Serenity Now!!! The tiny bridge diashocks in this 7s26 is an insurmountable roadblock...

[gbyleveldt]

1 hour ago, Birbdad said:

I"m not being combative haha. You asked me why i did not think specifically the cap jewels had to be oiled. I answered you. I'm of course wrong and every correction i get is much appreciated so cheers to you. I'm VERY glad i learned that now and not after i had cleaned, incorrectly lubed, and reassembled the dang thing only for a month later for it to go haywire because oil is getting everywhere. Serious question though. You reset those by hand with tweezers, you got skills. How long does it take you? Seconds? minutes? hour? I'm just curious.

Haha, I wasn't thinking that you were combative at all. I was merely pointing out the part I thought you missed. That's the issue with something being written, it's way too easy to take things the wrong way.

I did it in that video I linked earlier realtime so I dunno, a couple of seconds? Admittedly, as I said before, if you haven't done them in a while it does take longer to get into it again. Let's call it under a minute just to be fair. As Mark has said above, you just need practice. It's the first movement you've worked on so you shouldn't get too frustrated. It's a skill you build over time and what may seem insurmountable now will become routine as you build skill. It's easy to forget how stupidly small watch parts are when you look at YT videos - it's deceiving.

I like your ingenuity with making a plastic tool to fit them though, well done. Now stop cheating and practice those tweezer skills !!!!

[Jon]

 

No chance of the spring pinging off on you,

I also did a vid how to re-fit the spring

There are more than one way to skin a cat...

[Birbdad]

9 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

Haha, I wasn't thinking that you were combative at all. I was merely pointing out the part I thought you missed. That's the issue with something being written, it's way too easy to take things the wrong way.

I did it in that video I linked earlier realtime so I dunno, a couple of seconds? Admittedly, as I said before, if you haven't done them in a while it does take longer to get into it again. Let's call it under a minute just to be fair. As Mark has said above, you just need practice. It's the first movement you've worked on so you shouldn't get too frustrated. It's a skill you build over time and what may seem insurmountable now will become routine as you build skill. It's easy to forget how stupidly small watch parts are when you look at YT videos - it's deceiving.

I like your ingenuity with making a plastic tool to fit them though, well done. Now stop cheating and practice those tweezer skills !!!!

I only have two number two tweezers, one is cheap brass. the amount of material i would have to take off to get them even close to as sharp and skinny as the tweezers i see people use when messing with these things feels like it would probably compromise their integrity. I ordered ones far better suited for this and yup, i got a junk bridge with all these settings intact and i will definitely be practicing when they arrive with the oiler.

I swear every time i think i got to the bottom of this damn watchmakers tool rabbit hole i shoot the rabbit and it flops over and the hole just keeps on going

1 hour ago, Jon said:

 

No chance of the spring pinging off on you,

I also did a vid how to re-fit the spring

There are more than one way to skin a cat...

That's wild i basically did that exact same thing and i could get it to work fine with the balance spring setting but not those small ones.

Your pegwood looks....a lot more solid and less flakey and splintery than mine does and I'm wondering why, yours is so dense and smooth it almost looks like plastic. I have two kinds, beechwood that i ordered on accident and then I got Grobet regular pegwood, i assume it's orange wood. The grobet seems real splintery and sheds a ton of dust and crud to the point I was concerned even if i did use it to set the thing it would contaminate the hell out of it. I could rodico the tool 50 times and it would still leave behind a bunch of debris. 

[Jon]

10 hours ago, Birbdad said:

I only have two number two tweezers, one is cheap brass. the amount of material i would have to take off to get them even close to as sharp and skinny as the tweezers i see people use when messing with these things feels like it would probably compromise their integrity. I ordered ones far better suited for this and yup, i got a junk bridge with all these settings intact and i will definitely be practicing when they arrive with the oiler.

I swear every time i think i got to the bottom of this damn watchmakers tool rabbit hole i shoot the rabbit and it flops over and the hole just keeps on going

That's wild i basically did that exact same thing and i could get it to work fine with the balance spring setting but not those small ones.

Your pegwood looks....a lot more solid and less flakey and splintery than mine does and I'm wondering why, yours is so dense and smooth it almost looks like plastic. I have two kinds, beechwood that i ordered on accident and then I got Grobet regular pegwood, i assume it's orange wood. The grobet seems real splintery and sheds a ton of dust and crud to the point I was concerned even if i did use it to set the thing it would contaminate the hell out of it. I could rodico the tool 50 times and it would still leave behind a bunch of debris. 

Yes, You're right! The pegwood you get these days is a bit dodgy. I bought the pegwood you see in the videos from Cousins a few years ago, which was advertised as German orangewood, I believe. I've never come across anything of the same quality again and Cousins doesn't stock it anymore. Send me a DM with your address and I'll send you a stick I have already made into the tool as shown in the vids. It will help no end..

[Birbdad]

42 minutes ago, Jon said:

Yes, You're right! The pegwood you get these days is a bit dodgy. I bought the pegwood you see in the videos from Cousins a few years ago, which was advertised as German orangewood, I believe. I've never come across anything of the same quality again and Cousins doesn't stock it anymore. Send me a DM with your address and I'll send you a stick I have already made into the tool as shown in the vids. It will help no end..

Oh wow that's super kind of you! I absolutely appreciate it! Will get me through a few things till my tweezer skills are honed a bit better!

[Jon]

2 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

Oh wow that's super kind of you! I absolutely appreciate it! Will get me through a few things till my tweezer skills are honed a bit better!

No problems. Life is all about passing on what we have, which I believe is good karma.

