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9010 evaporation rate when the movement is not cased - SOLVED


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Ok so first time I'm posting question here as I'm seriously worried about this. It happened a few times before, say after I completed service a movement, I wanted to test it before casing so I left the movement on the bench, in the part tray and under dirt cover of course, for like 1-2 days. After 2 days while observing the movement with my eye loupe I notice the circle of oil in the balance jewel looks so small. I'm sure that's not how it looks when I just finished oiling it because I done it under a microscope. I took the jewel out and indeed the oil is almost gone. I then oil them again, both the balance jewels, and cased the watch. This doesn't happen to watches that I serviced but cased right away, I take the back off one of my watch that I serviced about a year ago and the oil in the balance jewel still looks the same, healthy size.

So recently I decided to do a real test. I oil the balance jewel in a scrap movement with 9010 that I have in my drawer, take a picture of the circle of oil with my microscope and just put it back in the drawer. I also put a drop of 9010 on the bridge. After a day, I put it under the microscope, and the circle of oil in balance jewel already losts about 70%, the drop on the bridge almost disapears too. So I did the test again, this time the movement was left in a part tray under a plastic cover for a day, I notice that the evaporation rate is slower thought still a significant amount of oil is lost.

Here how the circle of 9010 looks (please ignore the dirt, this is a srcap movement just for test):

1.jpg.f6e980b85dc28235bdbb74032dbe2a4a.jpg

And here is how it looks after a day:

2.jpg.5434a70bed985c5d94914c37f9b32bdc.jpg

I want to ask you guys about your experience and how do you deal with this. I have not seen this discussed anywhere. There are definitely cases when we want to test the movement for a period of time to make sure it works fine before casing it, but then how do we deal with this oil evaporation? Currently I'm testing again, this time the movement was put in a small plastic box with screw down cover. I don't have the result yet, but I want to post this and want to know what you think.

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Are you sure it's evaporation? The oil on the bridge could have spread to a thin film, it does that. Spreading is the reason there is Epilame. 

I'm sure others with more experience can say more definitively what's going on. 

 

 

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36 minutes ago, dadistic said:

Are you sure it's evaporation? The oil on the bridge could have spread to a thin film, it does that. Spreading is the reason there is Epilame. 

I'm sure others with more experience can say more definitively what's going on. 

 

 

I'm pretty sure it's evaporation. I observe the balance jewel every day and the circle of oil gets smaller each day. As far as I know, the gap between the cap jewel and hole jewel should keeps the oil in place, so that it cannot spreads or runs it way down the balance pivot. The watch that I serviced a year ago is fine so my technic shouldn't be the problem either. Compare the 2 photos I took you can see the circle of oil gets smaller just after 1 day left in the part tray under cover. I couldn't think of any reason other than evaporation.

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Moebius 9010 creeps away and „disappears“ if the surrounding surfaces are not 100% clean or treated with epilame. I observed this „evaporation“ in my plastic oil cup. A drop of 9010 disappeared completely within a few days. The rough plastic surface seemed to support the creeping process. After treating the oil cup with epilame this strange behavior was gone completely and no further „evaporation“ was observed.

D8CBFA5A-28C1-4EAF-8A09-04ACFBAB06D8.thumb.jpeg.95ea69b888dfe9c93cac2e1e6e0fb97c.jpeg

Edited by Kalanag
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This problem is really weird to me. I  just open 2 watches that I have serviced more or less a year ago and the oils are fine in both of them, just like the day I closed it. The chain wheel's pivot looks all good with nice oils wherether it is 9010 or HP1300. I don't have epilame. This is the balance jewel of one watch:

2047660989_eta2836.jpg.460d501d24db7c4bda0b585398eec0e7.jpg

And this is the testing subject, just now after 2 days:

IPC_2022-08-26_13_51_39_0740.jpg.6c2673e15965e8c9bf7ed8ae67bc5acb.jpg

I take the jewel setting out:

IPC_2022-08-26_14_02_17_9560.jpg.25fa74edd24564ad053517912a4a90c7.jpg

This is how it looks when I lubricated it 2 days ago:

IPC_2022-08-24_10_05_08_6770.jpg.14f71b6b8ea731f0ff16e79d734be1f0.jpg

I cleaned the hole jewel, cap jewel and pivot properly before testing. Maybe 9010 evaporates fast in evironment with much more air compare to the air in a watch case? Or there is something wrong with my oil because I don't change the oil in my cup weekly.

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My testing proved that 9010 might evaporate over years but not within days. Your observation with the other watch supports that. Movement cased or not shouldn‘t make a difference.

If 9010 would evaporate within days and bearings would dry out that quickly it would never be recommended by watch companies.

Best you could get some epilame for testing.

Edited by Kalanag
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7 hours ago, dadistic said:

Are you sure it's evaporation? The oil on the bridge could have spread to a thin film, it does that. Spreading is the reason there is Epilame. 

I'm sure others with more experience can say more definitively what's going on.

You don't need an expert it looks like you're already the expert. 9010 loves to spread unless you use epilam.

If the 9010 was evaporating as fast as you suspect I suspect way more people would be noticing this than just you. It also see it of the operating out of your oil cup ridiculously fast.

8 hours ago, ColdWind said:

I wanted to test it before casing so I left the movement on the bench, in the part tray and under dirt cover of course, for like 1-2 days. After 2 days while observing the movement with my eye loupe I notice the circle of oil in the balance jewel looks so small.

That's actually way too fast for anything to be happening bad. I know for instance a lot of watchmakers will take several days to complete some watches. For one thing they may be testing the watch out of the case for several days and if the evaporation rate was this fast we would know about it there's something else going on.

 

8 hours ago, ColdWind said:

So recently I decided to do a real test. I oil the balance jewel in a scrap movement with 9010 that I have in my drawer,

How did you clean the scrap movement before you oiled?

 

 

 

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I think I underestimated how dirty the scrap movement is so the oil I put in likely got contaminated. Also the fact that I don't have epilame to prevent migration. I have cleaned it serveral times now and put in oil that circle's diameter is only about 1/2 diameter of the cap jewel. I will let you guys know the result.

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19 hours ago, ColdWind said:

I think I underestimated how dirty the scrap movement is so the oil I put in likely got contaminated. Also the fact that I don't have epilame to prevent migration. I have cleaned it serveral times now and put in oil that circle's diameter is only about 1/2 diameter of the cap jewel. I will let you guys know the result.

I would like to repost that I have solved my problem. The jewel was not clean enough. After cleaned up and tested for one full day the oil looks the same. Thank all of you for your help.

IPC_2022-08-26_19_35_02_1080.jpg.098f4e8c455831ab40f10a751795dbeb.jpg

After one day (I'm sorry it's a little out of focus but the circle looks the same):

IPC_2022-08-27_14_55_34_8010.jpg.2642f0959d2d385ec95552cf7e76ae84.jpg

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  • Mark changed the title to 9010 evaporation rate when the movement is not cased - SOLVED

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