Omega cal 285 - poor runner

[Bonefixer]

Hi all, 
 

I bought an old Omega from ebay with the aim of fixing/servicing, and if anything I’ve made it worse 

It was bought as a non-runner, but it seemed to run ok when I got it, kept good time, with 230 amplitude on the timegrapher. 
 

I’ve ‘serviced’ it, but now it runs only quite poorly - amplitude 150. I don’t think I’ve damaged anything, balance spring looks ok. I’ve oiled the balance jewels, I’ve used fixodrop on the escape and pallet stones, the pallet fork flicks from side to side nicely. If the fork is out, the balance swings freely with a puff of air. Put it all together and it is decidedly ‘sluggish’. 
 

Any suggestions (I am definitely a newbie at this game). One thing I did think - are the top and bottom balance jewel settings the same? They look the same, but perhaps I’ve mixed them up and there’s a subtle difference I can’t see. 

[mikepilk]

The top and bottom chatons are the same, but the cap stones are different. The top one is thicker. I always keep them separate when cleaning.

With the pallet removed (check for loose jewels), with a good blast from a puffer, the balance should still be swinging after 30 seconds. Is it? If that's OK, check the gear train.

Check that the arbor moves freely in the barrel - has enough end shake. And make sure there is not  too much play at the bridge at the top of the arbor, allowing the barrel to tilt and foul a plate or wheel. I always fit just the barrel and bridge to make sure it spins freely on it's own without the gear train.

With the barrel removed, check the gear train - a blast from the puffer, the gear train should run smoothly for several seconds. Check the end shake on each wheel - move it up and down with tweezers, checking there is some endshake, but not too much, allowing wheels to contact.  

If the gear train does not move smoothly, try each wheel individually. 

I hope the watch is not too valuable - If I was a beginner I would practice on cheaper movements before I worked on an Omega like this. The spring on the centre seconds pinion can kill amplitude if not at the correct tension.

BTW, I have bough cheap fixer-up movements from ebay and found they were just a collection of the crappiest parts someone threw together to sell as a complete movement, What is the general condition of the movement?

 

Edited February 27 by mikepilk

[nevenbekriev]

Is it the original main spring or it is replaced?

Do the free oscillations test and tell the result.

[Bonefixer]

Thanks both. 
 

I did start on some cheaper movements, and felt I needed to move up in quality to get better. The movement looks very good, very clean. 
 

I didn't time it, but the oscillation test seemed to go for a good while with no pallet in place after oiling the jewels. I've done it again since then though so might have mixed them up. 
 

I'm away from the bench for a bit now. Will report back when I've checked those other things. 

[mikepilk]

36 minutes ago, Bonefixer said:

I did start on some cheaper movements, and felt I needed to move up in quality to get better.

There's no need to do that. There's plenty of cheap movements which give excellent performance. I've just serviced a watch with a  Peseux movement - cost me £24. It's running great in all positions - DD/DU 310° and dead flat timegrapher plot. Better than most of my Omegas.

Edited February 27 by mikepilk

[JohnR725]

25 minutes ago, Bonefixer said:

I needed to move up in quality to get better.

actually this is a very good choice for a newbie this aura Rolex. The reason is mistakes are very very painful and sometimes pain is what we need to learn.

1 hour ago, mikepilk said:

The top and bottom chatons are the same, but the cap stones are different. The top one is thicker. I always keep them separate when cleaning.

then in addition to the thickness difference one side is flat and the other side has a curvature to it flat side goes in the other side goes out. Otherwise you reduce your end shake and will have issues. You can tell one side from the other by the reflection of light off the jewel itself. Somewhere recently we just had a discussion about this in the last week or so.

4 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

when I got it, kept good time, with 230 amplitude on the timegrapher

this part is outstanding and beat out most of the newbies for doing it. Now we know the condition of the movement incoming anything that's interfering with the running now is the fault of the watchmaker. Versus newbies trying to fix broken watches and blaming it on the watch as the problem.

