AS 1701 - this may have me beaten ! What can I do next?

[GuyMontag]

26 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

Then I just pushed both stones in a touch, and gained about 40° : 275° DU/DD. CU/CD are both about 225° and clean plots. 

 

 

In the photo you showed of the entry stone it looked like it was fully seated with no room to push it in further. Was there some room that wasn't showing in the photo? What was your method for adjusting the stones?

[mikepilk]

35 minutes ago, GuyMontag said:

In the photo you showed of the entry stone it looked like it was fully seated with no room to push it in further. Was there some room that wasn't showing in the photo? What was your method for adjusting the stones?

There was just enough space - about the same on both sides. The shellac looks like the jewel - I've marked it in the pic. Now the lock looks closer to 1/3 width of the jewel. It was over 1/2

With too much lock, it's interesting to put some power on the mainspring, and move the fork with some pegwood. It becomes clear why you lose so much power: The fork has to be moved a long way before the stone unlocks, all the time the stone is pushing back against the escape wheel ("recoil"), trying to drive it back against the gear train. Hence loss of energy. There's a good explanation of energy losses in the escapement in Lesson 21 of  "The Chicago School of Watchmaking"

[JohnR725]

On 11/19/2022 at 6:15 AM, nickelsilver said:

If I ever get my hands on a demonstration escapement I'll try to redo it with photos.

Not so much getting your hands on one is robbing the bank to pay for one. I was kinda hoping some creative soul would design and then 3-D print and escapement model. Because it be so much easier to explain things if you had a visual aid like an escapement model.

 

 

[HectorLooi]

3 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

I was kinda hoping some creative soul would design and then 3-D print and escapement model

Yes. That would be so much better than printing barrel closers. 

[Nucejoe]

 About twenty years ago, I missed a chance to buy an escapement demonstration model with adjustable pallet jewels, it sorta resembled the piece shown below.   Amplitude took off as the lock was reduced and yes behaved crazy when you kept playing  with the adjustor screws.

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/a-captivating-collection-of-escapement-models-at-heritage-auctions-may-26th-sale

Of tens of times Nickelsilver has called for our attention to the subject, this thread provided an example to see the significance of it. 

Many thanks to Mike and Nickelsilver.

 

 

 

 

[JohnR725]

Here's an example of an escapement model for training purposes. As you can see brand-new from the Swiss with an interesting price. But it's not actually my favorite design for an escapement model.

http://www.wostep.ch/en/boutique#

Then this isn't exactly what I was looking for either but if you had a 3-D printer

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3364860

Then while you're on the site do a search like the link below. Look at all the nifty stuff you could make if you'd a 3-D printer.

https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=Escapement&page=1&type=things&sort=relevant

Then typically when I think escapement model I think of something that's features in a book. This book to be exact Know the Escapement Hardcover – by Sarah & Homer A. Barkus (Author). I also found a nice picture for you which I've attached this was a very popular and may still be very popular training  aid used in schools. Sometimes the book is sold with the model other times you'll find just the bottle all by itself and then a course the book can be purchased sometimes all by itself do yes some of the books do have a raised image of an escapement on the cover others are just a plain cover.

[nickelsilver]

On 11/20/2022 at 3:25 AM, ifibrin said:

Is there any reason why this is so? Were such movements in the past just not adjusted out of the factory to have high amplitude, due to the excessive lock on the pallets?

I think the watch is set up to run initially with some margin of adjustment left in the escapement, simply because that's good practice, and they left the factory with good amplitude. After decades of use, slight invisible wear across the whole set of components can easily add up to a drop in amplitude. So it's nice that that little bit of adjustment is there.

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

I think the watch is set up to run initially with some margin of adjustment left in the escapement, simply because that's good practice, and they left the factory with good amplitude.

Good amplitude doesn't cut it for this group it has to be outstanding amplitude or else that's the problem.

I know people that work at the Swatch group service center. For anything like this they automatically just replace all the escapement components they don't even try to troubleshoot slightest hint of anything infinite supply of parts new escapement components. Then as far as regulation goes despite having detailed specifications like for Omega they only sort of fall of this. The words there given a window the watch has to do between this and this and all they have to do is hit the window and move on they do not regulate for zero seconds. It out even try to get close to zero seconds they just regulate the window and they go on.

So basically when you look at anything related the amplitude by the watch companies they're not concerned with a minimum amplitude or death they just don't what have too much amplitude and then they're concerned about amplitude at 24 hours but they're much more concerned about timekeeping. Of course if you have no amplitude are limited amplitude it 24 hours you usually have bad timekeeping is not ignoring the issue but that's not their obsession.

That if you look at some of the modern specifications though basically say that the majority the watches will fall into this group a certain percentage will fall out which of the range so I'm guessing they only spot check a few of the watches and by percentages some watches will be farther out of range than the rest.

I snipped out a image for you it comes from an internal Elgin watch company document dated about 1955 it's a nice book that explains how to give factory visits. It's divided into sections casual visitors versus jewelry store owners versus I think watchmakers in other words you get more and more technical stuff. There is a lot of overlap unfortunately no pictures it would've been nice to have pictures but no pictures just Words.

Now why am I giving you this well let's read through amplitude specifications. They did have a timing machine that measured rate so they would look at the rate of the watch but notice on the amplitude they basically visually look at it and look at the turns that the balance wheels making. Then yes I always find turns confusing versus amplitude I'll let you figure out what a turn is.

So you'll notice too much amplitude they put a weaker mainspring and. Then yes if you look in the Elgin parts book at one time they did have watch mainsprings that were weaker than the regular spring. Even Rolex had variations in mainsprings strength if they perceive there were issues. But notice what happens if they don't have enough amplitude somebody gets to look at the watch and possibly adjust the escapement.