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Closing the barrel and barrel lid arbor hole.


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Eyup watch peeps i hope we are all well. Looking for some thoughts on closing the arbor holes on a barrel and its lid. I've done a little of this type of repair in the past but only on  mainplates and bridges. Servicing a none working Raketa from ebay and as is always good practise checking everything as assembly proceeds. Almost from the off a problem with excess end and sideshake with the barrel and arbor. When mounted in the movement to the point of rubbing on the mainplate. I'm fairly sure this is a combination of mainplate/bridge hole wear and also barrel and lid hole wear. But may also include an outward bend of the lid ( easy to correct with a basic staking set ). Standard practice for hole closure would be two domed surfaces pressed against the hole to squeeze the material inwards. And then broach the hole out to an appropriate diameter to suit the arbor ( a good test after broaching for this would be holding the barrel and arbor between tweezers and use a single blow from a puffer to produce a few seconds of barrel spin. And a maximum barrel angle of 5° from its 90° plane to the arbor ( any correction input here appreciated). So to my original reason for posting. Using the largest domed punch i have ( i say domed punch but more of a shallow angle rather than a true domed surface ) and domed stump. Neither the barrel or lid material are thick enough, the punch and stump touch each other before reaching the hole's edge. What thoughts does anyone have regarding using a domed punch and a flat stump to close one side or both sides of the barrel and lid ?

Edited by Neverenoughwatches
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Eyup nathen (ref F.Truman, Indoor League c70s) . I'm having a similar problem - too much endshake with the barrel arbor.

I have closed the holes in barrels and lids successfully using the same technique. The metal is so thin that you need to use a flat stump in place of one of the rounded ( praezis  Frank says you should always do this when closing holes and not use two rounded!).

My problem is that the barrel holes are a good fit, and the ends seem flat, but there is too much arbor endshake - I can't see how this has occurred, or what I can do about it.

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25 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

use a flat stump in place of one of the rounded ( praezis  Frank says you should always do this when closing holes and not use two rounded!

I figure using a round punch or stump to the inside face of the barrel or lid could increase the end shake. As it happens even the widest domed punch and stump i have pass more than half way into hole. So my only option was to use a flat and a dome, or a flat holed stump to accommodate any protrusion the punch might have during hammer time.

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Hi Guys  I have just done one and used the domed punch and a flat stake, i think you have greater control using a single punch. Not hitting the punch rather letting the hammer fall on it, do it gently and then check. Mine required a single turn of the broach to get the required clearance.

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Just now, Neverenoughwatches said:

I figure using a round punch or stump to the inside face of the barrel or lid could increase the end shake. As it happens even the widest domed punch and stump i have pass more than half way into hole. So my only option was to use a flat and a dome, or a flat holed stump to accommodate any protrusion the punch might have during hammer time.

Frank's suggestion to use a flat stump was to prevent extra endshake. As the barrel is so thin, this isn't a problem. But with a bridge it could be. BUT I make sure the punch I use leaves chamfer which is smaller than the shoulder of the arbor, so endshake is not affected. 

1 minute ago, watchweasol said:

Hi Guys  I have just done one and used the domed punch and a flat stake, i think you have greater control using a single punch. Not hitting the punch rather letting the hammer fall on it, do it gently and then check. Mine required a single turn of the broach to get the required clearance.

If you have a jewelling tool with closing punches, it's much easier to control than hitting a stake.

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41 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

My problem is that the barrel holes are a good fit, and the ends seem flat, but there is too much arbor endshake - I can't see how this has occurred, or what I can do about it.

Bent up lid ?  Our usual method of popping the lid off can cause this. Both nickelsilver and John recommend a sharp tap on the arbor as opposed to a couple of seconds of compression .

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1 minute ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Bent up lid ?  Our usual method of popping the lid off can cause this. Both nickelsilver and John recommend a sharp tap on the arbor as opposed to a couple of seconds of compression .

The Seiko barrels come complete with mainspring as a replaceable item, so aren't meant to be opened - using a razor blade is the only way to get the lid off.