4 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

I’ve ‘serviced’ it, but now it runs only quite poorly - amplitude 150. I don’t think I’ve damaged anything, balance spring looks ok. I’ve oiled the balance jewels, I’ve used fixodrop on the escape and pallet stones, the pallet fork flicks from side to side nicely. If the fork is out, the balance swings freely with a puff of air. Put it all together and it is decidedly ‘sluggish’. 

one of the problems and watch repair is seeing the actual problem things can look fine but they're very hard to see. So for instance the hairspring looks okay but is it okay? In other words when you look in it should be flat and it should not be touching anything other than at the ends and the regulator. So that's bent down just slightly and touching the balance arms there would be a loss of amplitude right there. Oh and classically Omega hairsprings are extremely soft and easy to bend. Do you want to look really carefully to make sure it's actually above and below things and not touching anything looking and sideways really helps this is one of the downfalls of people with microscopes you need to turn the movement sideways look into it very very carefully. It also helps to manually rotate the balance wheel look at it in various positions to make sure it's not touching

1 hour ago, mikepilk said:

The spring on the centre seconds pinion can kill amplitude if not at the correct tension.

initially when you're servicing the watch and troubleshooting just remove the spring all together as you go to actually need this part of the watch for the watch to run

then I've attached the parts list for your watch reason for two of them are you have a base caliber that's the 260 and the different parts for the 285. One of the problems with technical documentation and watch repair it is there were specifically scanned for parts numbers because it was assumed that people actually know how to repair watches. Then even the watch companies wouldn't have technical documentation because they made the same assumption that you know how to service a watch. Although they will have supplemental documentation sometimes on features if their unique for watch but typically they do not get scanned because it has nothing to do with parts.

 

2367_Omega 285.pdf 357_260_complet_2015.pdf

[Bonefixer]

I looked at the hairspring side on - seems flat, with only the end coming to the stud being out of the plane. And from above it seems concentric. It's not impossible that I've done something to it as it's been on and off the plate several times, but I try to be very careful with them. This one does seem very difficult to get seated in its pivot holes though, compared with others I've worked on. 
 

First thing to do when I'm back is to switch the cap stones. I knew about the flat/curved side and think I've got it right. But I only considered diameter when checking sizes. Lesson learned for future - wash and epilame them separately. 
 

 

[Bonefixer]

Hairspring seems ok. Looks concentric and flat, and the end that goes to the stud passes between the pins as it should. 
 

I checked the end stones on the balance. I'd got them the right way round (I tried swapping, and the spring didn't want to close when I'd got the thick one in the thin setting) and I've again cleaned and oiled them with a perfect central dot of oil on the flat side of the cap stone (after epilame)

 Without the pallet fork the balance swings well with a puff from an air blower, but for nowhere near 30 seconds - more like 5. 
 

Could I have damaged the chatons by repeated clumsy handling? Or is it more likely power is being lost in the wheel train somewhere? Whatever I do seems to make this watch run worse. 

[mikepilk]

1 hour ago, Bonefixer said:

Without the pallet fork the balance swings well with a puff from an air blower, but for nowhere near 30 seconds - more like 5. 

That is not swinging well ! You have something wrong with the balance. How much end-shake do you have?

Grab the balance with some tweezers (gently) and see how far you can move it up and down. You should be able to move it up and down a small amount. About the same as the thickness of one of the pivots.

If that is OK, check that the pivots are straight and not bent.

Do you have any pics of the balance?  A pic is worth a thousand words.

[Neverenoughwatches]

5 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

Hairspring seems ok. Looks concentric and flat, and the end that goes to the stud passes between the pins as it should. 
 

I checked the end stones on the balance. I'd got them the right way round (I tried swapping, and the spring didn't want to close when I'd got the thick one in the thin setting) and I've again cleaned and oiled them with a perfect central dot of oil on the flat side of the cap stone (after epilame)

 Without the pallet fork the balance swings well with a puff from an air blower, but for nowhere near 30 seconds - more like 5. 
 

Could I have damaged the chatons by repeated clumsy handling? Or is it more likely power is being lost in the wheel train somewhere? Whatever I do seems to make this watch run worse. 

Hiya, dont despair.  Your last 2 sentences dont correlate bonefixer, the connection of the train and it's ability to supply power to the balance would be via the pallet fork. Since you have that removed the balance is in isolation and free to oscillate by itself with help from just you. Good free oscillation tests should be more in he region of one minute. Check all aspects of the balance and its connection to the balance cock. Hairspring faults are usually easy to spot but if you wanted to go one step further and eliminate that component and it's connection as well as it will narrow your fault searching down, though its not usually necessary. Be sure if you go this route to mark its location on the wheel so it can placed back correctly ( providing it was in the beginning, maybe something to look at before you remove the hairspring as a high beat error would reduce free oscillation periods ). Now that you have only 2 connection points to examine ( top and bottom pivots to jewels ), cleanliness, damage, endshake and sideshake are your only concern. Throughly clean all 4 jewels and both pivots and inspect them with a keen eye. Once clean, checked and reinstalled, perform 3 free oscillation tests, DD, DU and a verical posirion, check both shakes . From there some pinpointing should be due back to you. Get this far and report back your findings. 

