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Posted (edited)

I picked this up in a bag of watches from a clock dude in San Antonio over a hear ago.  Just recently found some bandwidth for it.  Not done yet, but thought I would share all I am dealing with.

First of all, it is a beautiful ladies watch that was given to Margaret in 1917.  Must have been a graduation present...that is my guess.

The obvious issue at the outset was a broken staff.  I could see as well that the hairspring was mangled up.  In another post awhile back I showed how I reshaped the hairspring to a flat planar one but since I was not sure about my skills to make a breguet, I decided to find a donor.

The donor is an Elgin 431.  Very interesting.  The 431 and 428 appear to be mirror images!!  Did not realize that until well into the restoration.

I found some NOS staffs on ebay (another saga for another day) and restaffed the balance.  All seemed to be going well except that neither the roller nor the hairspring collet were tight fits.  Using a conical stake, I fixed the hairspring collet, but the roller presented a dilemma.  Were I @nickelsilverI would turn a staff from scratch and make these work, but for me that is a full day's job and I just was not in the mood.  So I devised a means to solve the roller and I will go to my grave with that secret.  <edit>  Also the regulator arm was missing, so I had to take that from the donor.  It is not very tight, so I need to remedy that before this is done.

After assembly, I could plainly see that there was not enough power.  The problem was the mainspring barrel.  The cap would just not stay snapped in.  It would come lose and introduce friction against the main plate.  Well, I had another barrel from the donor.  I tried the cap and was shocked to find that the hole in the cap of the donor was smaller than the arbor required.  So, I ended up doing a complete swap of the donor barrel.  Cool no?

NO.  So in my typical workflow, I tested the train wheels with the pallet fork removed. Ouch...the center wheel was bent (out of true).  I could see it wobbling up and down as it spun.  I could have swapped from the other movement (and probably should have), but I proceeded to true it.  It appears that someone started poking around inside the watch and busted the staff, mangled the hairspring and bent the center wheel. 

Anyhow, after getting the watch all together, I discovered that the watch stopped in the DU position.  BUT BUT...not always!!  Super sleuth discovered that the center wheel was still just enough out of true that in one position of rotation it was bent inward enough to hit the balance.  LOL.  Still working that issue but I think it is very close to being good.

The watch is running slowly but I am not surprised since the hairspring was not vibrated with this balance. TBD

SloMo video

 

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Edited by LittleWatchShop
Posted

I've never seen somebody jump start a mechanical watch before. Have you got the polarity the right way round?  🤣

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    • it would be nice to have the exact model of the watch the or a picture so we can see exactly what you're talking about. this is because the definition of Swiss watch could be a variety of things and it be helpful if we could see exactly the watch your dealing with then in professional watch repair at least some professionals they do pre-cleaned watches. In other words the hands and dial come off and the entire movement assembled goes through a cleaning machine sometimes I think a shorter bath perhaps so everything is nice and clean for disassembly makes it easier to look for problems. Then other professionals don't like pre-cleaning because it basically obliterates the scene of the crime. Especially when dealing with vintage watches where you're looking for metal filings and problems that may visually go away with cleaning. Then usually super sticky lubrication isn't really a problem for disassembly and typically shouldn't be a problem on a pallet fork bridge because there shouldn't be any lubrication on the bridge at all as you typically do not oil the pallet fork pivots.  
    • A few things you should find out before you can mske a decision of what to do. As Richard said, what is the crown and all of the crown components made of . Then also the stem .  The crown looks to have a steel washer that retains a gasket. So be careful with what chemicals you use to dissolve any stem adhesives or the use of heat. You might swell or melt the gasket unless you are prepared to change that also . The steel washer maybe reactive to alum. Something I've just used to dissolve a broken screw from a plate. First drilled out the centre of the screw with a 0.5mm carbide . Dipped only the section that held the broken screw in Rustins rust remover. This is 40 % phosphoric acid. 3 days and the screw remains were completely dissolved, no trace of steel in the brass threads. A black puddle left in the solution.
    • I suppose this will add to the confusion I have a roller jewel assortment. It lists out American pocket watches for Elgin 18 size and even 16 size it's a 50. But not all the various companies used 50-50 does seem to be common one company had a 51 and the smallest is 43. American parts are always interesting? Francis Elgin for mainsprings will tell you the thickness of the spring other companies will not even though the spring for the same number could come in a variety of thicknesses. But if we actually had the model number of your watch we would find it probably makes a reference that the roller jewel came in different dimensions. So overlook the parts book we find that? So it appears to be 18 and 16 size would be the same sort of the arson different catalog numbers and as I said we don't have your Mongol know which Log number were supposed to be using. Variety of materials garnered her sapphire single or double but zero mention about diameters. Then in a section of rollers in this case rollers with jewels we do get this down in the notes section Roller specifications but of course zero reference to the jewel size. I was really hoping the roller jewel assortment would give us sizes it doesn't really. But it does show a picture of how one particular roller jewel gauge is used  
    • Seems to still do it through my mobile data, I use an android phone almost exclusively, but I'll double check it. Thanks mark Strange, I'll try my laptop that utilities edge. I've been on site half hour since I got home, it hasn't done it yet. Thanks John
    • At work, I'm on MS Edge, not through chose, on my phone, chrome, no issues with either. 
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