Bergeon 1a auto oiler help. Needle seating depth and calibration.

[Birbdad]

The instructions on this thing and some of it's design is terrible so I of course broke the needle on it the first time i tried to fill it up haha. I must  have bumped my calipers when i was swapping out the needle with a new one and lost the proper seating depth. If somebody who's oiler is in good working order could just bust out their calipers and give me a quick measurement of how far past the body the needle on yours sits with the needle fully extended i would appreciate it. I Haven't spent enough time with the thing to know how far the needle should extend past the tip. If there's some other far more obvious way to know when the needle is set at the correct depth please let me know.

Also any advice for calibrating it? it seems to let out a ton of oil the tip seems to slippery to do test dots on flat glass (I just smear it on glass or on a non set cap jewel because it slides around) and it's hard to see how big my oil bubble is on a set cap jewel since I don't (yet) have a microscope. I have a 35x loupe but the bubble really doesn't stand out well.

Just wondering if there's any little hacks or tricks to get the thing calibrated or do i gotta just find a better way to see the bubble like a backlight or something.

.

[Delgetti]

Here some quick pics. I never did any calibration. Using the thing on capped endstones (balance) it just puts out the correct amount on one shot. Of course I always check the size of the drop as the final step.

 

 

[Birbdad]

39 minutes ago, Delgetti said:

Here some quick pics. I never did any calibration. Using the thing on capped endstones (balance) it just puts out the correct amount on one shot. Of course I always check the size of the drop as the final step.

 

 

Ey thanks! Do you use the same amount of oil on say the bridge train jewels as you do on the balance chatons? I think one of the things throwing me off was that i was touching the whole tip to glass to test it when in reality only the tiny needle part is going to touch the capstone. 

I did notice the tip which will touch the jewel below the capstone does deposit oil around the jewel hole. Should i wipe that off with rodico or just not worry about it?

[Kalanag]

This video might help understanding the function of the oiler. Start at 7:38!

It‘s about time

[Birbdad]

1 hour ago, Kalanag said:

This video might help understanding the function of the oiler. Start at 7:38!

It‘s about time

ok wow yeah that seems to be the opposite of how a lot of people use it and what the manual says.

he says you stick the needle in the jewel hole and then retract it.

The instructions say you stick the needle in the jewel hole, retract it then release the trigger which will reinsert the needle with oil back into the jewel hole?

I guess when he sticks the needle into the jewel hole in the video it's already loaded with oil? Do you stick the needle in some rodico first to remove any initial oil off it before pulling the trigger? 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Birbdad

[Kalanag]

1 hour ago, Birbdad said:

I guess when he sticks the needle into the jewel hole in the video it's already loaded with oil?

I do not own such an oiler but yes that‘s how I see it too! Protruding the needle pushes the oil out and into the jewel hole. It is mainly the same as manually putting a drop of oil into the cavity of the hole jewel and then pushing it through the hole towards the cap jewel with a needle.

[Birbdad]

38 minutes ago, Kalanag said:

I do not own such an oiler but yes that‘s how I see it too! Protruding the needle pushes the oil out and into the jewel hole. It is mainly the same as manually putting a drop of oil into the cavity of the hole jewel and then pushing it through the hole towards the cap jewel with a needle.

Yeah i think he's just not being clear with the instructions.  Ugh tho, even with a backlight i can't see any oil bubble. On a flat surface though I think i got a pretty dialed in spot now.  iirc it's 1/3rd to a half of teh width of the cap stone.  

[Birbdad]

On 10/19/2022 at 6:58 AM, Delgetti said:

Here some quick pics. I never did any calibration. Using the thing on capped endstones (balance) it just puts out the correct amount on one shot. Of course I always check the size of the drop as the final step.

 

 

 

On 10/19/2022 at 6:58 AM, Delgetti said:

Here some quick pics. I never did any calibration. Using the thing on capped endstones (balance) it just puts out the correct amount on one shot. Of course I always check the size of the drop as the final step.

 

 

Man you got any tips for this thing? I'm having a FRUSTRATING time with this and it's stopped my assembly in it's tracks. I'm pretty sure i couldn't see the bubble in my settings because it was totally filling them with oil despite me having it turned down to nearly the lowest possible levels of oil. I fine tuned it a bit more and while it seems like the oil is closer to the right amount i'm not getting a uniform bubble of oil. Everything is spotlessly clean but for some reason the bubble looks like this this more less, lopsided and touching the edge.