 

 

[JohnR725]

10 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

Without the pallet fork the balance swings well with a puff from an air blower, but for nowhere near 30 seconds - more like 5. 

seeing as how I don't actually do this test I don't know if the 30 seconds is an actual number you really have to come up with each time. But five seconds is a little on the short side. Also watches tend to run in multiple positions turn the watch upside down and try it and see how it works there if you have a discrepancy you definitely have a problem. In other words both dial-up and dial down should be identical and you lose some amplitude in any one of the crown or pendant positions.

8 hours ago, mikepilk said:

Grab the balance with some tweezers (gently)

I'm the modify this plan as a suggestion you don't have to grab the balance wheel. Just gently push up and see if you have some end shake.

10 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

Could I have damaged the chatons by repeated clumsy handling? Or is it more likely power is being lost in the wheel train somewhere? Whatever I do seems to make this watch run worse. 

then the balance should oscillate when supplied with energy like with a puff of air regardless of whether the gear train or is there or not. So this is a peculiar sentence it doesn't entirely make sense other than the last part. Which unfortunately seems to be common.

 

a lot of times what discussions like this I like to go back to the beginning and review things

On 2/27/2024 at 6:17 AM, Bonefixer said:

It was bought as a non-runner, but it seemed to run ok when I got it, kept good time, with 230 amplitude on the timegrapher. 
 

I’ve ‘serviced’ it, but now it runs only quite poorly - amplitude 150. I don’t think I’ve damaged anything, balance spring looks ok. I’ve oiled the balance jewels, I’ve used fixodrop on the escape and pallet stones, the pallet fork flicks from side to side nicely. If the fork is out, the balance swings freely with a puff of air. Put it all together and it is decidedly ‘sluggish’.

then reviewing the first line timing procedure? Timing procedure is to wind the watch up let it run at least 15 minutes yes input on the timing machine sooner because of enthusiasm but don't pay attention of the numbers for at least 15 minutes. Then always nice to check dial up dial down and if it's a wristwatch crown down. They get is a little better review of what's really going on with the watch rather than just dial down.

Then the fixodrop pallet stones and escapement? Plus we used it on the balance jewels what exactly did you put it on their?

Then here you are indicating little puff of air it's running nicely but later on you're not?

10 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

Without the pallet fork the balance swings well with a puff from an air blower, but for nowhere near 30 seconds - more like 5. 

one of the problems with the air puff test is it's not precise. As the pallet fork is not in very carefully see if you can manually rotate the balance wheel one whole turn and let go of it. There could be a lot of variations with a puff of air. But whichever method you use dial up and down have to be the same.

then for servicing how did you service the mainspring and mainspring barrel? Plus lubrication on the escapement how did you do that. Then the next time it's on the timing machine it be nice if we could see a picture plus a picture of the watch.

 

 

[nevenbekriev]

23 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

Hairspring seems ok. Looks concentric and flat, and the end that goes to the stud passes between the pins as it should...

 Without the pallet fork the balance swings well with a puff from an air blower, but for nowhere near 30 seconds - more like 5...

Could I have damaged the chatons by repeated clumsy handling? Or is it more likely power is being lost in the wheel train somewhere? Whatever I do seems to make this watch run worse. 

5 sec means very bad Q-factor of the balance as oscillator, it looses to much energy instead of accumylating it. No way to have good amplitude with such result.

Yes, You have problem with the balance. What it is? I don't know, but I can guess. Probably the pivots and stones are OK. You have Breguet type hairspring - this is the most probable reason. At least, for the newbies it is hard to see and understand what is needed to adjust the Breguet hairspring position correctly as to avoid touching and losses. and, every time the studd is attached to the cock, some slight adjustment is needed, as the studd never sits in the same manneras it did last time prior detouching it. No mater how I explain, the most newbies can't achieve good amplitude and when they send the movement to me to investigate the problem, it is almost always the hairspring position. So, this is something like dejavu to me..

Can You try to make some pictures of the hairspring from different points from aside when only the balance with its cock is on the plate?  Is there a difference in the free oscillation thes time DD/DU position?

