Pallet jewel oiling

[Neverenoughwatches]

Hey watch peeps, hope you all well. 

Sooo what we all thinking,  impulse face , locking face, does the oil transfer from one to the other, does it only tranfer one way ? Just one aspect of it chaps.

[Waggy]

Up to now I've just been 'monkey see, monkey do' and oiling the escape jewel, never been on my list of things to think about.... until now. Will be interested to see what the others say.

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, Waggy said:

Up to now I've just been 'monkey see, monkey do' and oiling the escape jewel, never been on my list of things to think about.... until now. Will be interested to see what the others say.

My thoughts are to do with the draw of the lock. Generally we oil the impulse face of the pallet jewel , thats what everyone tells us to do. But what about the locking face of that jewel, that has to draw up to the root of the escape tooth. Looking at the action there might be more friction created from the pressure coming from the escape wheel that is pushing in the opposite direction to which the jewel wants to push the escape wheel during the slide up of the draw, thats where a lot of the energy robbing of the escapement is .I understand the geometry of the pallet is designed in such a way to make it slide. So does oiling the impulse face transfer oil to the locking face ? I dont think so, not initially.  So does oiling the locking face transfer oil to the impulse face ? I think it does , at the corner of those 2 faces. Thoughts people please.

[JohnR725]

17 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

But what about the locking face of that jewel,

unless your super super stingy with your oil after runs for a while you should have oil on the locking face it will just transfer there all by itself

[VWatchie]

On 1/30/2024 at 8:53 AM, Neverenoughwatches said:

So does oiling the impulse face transfer oil to the locking face ? I dont think so, not initially.

I am inclined to agree with you, with emphasis on "initially".

On 1/30/2024 at 8:53 AM, Neverenoughwatches said:

  So does oiling the locking face transfer oil to the impulse face ? I think it does , at the corner of those 2 faces.

Again, I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps that would be a more efficient way to get the watch to perform its best in a shorter period. Perhaps you have just improved the age-old way of lubricating pallets?! 

Anyway, the locking distance (1/3 to 1/6 of the impulse face) is so short that I think it would be nearly impossible not to make a mess of it.

Edited January 31, 2024 by VWatchie

[nickelsilver]

Oiling the faces of the pallet jewels provides a nice defined area to place the oil. The teeth pick up the oil, and have to distribute it to the locking surface. Keep in mind how little contact there is with the locking surface- you won't notice much oil there even properly lubricated. But if you place oil there, it will 99.99999% sure creep on up to the fork body.

[Neverenoughwatches]

9 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

unless your super super stingy with your oil after runs for a while you should have oil on the locking face it will just transfer there all by itself

I thought it would eventually, but when you look at the direction in which the oil is being pushed its away from the locking faces of both the pallet jewel and the escape teeth. Whereas if the locking face is oiled the oil is pulled to the front corner of the jewel where it can be picked up by the impulse faces.

2 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Anyway, the locking distance (1/3 to 1/6 of the impulse face) is so short that I think it would be nearly impossible not to make a mess of it.

I can see that watchie a much smaller area to oil on the jewel and a larger area on the escape wheel that might spread

Thanks guys, i can also answer my own question as well, it was de carle that suggested oil the locking face of the jewel which prompted the question, maybe the old masters needed to learn a thing or two. But this picture shows that transfer should take place. As oil is pushed to the back of the jewel it should build up at the root of the escape tooth and at some point transfer to the escape wheel's locking surface. Its good to learn though.

[Birbdad]

I just oil the escape jewel front face. My amp's good, things run good. Seems like other techniques people might have are probably a rabbit hole i don't need to go down haha. That said i've never encountered anybody who does it any other way.

[JohnR725]

On 1/31/2024 at 2:35 AM, Neverenoughwatches said:

it was de carle that suggested oil the locking face of the jewel which prompted the question, maybe the old masters needed to learn a thing or two. But this picture shows that transfer should take place. As oil is pushed to the back of the jewel it should build up at the root of the escape tooth and at some point transfer to the escape wheel's locking surface. Its good to learn though.

We end up with interesting problems related the lubrication. For instance before the newfangled timing machine with digital amplitude you didn't have to impress the timing machines so people were less obsessed with amplitude. Trying to get that last little degree out just wasn't there.

Then in the early days if you go back to look at your book what recommendations as he have for oil? I used to have bickering with a friend over the quantity or types of lubrication's. He learned from his grandfather and I discovered that grandfather had basically light oil and a grease and may be an in between oil that was. But also learned with time that when these watches are being serviced with organic oils they were not water resistant cases one year service interval.

