My first automatic movement - feedback appreciated!

[ColinC]

I have been buying watches to work on and putting aside the automatics until I felt I was ready for the next challenge.

This weekend I managed to turn a non-working watch with a deformed (melted? crystal) into a working watch that looks pretty good!

I did some research of servicing automatics and found that in addition to what I had previously done I would need to service the self winding mechanism and do something different with the mainspring / barrel.  Before starting bought some 8213 breaking grease and some Lubeta V105.

I then selected a watch from the handful of automatics I had bought from eBay. I was looking for one that I cared less about about but that seemed complete.  The one I selected would run for at least a few seconds after being shaken, I could wind it manually, set the time and the date flipped over every 24 hours.  The case was in pretty good condition but the crystal was useless.

Inside the watch has an AS 1701 movement with gold(en) plates.

There were a few surprises.

First I found that inside the barrel there was not an automatic mainspring but instead a blued steel standard mainspring set inside a brake spring.  I tried to find what to do with this and found a thread on this site discussing what oil to use on the barrel wall.  I eventually followed the advice here and used D5 on the barrel wall before struggling to put the brake spring back in with my fingers. I have no idea how you are supposed to properly install the brake spring - but it is too short and has no eye for a mainspring winder to help...
Later when I found the technical communication I found it says "special grease for brake spring" - guess I should have used my  new 8213 grease? Anyway it doesn't appear to be slipping too early but I am measuring now how long it will run for when not worn.

The eye on the old mainspring broke as I put it in the mainspring winder - so I replaced it with new (NOS) one that I had in a selection I was given.  The replacement was not 100% right... The technical communication says to use one with  H. 1.18 - 1.20 mm  T 0.105mm L. 335mm.  I found one with the right thickness and length that was 1.3mm high.  It seems to fit into the barrel with some clearance and it seems to be working (perhaps I should order and replace it with the right one?!)

The other surprise was the automatic device - the technical communication did not talk about dipping the pawl winding wheels in Lubeta but instead said to lubricate them with "Very fluid oil" - I used a very small amount of the thinnest oil I have which is 9010 but am a little worried that this is going to get flung all over the movement and perhaps I should have dipped them?

After cleaning and reassembling I found it still did not run for more than a few seconds....

I found 2 problems.

1. The balance spring was bunching together on one side and was bent out of shape near to where the end curve begins.

I loosened the screw holding the stud and with the balance wheel still attached gently stroked the hairspring back into shape so that the stud would drop straight back into place while the hairspring remained centred.  This seemed to do the trick but I believe the end curve is still not right

2. The centre wheel did turn freely

I discovered that the centre wheel was made up of 2 parts - a wheel that is friction fit to a pivot / tube.  The wheel was not totally perpendicular to the tube.
I don't have a staking set or staking block but found I could using the base plate as a staking block I could push down on the top of the centre wheel pinion with my tweezers (much like putting a canon pinion back on) and get the wheel to sit correctly.  After doing this and putting the centre wheel and centre wheel cock back in place the wheel turned much more freely.

With the case cleaned I replaced the crystal with a new one (without a cyclops). I wore the watch and after 24 hours it seem to have gained about 1 min.

It is far from perfect but a LOT better than when I first got it.

Here are some photos...

Before - After - Movement - tg-timer

 

 

[RichardHarris123]

I think taking a non-runner and making it work is a win. Yes, we all strive for perfection but sometimes it's not possible.  So well done, it looks great. 

[Waggy]

6 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

I think taking a non-runner and making it work is a win. Yes, we all strive for perfection but sometimes it's not possible.  So well done, it looks great. 

I agree, take the win, when you are starting out, any landing is a good landing! 

A great tip I was given was to buy a tube of Flitz..... I don't know what they put in it, but every time I use it I'm always amazed in the great job it does on cases.