When you touch yours to an object with the needle retracted does it still deposit oil? 

This is frustrating as hell because i can't get a clean bubble and every time i mess it up i gotta spend like 20 minutes resetting those damn train bridge shock settings. I actually wore out my tool i set and reset them so many times today -_-. 

There's gotta be something i'm missing!

[praezis]

An Incabloc will be oiled differently: You place a drop of oil on the separated cap jewel and then assemble it with the hole-jewel bushing. This procedure is explained on the Incabloc site.

Frank

[ifibrin]

16 hours ago, Birbdad said:

Usually when the oil has creeped to the sides of the cap jewels you have applied too much oil. Can you adjust your auto oiler to deposit even less oil? Surface treatment of the end stones also does make a difference some times.

How are you oiling the cap jewels in place on the balance cock? Did you remove the balance wheel from the balance cock?

[Birbdad]

3 hours ago, ifibrin said:

Usually when the oil has creeped to the sides of the cap jewels you have applied too much oil. Can you adjust your auto oiler to deposit even less oil? Surface treatment of the end stones also does make a difference some times.

How are you oiling the cap jewels in place on the balance cock? Did you remove the balance wheel from the balance cock?

I'm actually not doing this with the balance jewel/chaton, I oil that by hand the old fashioned way as i don't even have to set the shock setting to see if i did it right. I don't find the oiling itself terribly hard as iv'e been practicing for weeks before this disassembly. It's the setting of the tiny bridge train shocks while wet that would be virtually impossible for me hence why it seems like everybody just sets them dry and uses the auto oiler to oil them from below. 

But yeah if i set the auto oiler via the off center screw to the least possible amount of deposited oil it's a bit too little, if i adjust it even the most microscopically incremental increase i get too much and i can't seem to find anything in between. I"m wondering if the needle depth itself adjusts the flow of oil and i have to tweak that and then mess with the off center screw adjustment?

19 hours ago, praezis said:

An Incabloc will be oiled differently: You place a drop of oil on the separated cap jewel and then assemble it with the hole-jewel bushing. This procedure is explained on the Incabloc site.

Frank

I"m not setting an incabloc. I just posted that as an example of what the oil bubble i'm getting looks like vs what it should look like. For the balance jewel/chaton i don't even bother with the auto oiler as it's easier for me to oil by hand.

I'm specifically inquiring about the tiny train bridge shock settings that most people set dry and then oil from below with an auto oiler because they're SUCH a pain in the ass to set without disturbing the oil.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Birbdad

[gbyleveldt]

2 hours ago, Birbdad said:

But yeah if i set the auto oiler via the off center screw to the least possible amount of deposited oil it's a bit too little,

I set mine to minimum and flick the oil lever twice - that gives just enough oil

[Birbdad]

2 hours ago, gbyleveldt said:

I set mine to minimum and flick the oil lever twice - that gives just enough oil

Feeling sorta dumb for not thinking of that XD it even crossed my mind that that was about half as much oil as i needed.

I'll give it a shot soon.

Jfc i'm getting tired of removing tehse shock settings and cleaning these damn stones. I did it so many times the other day it destroyed the tool i made.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Birbdad

[Birbdad]

Ok, I got this thing totally figured out so I'll post how i did it easily finally for other people if their 1a auto oiler isn't calibrating right and you don't own a microscope.

 

Screw trying to dial it in perfectly if that's not working like it wasn't for me. Put the offset screw to the lowest setting. On amazon you can buy cheap USB backlights for tracing. I got one for about 8 dollars, this makes it quite easy to see your oil bubble while you're oiling the already set capstone. Place the bridge on the backlight, keep the needle out, insert the needle into the jewel hole from the back and flick the trigger, it will probably deposit too little but you can CLEARLY see the bubble slowly grow as it's filling with a 10x loupe. After the first flick remove the oiler and check the bubble, it will likely be too small. Reinsert the the needle into the jewel hole and through capillary action it will draw oil slowly from the oiler, if it doesn't give it another flick. Either way it's slow enough that it's easy to get the perfect size and shape bubble. Just rinse and repeat till your oil bubble is correct.

There is definitely some technique to this tool not very many people talk about.

This had confounded me for awhile. I'm thrilled i can continue now with my service!