The greater amusement was David had a watch and clock collectors meeting is house and talked about his grandfather and talked about his servicing and had notebook and of course the prices. This is where I can find out one year service time and if you take the price which I don't remember and all the people a room thought wow I wish I could get my watch serviced at that price versus the greedy watchmakers of today. But if you took the price back then and ran it through one of the calculators and the calculators on old money versus new often times will break it up into objects like precious metals or labor unskilled skilled labor and I had to make it unskilled labor to get the prices to work out. In other words five times the cost of a watch repair it was skilled labor would be more than what a Rolex would cost today.

So a lot of the problems become on vintage books of how to do things are they looking at organic oils which to certain degree are better then synthetic oils actually a better lubrication properties they just don't have a great life in the watch typically. But they can do all sorts of interesting lubrication practices because they were looking at a five year life and they were trying to please those newfangled timing machines with digital amplitude.

Oh and yes if you lubricate your escapement wrong it will show up on the timing machine if you don't get enough lubrication on you'll see an irregular line of the graphical display. Sometimes when I see that I lubricate up with a little oil on the other stone and clean set up right away to get too stingy with your escapement lubrication it will show up on the timing machine.

Then we see things like the manufacturers if you follow it manufactures of recommended over the years you'll see there slowly changing because originally they just make the movements case up the watch and send them away now that their servicing their own watches I think they're beginning to discover that maybe the recommendations aren't quite what they should be. Where's before they just blame the stupid watchmaker for not servicing the watch correctly and that's why the watch disintegrated now they're taking some responsibility in changing their lubrication ideas

I'm attaching the Omega lubrication guide and yes I think they go extremely sparse on lubrication of the escapement. There worry about losing their precious amplitude as a guess by putting too much 9415 on the escapement. But there's something else for us to remember which is if you're at a service center of Swatch group and they don't like anything related to anything like the escapement they just replace the components. So this doesn't always mean that their lubrication methods are good for your personal watches that you'd like to keep over time unless a course you of an endless supply of new pallet forks escape wheel's.

Somewhere in there there is this picture of showing where the lubrication will end up and notice a little bit does go on to the locking plane. I guess it depends upon how a super minimalistic you've gone as to whether there be enough oil to spread anywhere at all

 

Omega 8645_WI_40_rules for lubrication cousins UK.pdf

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

Then in the early days if you go back to look at your book what recommendations as he have for oil? 

Thoughout the 3 editions of practical watch repairing from 1946 to 1969 he only mentions his use of 2 oils while oiling a wristwatch. Watch oil and clock oil.

[CYCLOPS]

Some watchmakers only oil the entry pallet and let the oil/grease transfer to the rest......maybe the tech sheet could shed some light on a particular model....

[Nucejoe]

Epilame ?    oil migration?       confused.

 

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, CYCLOPS said:

Some watchmakers only oil the entry pallet and let the oil/grease transfer to the rest......maybe the tech sheet could shed some light on a particular model....

 complicated than that typically you lubricate the exit pallet and you have to do it three times over the revolution of the escape wheel and occasionally you might have to put a little bit of oil/grease on the entry stone if the oil didn't transfer all the way around.

As far as ever seeing this technical document that is never going to happen. The watch companies make a silly assumption that people working on watches are all experts. Then as far as techniques go those are usually in separate documents like the Omega working instruction number 40 that's a lubrication document. Omega has another document for epilam. then from Megan Epilam the earliest document I have on cleaning of lubrication in 1957 basically the Epilam whole watch except pallet fork and maybe one other thing. But you'll never see the word Epilam mentioned in any of the service guides. It's only a relatively recent times that some of the technical documentation will mention Epilam.

On 2/5/2024 at 2:03 PM, Neverenoughwatches said:

Thoughout the 3 editions of practical watch repairing from 1946 to 1969 he only mentions his use of 2 oils while oiling a wristwatch. Watch oil and clock oil.

remember he wasn't pleasing one of those newfangled timing machines for amplitude. Traditionally those oils would've been organic and typically again he wasn't servicing a watch like a Rolex for five years.

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

remember he wasn't pleasing one of those newfangled timing machines for amplitude. Traditionally those oils would've been organic and typically again he wasn't servicing a watch like a Rolex for five years.

He certainly wasn't John, he was just using upto date information that was available to him at the time, and working out in his own head what he thought was right. The basics remain the same but some Ideas and principles have to change to stay in tune with technology advancement. 

[HectorLooi]

I came across this video recently. I think it's one of the best filmed videos explaining and demonstrating how it's done.

[CYCLOPS]

What do you guys think about the UV oils/treatments, I have not used any, might be helpful for some to see...

[Neverenoughwatches]

20 hours ago, CYCLOPS said:

What do you guys think about the UV oils/treatments, I have not used any, might be helpful for some to see...

Just using some at the moment 9415, uv light wont pick it out on an escape wheel I'm lubricating. I tried charging it up to see if thats a thing.  Glows in the pot but not in the watch.  The 9010 lights up but theres more of that .