[JohnR725]

9 hours ago, ColinC said:

not an automatic mainspring but instead a blued steel standard mainspring set inside a brake spring.

in the early days of automatic watches a common occurrence was a two-piece mainspring. This is where you had the outer shorter piece that would slip on the barrel wall and a standard mainspring that would go inside. Replaced today with a single mainspring with the automatic part attached. the first link is a nice site for finding parts and cross reference parts. Second link is for your watch. Then you click on the mainspring you get the mainspring numbers like MSS-WA32 which can be found at the PDF that I attached below or the alternative mainspring number of GR 2937-X. You'll notice in the image that I got out the PDF it doesn't list it for your watch but if you look at the list on the website it's the first one on the cross references. we also noticed I attached another PDF of Denison numbers because watchmakers are creative and adopted all sorts of interesting and strange measurements for stuff. So mainsprings can be measured in metric, inches and Dennison considerably all on the same package at the same time. So the first image the numbers are in the Denison and the second are in metric. then if you are ordering from cousins you'd be using the GR number because that's what commonly they use.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=AS_1701

9 hours ago, ColinC said:

he other surprise was the automatic device - the technical communication did not talk about dipping the pawl winding wheels in Lubeta but instead said to lubricate them with "Very fluid oil" - I used a very small amount of the thinnest oil I have which is 9010 but am a little worried that this is going to get flung all over the movement and perhaps I should have dipped them?

one of the problems with technical communications are there usually printed on paper scan to PDF and they do not magically update themselves to the current recommendations. So in other words look at when your tech sheet was printed and that's what they recommended at that time. Nowadays a lot of stuff has been updated and changed which is why you get a confusing set of what to do with the automatic components. Or even sometimes the recommendations of lubrication etc.

9 hours ago, ColinC said:

This seemed to do the trick but I believe the end curve is still not right

usually with mainsprings there's a high probability that they can get bent near the stud for variety of reasons basically related to whoever disassembled it. In other words typically bad things don't happen until somebody is in the watch. Then it's really easy to do that just because hairsprings are really easy to bend. the other commonplace they get bent to his near the regulator pins and then if you get really creative all sorts of other things will happen which we will skip over.

9 hours ago, ColinC said:

I discovered that the centre wheel was made up of 2 parts - a wheel that is friction fit to a pivot / tube.  The wheel was not totally perpendicular to the tube.

always nice in the future to give us pictures because someone might recognize it visually versus by the number of the model in other words they might've worked on a watch similar similar thing and recognize what needs to be done.

then because I was curious about what this says I went looking for the data sheet and I'm attaching it as don't always find tech sheets like this? Typically were a lot of times when you find tech sheets the purpose of them on line was for parts identification only. So he go to cousins for instance a look up tech sheets you may not realize that they're missing sections like how to service the watch. It just depends upon the brand some watch companies don't even have service sheets. This one is interesting because it's actually quite decent it's in color and has lots and lots of detail oh and it has a date first edition December 1965. this would explain why there is the variations in lubrication etc. because it's an old tech sheet.

but because I have the tech sheet out?

9 hours ago, ColinC said:

found one with the right thickness and length that was 1.3mm high

yes I know I cover this up above but since it has a really nice image and talks about things then 1.3 mm a slightly too tall and looks like 1.2 is recommended. It also tells you the important interesting things like when the mainspring should slip. Or how long the watch should run ideally

10 hours ago, ColinC said:

discovered that the centre wheel was made up of 2 parts - a wheel that is friction fit to a pivot / tube.  The wheel was not totally perpendicular to the tube.
I don't have a staking set or staking block but found I could using the base plate as a staking block I could push down on the top of the centre wheel pinion with my tweezers (much like putting a canon pinion back on) and get the wheel to sit correctly.  After doing this and putting the centre wheel and centre wheel cock back in place the wheel turned much more freely

then I'm not sure from your description and looking at the service guide if I grasped what you're talking about here we would need a picture but since it seems to be working

 

10 hours ago, ColinC said:

tg-timer

I'm not seeing much difference between the before and after what am I missing?

then if you using the software on a PC there's other timing machine programs out there that are free.

Mainspring - DennisonChart.pdf Mainsprings Cas-Kar Catalog 2018.pdf 3903_AS 1700, 1701_Smaller.pdf

[ColinC]

Looks like I accidentally included the same tg-timer chart twice!

It didn't run before... so no before chart