The first thing I checked was for flatness, and both arbor and lid seem OK. I pushed the lid in a touch, but there's still endshake - too much ? (I wanted to copy a video but can't 🥴 )

2.thumb.jpg.2a71514bcf018bf8d011ebcc123e1cfb.jpg1.thumb.jpg.a723126c6ba7468b557debdd56f5a3c1.jpg

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On 3/4/2023 at 5:21 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

👍 so the arbor shoulder can still seat on the flat surface of the lid and barrel. 

Hole closing today on the barrel and lid of the Raketa that had too much sideshake. A bit more to it than plate hole closing and more than i expected, these are my thoughts so far. Choosing the right stake was important, needing to be small enough to reach into the sink holes to squish material. Too big and you are just hammering on the flat surfaces and compressing to big of an area . So using a flat stump and a domed stake a couple of sizes above the hole diameter. I decided to work on both sides to reduce the hole, thinking material pushed from both sides would give a longer lasting repair in addition to the compression of material through the process of peening. Hammertime over and time to test fit the arbor and broach out as required. Marking the barrel and lid's depth up the smoothing broach with a felt tip pen helps to judge how far to open out. After a few trials i thought the right size would be as the arbor only just fell out of the opened hole when tipped upside-down. The broaching leaves a slight burr on the outsides of the holes which i removed with a curved burr tool as i dont have any sink rollers. This in turn leaves a burr on the inside which needs broaching out again. After a couple of gentle back and forth the burrs diminished to nothing. One issue i think that may happen is one of increased endshake from the arbor inside the barrel. This could be caused by the flattening of the two rims inside the barrel and lid. I'm sure this has happened as after peening the inside rims which created a chamfer and then peening the outsides of the holes, that chamfer was reduced in size and a flat rim was reformed. My only conclusion for this was compression from the flat stump while hammering. Peening the outside of the hole first or only may reduce this problem. With holes resized the last job was to polish up their insides with a loaded toothpick and autosol. Yet to improve with polinum and polinox on its way from cousins. Final check tomorrow with reassembly of the barrel, lid and arbor. These are the results so far, notice the line through the centre, this is the original untouched brass surface. Also the tools used and flattened rim of the lid

20230311_172116.jpg

20230311_171559.jpg

20230311_180217.jpg

20230311_182040.jpg

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There seems to be a lot of wear on the barrel lid. Has the mainspring been coned?

The contact area seems so small after punching it. I wonder how long would the repair last.

Is there a more permanent solution, like rebushing the hole or making a new barrel cap?

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Actually I do recall a Russian movement with excessive endshake and sideshake. It was so bad that the watch stops when turned dial up.

There doesn't seem to be much visible wear on the arbor or barrel holes. My diagnosis was a wrong arbor. After all, we all know how much arbors like to take flight.

I left it alone until my skill level would permit me to turn a new barrel arbor.

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9 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

There seems to be a lot of wear on the barrel lid. Has the mainspring been coned?

The contact area seems so small after punching it. I wonder how long would the repair last.

Is there a more permanent solution, like rebushing the hole or making a new barrel cap?

Yes hector there is heavy wear inside the lid from the mainspring, althought it isn't particularly coned. The contact area of the lid rim is much thinner than originally so one reason not to peen the inside. This was then flattened again while working on the outside, so I'm sure the endshake has increased. Rebushing might be beyond me at the moment but is certainly a better solution, and could be my next answer to fix the excess endshake ive created.

4 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

Actually I do recall a Russian movement with excessive endshake and sideshake. It was so bad that the watch stops when turned dial up.

There doesn't seem to be much visible wear on the arbor or barrel holes. My diagnosis was a wrong arbor. After all, we all know how much arbors like to take flight.

I left it alone until my skill level would permit me to turn a new barrel arbor.

The tolerances on rekatas seem too quite large, the barrel on this wobbled so much that it could touch the mainplate.

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I don't know what the typical clearance is between the spring and the barrel ?

Assuming the barrel base and lid are flat (the lid can become domed when pushing the arbor to remove it) I've reduced too much end-shake by pushing the centre of the lid down a touch.

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3 hours ago, mikepilk said:

I don't know what the typical clearance is between the spring and the barrel ?

Assuming the barrel base and lid are flat (the lid can become domed when pushing the arbor to remove it) I've reduced too much end-shake by pushing the centre of the lid down a touch.

