12:40 PM, jdm said:

Tape loupe to phone, rest subject and phone on the bench, shim and move around until they are at minimum focal distance.

BTW I can't tell for sure but it seems to me the impulse jewel above is chipped.

Yes, you're right. The impulse jewel on the first movement I fixed is definitely chipped.

I got the third one in the mail today--all three are 345 movements. First is 1926, second 1923, and this one is 1919. It was sold as "for parts, broken balance." The hands wouldn't turn, so I set about taking it apart.

And surprisingly, it's in the best shape of all three. All of the jewels appear perfect, and to my untrained eye, I don't see anything wrong with this balance. Edit: not to mention the dial is almost perfect. I took another stab at close up photography, and I think these are a lot better.

The hands don't turn because the cannon pinion was rusted in place to the center wheel's staff.

I'm going to clean it up and see how she runs before I start scavenging for parts.

Edited January 15, 2022 by ManSkirtBrew
Added dial image

[JohnR725]

On 1/14/2022 at 8:32 AM, watchweasol said:

be careful of staff s   elgin/waltham have a variety if sizes as I found out repairing one, best heasure the staffs with a vernier for size.

I think you'll find with most American pocket watches there were variations for staff. If you're lucky the only variation is pivots size. It's always a confusion to people when they purchase a staff for their pocket watch and they wonder why it doesn't fit? Because the rule is to measure the old and make sure it agrees with whatever you think was supposed to be in the watch. You measure the new staff and make sure its identical in size to the old staff. Spend a lot of time measuring and verifying it is indeed the proper staff. Because quite a few of the staffs will have other variations for the exact same part number.

On 1/13/2022 at 8:47 AM, ManSkirtBrew said:

Having seen balance tacks being used. I thought it was weird to let the balance wheel hang from it, but I thought that's what it was made for, so it should be fine. Well, I learned that it is not fine, and after some more research here, I learned that one does not store the balance on the tack for safety.

Yes the evil balance tack. Usually American pocket watch hairsprings are pretty tough but they're not indestructible. I've never liked the idea of the balance tack as on some hairsprings like Omega they will be very unhappy they don't like to be stretched at all. It might look nice in the books but it's definitely something you do not want to use.

They do want to be careful with your hairspring it can cause you a lot of grief if you're not. Some were on the discussions somebody fix their hairspring and are very proud of the work they did fixing it but then they discovered like you have: shaped hairspring? Their conclusion was that it must've been done before by somebody else. Although my suspicion is in their fixing of their hairspring problem that they probably caused the problem.

Then a note regarding parts swapping on American pocket watches? The Industrial Revolution parts books the parts all interchange except why is there a serial number on the watch? There's a serial number to keep the parts together usually on a pocket watch all the plates will have part of the serial number. If you look at the balance wheel the serial numbers usually scribed on the balance wheel.

Depending upon how long they made that particular movement for things become even more interesting. There is a 12 size Illinois watch that somebody was going to use in a project and they were very excited because the parts book indicates at all the parts interchange. The problem was the watch was made over 30 years and there were variations which don't necessarily show up in the parts book. That means the ability to interchange parts is nonexistent despite with the parts book says

American pocket watches were usually made in batches so conceivably between the various batches of whatever these watches were made there will be variations. Usually all of the escapement components like the pallet fork they're all individually adjusted. So this is where mixing and matching to make a good American pocket watch out of bits and pieces of other of the same type can become quite challenging of verses a modern Swiss watch.

[ManSkirtBrew]

Interesting reading, @JohnR725! I'm actually seeing that right now in these movements. They're all the same grade, and according to the serial numbers, the parts are all the same manufacturer's part numbers. But I'm seeing definite differences.

For example, 2 of these 3 have badly cracked balance jewels. I pushed them out, and the settings are all different.

The earliest of them even has a different keyless works, using one fewer lever than the other two.

While I reach out to Dave's watch parts for new jewels, I put the best working one of the bunch back in the one case I have. I think it looks pretty smart in there!

 

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, ManSkirtBrew said:

For example, 2 of these 3 have badly cracked balance jewels. I pushed them out, and the settings are all different.

As you're finding out American balance jewels fall into a different category of problem. If you look at balance jewel hole sizes you tend to have limited choices sort of? in the case of your watch the upper jewel is 453. The lower jewel is either 453 or4806 it depends on serial number. Elgin for 12 size watches only had three different types of balance hole jewels and conceivably you could be using two of them. They will come in pivot holes sizes and I have an image below of what you're supposed to have.

Then companies like Illinois is not that simple. There jewels basically fit all the different size watches and is quite a few choices as a result lots of variations. So you have to know exactly which one you're supposed to have it's not good enough to have a balance hole jewel for a X size watch.

Then there is the other problem creativity? Creativity is that you have a bad hole jewel you need to replace it so went the replace it with? That's another reason you'll find all sorts of unknowns and things that don't look right because other people of replaced it with whatever they had. I had a Hamilton 99 to come in a couple weeks ago looked beautiful is running nice visually at least and I was puzzled by why are we having it serviced? When been serviced two years ago by another local watchmaker it was having timing issues. After evaluating the watch it was discovered that the upper hole jewel the entire setting was loose. So for dial up and dial down it was fine but in one of the crown positions the amplitude just crashed and burned and that was fully wound up I suspect at the end of 24 hours a be lucky to run. Another reason why it's important to evaluate your watches on the timing machine in more than one position.

 

1 hour ago, ManSkirtBrew said:

The earliest of them even has a different keyless works, using one fewer lever than the other two.

Yes this is the another problem variations. Depending upon how long it made there could be lots of minor changes. The final all sorts of strange and interesting things mainsprings changed even the end of the mainspring changed the barrel but the mainspring went in changes for the different end of the mainspring. Typically most mainsprings come in different thicknesses or strength depending upon which watch they go in.

The simplistic comes down to it's really good if you tried not to start swapping parts on an American pocket watch  as you introduce interesting a new problems that you never even dreamed could exist probably none of them are going to be good.