Locking depth of pin pallets

[oldhippy]

1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

 I'm glad i only paid a fiver for it then ! ( wait for it,  OH is about to say # thats a fiver too much # ) OH i can read you like a book

Its your money. I know what I would sooner have £5

[nevenbekriev]

OK, can You show pictures? Of the plates and the lever. 

Something important: being that much carefull is close to indecisiveness, and this prevents from making the things happen.

Another - The thing that really wears in this kind of movements is the tips of the balance staff. Did You sharpened them? Did You do the free oscillations test?

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 hours ago, oldhippy said:

Its your money. I know what I would sooner have £5

A fiver doesn't get you much these days OH, de carle isn't all i have, I'm working my way through them one at a time,  i think Fried was better, Gazeley yet to read. Do you have any suggestions on who to follow ?

5 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

OK, can You show pictures? Of the plates and the lever. 

Something important: being that much carefull is close to indecisiveness, and this prevents from making the things happen.

Another - The thing that really wears in this kind of movements is the tips of the balance staff. Did You sharpened them? Did You do the free oscillations test?

 Sharpen them ? this is where our different terminology can get in the way, we would say to burnish them or to polish them, or to dress the pivot ends to the correct shape. The pivots are good, its a new staff and look ok to me. The balance by itself oscillates very well, around 90-120 seconds to a standstill with a good puff of air from a blower and the train is very free with a couple of seconds kick back of the esc wheel. The escapement seems to be locking ok now after polishing out some light scratches of the lever pins. I am now in the process of polishing the locking and impulse faces of the escape wheel in hope of some extra amplitude also the impulse pin. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Neverenoughwatches

[nevenbekriev]

OK, sharpening is for the movements where the balance staff has cone shaped tips and the bearings are steel cup bearings, just like in the alarm clocks. This type is the movement in D-r Ranfr database, where I got the picture that I showed. I see now that in You case, there is balance staff with normal pivots and jeweled bearings, which is good. Do I see removable bushes bearings for the lever and 'scape wheel?

[Neverenoughwatches]

19 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

OK, sharpening is for the movements where the balance staff has cone shaped tips and the bearings are steel cup bearings, just like in the alarm clocks. This type is the movement in D-r Ranfr database, where I got the picture that I showed. I see now that in You case, there is balance staff with normal pivots and jeweled bearings, which is good. Do I see removable bushes bearings for the lever and 'scape wheel?

Yes nev brass bushings for lever and escape, but there is very little wear in them. I'm very suspicious that this watch was not worn very much, and thinking it was damaged early on in its life with an attempted service or a tinkerer lost patience with it many years ago because it didn't run well. There was some damage and missing parts but little wear. Esc wheel teeth now polished up with polinum and a hard sponge dial cleaner. The black block is two pieces of foam insulation with escape wheel sandwiched between them and duck taped together ( Mr. De Carle eat your heart out ). Time to put it back together and see how it runs.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Neverenoughwatches

[nevenbekriev]

I see.

It seems the wheel is made of brass, is it?

My expirience is that polishing brass parts where friction happens like bearings and escapement teeth doesn't bring any good. Burnishing helps beter. But both ways the shape of teeth can be changed, and this change can decrease the ability of the escapement to lock. For this escapement it is essential that the angle formed by the impulse and rest surfaces on all the teeth is sharp and not rounded and the proper angle of the rest surface is not changed by wear on the place where drop of the pin ocurs. If one needs to restore the wheel in a manner that will increase the locking, he must not touch the impulse surfaces, but he should work only on the rest surfaces.

The other thing is the pins itself. They wear and they wear much more when surface of the brass teeth is charged with abrasive particles by the dust around or from polishing the teeth with abrasives. The wear of the pins decreases the locking. Pins can be changed, shifted, turned around or upside down, the body of the lever can be shifted on the staff, the table of the wheel can be shifted on the pinion - all this will solve the pins wear problem. But this is in the alarm clocks where everything is big. In You case the easiest way is to change a little the position of the wheel in high by bending it's spockets. This is only if significant wear of the pins is seen. Pins usually are so hardened that they will rather snap than bend

In You movement there is no way to adjust the escapement, so only the acuracy of manufacturing is the thing that can guarantee normal performance. If there is no significant wear and still the escapement doesn't lock correctly, then may be someone has changed part(s) of it in the past. And, if the locking is the problem, then I think it should be solved now by moving the escape wheel towards the lever. This means that the bushes of the wheel bearings must be replaced by probes with no holes, the correct distance between the wheel and the lever must be determinated by the help of depthing tool and arcs with bearings of the lever as center must be drown on the probes, Then another arcs with the bearings of the 4th wheel as center and the proper radius must be drown, thus determining the places of the new holes

Edited October 25, 2023 by nevenbekriev

[Neverenoughwatches]

11 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

I see.

It seems the wheel is made of brass, is it?

My expirience is that polishing brass parts where friction happens like bearings and escapement teeth doesn't bring any good. Burnishing helps beter. But both ways the shape of teeth can be changed, and this change can decrease the ability of the escapement to lock. For this escapement it is essential that the angle formed by the impulse and rest surfaces on all the teeth is sharp and not rounded and the proper angle of the rest surface is not changed by wear on the place where drop of the pin ocurs. If one needs to restore the wheel in a manner that will increase the locking, he must not touch the impulse surfaces, but he should work only on the rest surfaces.

The other thing is the pins itself. They wear and they wear mych more when surface of the brass teeth is charged with abrasive particles by the dust around or from polishing the teeth with abrasives. The wear of the pins decreases the locking. Pins can be changed, shifted, turned around or upside down, the body of the lever can be shifted on the staff, the table of the wheel can be shifted on the pinion - all this will solve the pins wear problem. But this is in the alarm clocks where everything is big. In You case the easiest way is to change a little the position of the wheel in high by bendinf it's spockets. This is only if significant wear of the pins is seen. Pins usually are so hardened that they will rather snap than bend

In You movement there is no way to adjust the escapement, so only the acuracy of manufacturing is the thing that can guarantee normal performance. If there is no significant wear and still the escapement doesn't lock correctly, then may be someone has changed part(s) of it in the past. And, if the locking is the problem, then I think it should be solved now by moving the escape wheel towards the lever. This means that the bushes of the wheel bearings must be replaced by probes with no holes, the correct distance between the wheel and the lever must be determinated by the help of depthing tool and arcs with bearings of the lever as center must be drown on the probes, Then another arcs with the bearings of the 4th wheel as center and the proper radius must be drown, thus determining the places of the new holes

Thanks for your advice nev, i have yet to see how it runs. The polish used was polinum,  which has a really fine cut so hopefully the teeth geometry hasn't been changed. I understand what you are saying about charging the teeth with abrasive, that was a risk i was prepared to take. Its something of an experiment, the impulse faces were dull, that suggested to me there would be extra friction that i could reduce.