Hi Mike,

 

I have seen it as the measured depth of the barrel - the thickness of the lid - 0.1mm for clearance. I don’t know myself for 100% but it does make some sense to me. Maybe one we can check out on the next strip down.

 

Tom

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16 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

Hi Mike,

I have seen it as the measured depth of the barrel - the thickness of the lid - 0.1mm for clearance. I don’t know myself for 100% but it does make some sense to me. Maybe one we can check out on the next strip down.

Tom

Where did you see that? I would have thought it was a bit more. 

I'm just stripping an old Omega T12.6, - let me try and measure. The first pic is the spring in the barrel, the spring is the correct height,. It sits up to the ledge that the lid sits on. 

Below is the lid. So the only clearance is the depth of the rim on the lid - which I estimate as about 0.1mm !  You are right 👍 

image.png.9ffe9b14cb978575677134c635dcdfd5.png

image.png.d7af88e526a065751d8f53017a80f9f2.png

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On 3/12/2023 at 6:18 PM, mikepilk said:

Where did you see that? I would have thought it was a bit more. 

I'm just stripping an old Omega T12.6, - let me try and measure. The first pic is the spring in the barrel, the spring is the correct height,. It sits up to the ledge that the lid sits on. 

Below is the lid. So the only clearance is the depth of the rim on the lid - which I estimate as about 0.1mm !  You are right 👍 

image.png.9ffe9b14cb978575677134c635dcdfd5.png

image.png.d7af88e526a065751d8f53017a80f9f2.png

Slightly more on the Raketa, the lid thickness is 0.2, the inner and outer rim of the lid are both 0.37.

On 3/11/2023 at 9:15 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

Hole closing today on the barrel and lid of the Raketa that had too much sideshake. A bit more to it than plate hole closing and more than i expected, these are my thoughts so far. Choosing the right stake was important, needing to be small enough to reach into the sink holes to squish material. Too big and you are just hammering on the flat surfaces and compressing to big of an area . So using a flat stump and a domed stake a couple of sizes above the hole diameter. I decided to work on both sides to reduce the hole, thinking material pushed from both sides would give a longer lasting repair in addition to the compression of material through the process of peening. Hammertime over and time to test fit the arbor and broach out as required. Marking the barrel and lid's depth up the smoothing broach with a felt tip pen helps to judge how far to open out. After a few trials i thought the right size would be as the arbor only just fell out of the opened hole when tipped upside-down. The broaching leaves a slight burr on the outsides of the holes which i removed with a curved burr tool as i dont have any sink rollers. This in turn leaves a burr on the inside which needs broaching out again. After a couple of gentle back and forth the burrs diminished to nothing. One issue i think that may happen is one of increased endshake from the arbor inside the barrel. This could be caused by the flattening of the two rims inside the barrel and lid. I'm sure this has happened as after peening the inside rims which created a chamfer and then peening the outsides of the holes, that chamfer was reduced in size and a flat rim was reformed. My only conclusion for this was compression from the flat stump while hammering. Peening the outside of the hole first or only may reduce this problem. With holes resized the last job was to polish up their insides with a loaded toothpick and autosol. Yet to improve with polinum and polinox on its way from cousins. Final check tomorrow with reassembly of the barrel, lid and arbor. These are the results so far, notice the line through the centre, this is the original untouched brass surface. Also the tools used and flattened rim of the lid

20230311_172116.jpg

20230311_171559.jpg

20230311_180217.jpg

20230311_182040.jpg

So reassembly of the barrel and lid  and the end and sideshake are now minimal.  A gentle push with a fine artists brush and the barrel spins for a few seconds. The barrel tilts one or two degrees from its resting plane around the arbor. The hole on the mainplate also closed up fine, but the barrel  bridge has a steel bush. This has the most side play 😒

 

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On 3/13/2023 at 11:11 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

Slightly more on the Raketa, the lid thickness is 0.2, the inner and outer rim of the lid are both 0.37.