Send me a private message with your address and I'll send you a ready made pegwood tool  that you need and another stick of the 'primo' pegwood. The same tool works well on Kif shock-proof springs and others that are non-captive springs

[Birbdad]

4 minutes ago, Jon said:

No problems. Life is all about passing on what we have, which I believe is good karma.

Send me a private message with your address and I'll send you a ready made pegwood tool  that you need and another stick of the 'primo' pegwood. The same tool works well on Kif shock-proof springs and others that are non-captive springs

Awesome, i'll use it sparingly if it's that good.

Also worth putting it out there I'm a professional artist with a strong background in 3d. I'm going to model and prototype a few tools that will basically be durable plastic versions of this and if i create one that works really well i'll post a link to the thingiverse file in this thread.

[Nibbler]

Those little buggers were definitely brewed up in the devils kitchen. I get its not a good idea to leave them as is without cleaning. Right now I leave them alone given my limitations at this point in this hobby. I think I successfully put one back in after a ton of practice.

Matt

[anilv]

doable. Just shave some pegwood down so it sits on both ends (short sides) and has clearance in the middle. I've also done it with two pieces of pegwood. Takes a few tries and the springs tend to fly off so do it inside a plastic bag.

I've been toying with the idea of making a metal too but I guess the wood will 'grip' the metal spring better.

I usually shy away from these movements but sometimes I cant avoid it.

Anilv

Edited August 24, 2022 by anilv

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 8/22/2022 at 11:50 PM, Jon said:

Life is all about passing on what we have, which I believe is good karma.

Without a doubt jon

On 8/24/2022 at 9:30 AM, anilv said:

doable. Just shave some pegwood down so it sits on both ends (short sides) and has clearance in the middle. I've also done it with two pieces of pegwood. Takes a few tries and the springs tend to fly off so do it inside a plastic bag.

I've been toying with the idea of making a metal too but I guess the wood will 'grip' the metal spring better.

I usually shy away from these movements but sometimes I cant avoid it.

Anilv

The tools you mention  can be bought. Here a homemade toothpick version that got me out of a fix and also 3 sizes of the correct tool. 

[Jon]

On 8/27/2022 at 5:26 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

Without a doubt jon

The tools you mention  can be bought. Here a homemade toothpick version that got me out of a fix and also 3 sizes of the correct tool. 

The 2 metal ones with the tricorn profile are Kif tools. They work, but not as good as the pegwood in my experience. You can buy a set of three for about £35 from Cousins

[Neverenoughwatches]

4 hours ago, Jon said:

The 2 metal ones with the tricorn profile are Kif tools. They work, but not as good as the pegwood in my experience. You can buy a set of three for about £35 from Cousins

I have not needed to use those yet. But after the performance i had with a tiny oris kif spring fitting into a 3 slotted setting i wanted a back up plan. 

[jdm]

On 9/7/2022 at 3:40 PM, Jon said:

They work, but not as good as the pegwood in my experience.

Correct. A shaped metal tool grabs good, "too much" on delicate metal, making much easier to break the spring, especially in the hands of a beginner, compared to a soft one. The latter will slip when excess turning force is applied. 

[mikepilk]

As other have found, wooden tools are not robust on this scale.
I found some brass tubing which works well on the small Diashock.

The external diameter of the tube is 1.3mm

[Malocchio]

You don't need an auto oiler. Insert cap jewel and spring, then turn bridge/mainplate around and put oil in the jewel oil well as if you were oiling a normal jewel. Then poke the oil through the jewel hole so that it kind of gets sucked through the hole an on the cap jewel. You need something very thin. I sanded down a normal oiler and made it a thin needle. When there's enough oil on the cap jewel, clean oil well with rodico. Don't press rodico through jewel hole or you'll mess up your new cap jewel lubrication.

[steve855]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:05 PM, Malocchio said:

You don't need an auto oiler. Insert cap jewel and spring, then turn bridge/mainplate around and put oil in the jewel oil well as if you were oiling a normal jewel. Then poke the oil through the jewel hole so that it kind of gets sucked through the hole an on the cap jewel. You need something very thin. I sanded down a normal oiler and made it a thin needle. When there's enough oil on the cap jewel, clean oil well with rodico. Don't press rodico through jewel hole or you'll mess up your new cap jewel lubrication.

I also do it this way.  Apply oil to underside of hole jewel, then poke it through.  I use a single whisker that I snipped off my dog's muzzle.  Not kidding.

[mbwatch]

I just did my first Diafix settings on a UT29 (Seiko-made) movement and I think I need a bottle of valium. All the blog posts and videos about "Diafix: The Easy Way!!" made it look so much easier than it is. On this movement I think the setting on the train bridge (which caused no issues) might be slightly smaller than its counterpart for the escape wheel on the dial side. The springs did not seem to fit as snugly and the "legs" unfortunately slid right out of the setting. I could not find a comfortable way to place Rodico to hold them down, and a couple of them flew out of the plastic bag I was working in. I used everything my spare movement had to offer.

I wish I'd read the dog's whisker trick before ever opening those settings.

[Malocchio]

Diafix doesn't have to be a struggle. Use two tweezers for the star-shaped and keep the tips of one constantly touching the cap jewel. You'll never lose another spring. For the "tuning fork" shaped spring you can make a tool, I have pics in some thread. Using a stereo microscope makes things easier too. 

[Nucejoe]

 I concur with Maloochio, keep the spring covered with tweezers or flat object like safety razor blade, etc , 80% of the spring covered secures it in place so it can't get loose to fly, 20% left uncovered at your disposal to work on. 

 I fit  the spring then rinse/ lube before installing the bridge/cock  on gears/ arbours, I also spread a 2×2 meter nylon sheet, just in case any  part flies after all. 

All cap jewels must be removed to be inspected and let you inspect the relevent hole jewel, how else would you know if its not worn/damaged? 

Rgds