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Elgin 428 restoration--a work in progress

LittleWatchShop
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LittleWatchShop Distinguished Member

LittleWatchShop

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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

 

2023-02-14 08_50_31-20230214_082243.jpg ‎- Photos.png

2023-02-14 08_50_51-Microsoft Office Picture Manager.png

2023-02-14 08_51_16-20230212_073506.jpg ‎- Photos.png

Edited by LittleWatchShop
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