So reassembly of the barrel and lid  and the end and sideshake are now minimal.  A gentle push with a fine artists brush and the barrel spins for a few seconds. The barrel tilts one or two degrees from its resting plane around the arbor. The hole on the mainplate also closed up fine, but the barrel  bridge has a steel bush. This has the most side play 😒

 

Ok so visually it looks like the barrels on Russian watches have plenty of sideshake. I've checked 3 arbors and all are identical in size and 3 barrel bridge arbor holes again exactly the same size. Unless all have worn equally. I'm getting enough sideshake movement for the barrel to almost start rubbing on the mainplate. Between the bridge bush and arbor post is around 0.02mm of sideshake, would this seem about right ? With a nice flat new mainspring i dont suppose this would be a problem, I'm thinking the spring would give some stability and keep the barrel in line . Anything other i assume is going cause some tilt of the barrel.

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3 hours ago, mikepilk said:

I can't see 0.02mm being a problem. 

Have only 0.01mm to 0.02mm clearance does show that it's not safe to go up a size in depth of mainspring

The endshake is fine Mike its the sideshake thats an issue, even at 0.02mm the barrel is able is able to tilt quite visibly. The lid and barrel arbor ports closed very well as did the mainplate. The bridge has a bush which I'm assuming cant be worked on besides being changed. If anyone has a Raketa 2609 on their bench, just measure the arbor's ratchet end for me please. Should be 1.58mm. Cheers me dears.

Edited by Neverenoughwatches
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  • 7 months later...

I've been reading this thread with great interest. I also just closed barrel holes (and barrel bridge). 

The famous Kalle Slaap/ Chronoglide video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2O6z1Nra0I&t=68s) does not mention the polishing the inside of the hole (polinum etc). In the video, Kalle seems to only use the smoothing broach - and done. 

What you do, @Neverenoughwatches, makes sense, though. Is it standard procedure? 

 

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19 minutes ago, Knebo said:

I've been reading this thread with great interest. I also just closed barrel holes (and barrel bridge). 

The famous Kalle Slaap/ Chronoglide video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2O6z1Nra0I&t=68s) does not mention the polishing the inside of the hole (polinum etc). In the video, Kalle seems to only use the smoothing broach - and done. 

What you do, @Neverenoughwatches, makes sense, though. Is it standard procedure? 

 

Not sure if its a standard proceedure, just seemed logical to polish the inside to reduce friction. A toothpick initially with autosol which does polish quite well, the polinum might be overkill but i had it,so why not. At that level of grit very unlikely you are removing noticeable materialand only takes a minute.  Since then i have seen others do very similar. 

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Yes, I agree that it makes sense. I don't have any polishing paste at hand. Do you think that a Cape Cod cloth, used only for a few seconds, would be fine to use? Or even PolyWatch cream? Otherwise, I'll indeed get some proper paste.

Cheers

Edited by Knebo
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1 hour ago, Knebo said:

Yes, I agree that it makes sense. I don't have any polishing paste at hand. Do you think that a Cape Cod cloth, used only for a few seconds, would be fine to use? Or even PolyWatch cream? Otherwise, I'll indeed get some proper paste.

Cheers

I'm not conversant with that product, whats in it ?. I figure you have to be careful with what is used,so an abrasive paste🤔. Autosol i  think is aluminium oxide. There is always the possibility that the material being polished gets charged with an abrasive compound.  Maybe a reason that kalle only uses a smoothing broach. I have seen discussions of folk using pin polishers on arbors and balance staffs, is that ok? They are hard materials,  whereas a brass barrel and lid is soft  comparison.  Maybe more discussion is needed on if and what to polish with. 

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I wasn't taught in either of my schools to polish the hole in the barrel/lid, only smoothing broach. As the barrel is brass or similar, there's a very real chance of charging it with whatever abrasive is used. Even if very fine that will wear the arbor over time.

19 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I'm not conversant with that product, whats in it ?. I figure you have to be careful with what is used,so an abrasive paste🤔. Autosol i  think is aluminium oxide. There is always the possibility that the material being polished gets charged with an abrasive compound.  Maybe a reason that kalle only uses a smoothing broach. I have seen discussions of folk using pin polishers on arbors and balance staffs, is that ok? They are hard materials,  whereas a brass barrel and lid is soft  comparison.  Maybe more discussion is needed on if and what to polish with. 

 

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