[Bonefixer]

Thanks for all the advice and support so far. I've just taken the balance wheel off the cock, and I've taken the chatons and cap jewels out of the settings. I can't see anything wrong. I've attached a couple of pics of the spring and the pivots. Am I missing anything?

[Nucejoe]

Pivots look in need of polish, or staff replaced.  Must have mirror finish.

 

 

 

Edited March 12 by Nucejoe

[nevenbekriev]

As I said, You have no problems with pivots and bearings. Focus on hairspring. I supect that the studd is to high above the hairspring  body and the axis of the studd is not pralel to the axis of balance staff. But the last is not obligatory to always be so. Please, make pictures of the balance while it is above the cock (studd atached) but try to hold balance paralel to the cock. The other thihg I asked for is picture from aside of the balance in the movement, where only the balance and it's cock are on main plate, the other parts and bridges are removed.

Edited March 12 by nevenbekriev

[Bonefixer]

2 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Pivots look in need of polish, or staff replaced.  Must have mirror finish.

 

 

 

I'm not up to replacing a balance staff - would get a new balance I think. How do I polish the pivots? Is there a tool for that because it's not something I'm aware of just yet. 

[mikepilk]

My advice would be - put this nice watch to one side, and practice, practice, practice on some cheap movements.

[Bonefixer]

3 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

As I said, You have no problems with pivots and bearings. Focus on hairspring. I supect that the studd is to high above the hairspring  body and the axis of the studd is not pralel to the axis of balance staff. But the last is not obligatory to always be so. Please, make pictures of the balance while it is above the cock (studd atached) but try to hold balance paralel to the cock. The other thihg I asked for is picture from aside of the balance in the movement, where only the balance and it's cock are on main plate, the other parts and bridges are removed.

 

[mikepilk]

Try pushing the stud down until it is level with the surface.

[Nucejoe]

2 hours ago, Bonefixer said:

I'm not up to replacing a balance staff - would get a new balance I think. How do I polish the pivots? Is there a tool for that because it's not something I'm aware of just yet. 

Pivots appear in need of polish in photos, if so ,the rough surface  will over time damage jewel holes, lucky there are discussion on WRT on the subject. 

 Image of the overcoil don't look good either so I concur with neven.

 

 

 

 

[nevenbekriev]

OK, I believe that the hairspring is pressed to the balance spokes where I have shown with yellow marks. Am I right? I can't see it, directly, but I see things that make me think so. I need confirmation in order to give correct directions.

Hairspring shouldn' touch the spokes nider in zero position, nor in any moment of rotation. Actually there should be clearenece at least as the hairspring height.

 

[Bonefixer]

I’ve come to the conclusion that I damaged the hairspring a bit, and my attempts to fix it have made things worse. 
 

I’ve ordered a new balance complete - this should solve the pivot polishing issue, as well as the spring touching the spokes issue. 
 

Learning the hard way. 

[nevenbekriev]

Sorry, I see this replay little late.

I need photos of the spring to see it's condition. Then I will be able to point where and how to manipulate it. You don't have problem with pivots, only with the hairspring, but it can be easyily rectified. At least, from what is seen on the photos. Even with new balance will be needed some adjustment of the hairspring position, it is not something like 'plug and play' so it is not guaranteed solution

[Jon]

On 3/12/2024 at 1:12 PM, Bonefixer said:

Thanks for all the advice and support so far. I've just taken the balance wheel off the cock, and I've taken the chatons and cap jewels out of the settings. I can't see anything wrong. I've attached a couple of pics of the spring and the pivots. Am I missing anything?

Make sure that U washer is firmly holding the setting in place on the balance. It looks like it could go in a bit more to me, but it might not be the original one. you'll know by how the upper index sits on the other side

[mikepilk]

On 3/18/2024 at 8:35 PM, Bonefixer said:

I’ve come to the conclusion that I damaged the hairspring a bit, and my attempts to fix it have made things worse. 
 

I’ve ordered a new balance complete - this should solve the pivot polishing issue, as well as the spring touching the spokes issue. 
 

Learning the hard way. 

Trying to resist saying I told you so. 

A beginner with an overcoil hairspring = 90% disaster.

We all start with confidence that we can fix these things, but we have all made these mistakes, which is why we suggested practicing on cheaper movements.

Or as @JohnR725 suggests, keep going on expensive movements then you will remember your mistakes more