Serviced ETA 2763 having erratic rate and amplitude

[VWatchie]

2 hours ago, luiazazrambo said:

Are the plate screws tight enough?

Funny that you should mention it! I just stripped the entire movement and when unscrewing the train wheel bridge, I noticed that I hadn't secured the screws. They weren't exactly loose, but not one bit tightened. However, the bridge was pressed down all the way. Before tightening the screws I always make sure the pivots are in the jewel holes and that everything spins freely and looks right. I simply must have forgotten to tighten the screws this time around. What kind of impact could this have had? I believe I remember @nickelsilver mentioning it "being a crime" (or something along those lines) not to tighten the screws very hard when he was in school. I didn't think much of it when I read it but perhaps it was a reason for it, no?

As can be seen in the picture and hopefully in the video I tried to adjust the terminal curve to the best of my ability. Not perfect, but at least a bit better than it was. It had no real effect on the problem with the hugely varying rates between the horizontal and vertical positions though. So, I have decided to strip and re-service the movement. I only had the time to strip it tonight, but hopefully, I'll find the time to keep working on it in the coming days.

[mikepilk]

3 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Mike, You mean like this, 

  A routine approach for truing the spiral , this is alright  as long as spiral  remains concentric, as you do the rest of making  a balance complete. 

Some coils have a bend at terminal curves end, some don't , you ought to be careful that  every point on the coil must lie concenrtic and collet centered over the jewel hole.

Nothing wrong with removing the old spring to form as above.

Exactly. This is a pic of the hairspring I'm working on. My horizontal v vertical rates are all over the place. There is no discernible terminal curve. My problem is that the outer coil is (possibly) hitting the regulator pin. It's hard to tell but it looks to be getting very close. Also getting close to the stud, which could be @VWatchie's problem.
You can see that I need to adjust the inner coil to centre the collet. That will hopefully solve the problem. But then I'll take the spring off and attach it to the cock to see how it looks.

 

I don't know if it's causing your problem @VWatchie, but I would say your inner coil looks like this

 

Edited March 18 by mikepilk

[Nucejoe]

6 hours ago, mikepilk said:

I don't know if it's causing your problem @VWatchie, but I would say your inner coil looks like this

 

 

[nevenbekriev]

This seems to be complicated case...

We have many variables here and we need to exclude some of them to make some progress.

We have plots that show amplitude variations, but we don't know if this variations are significant, as they can be 'amplified' or 'smoothed' by the software. So, some observation of the amplitude by eye will be of help.

Then, if we really have not isochronical work, then the main reason for this would be the hairspring being not 'linear'. And not linear may be sometimes not only because 'touching', but because bad hairsping material structure. Some of the advanced watchmakers claim that repairing badly bent hairspring is useless, because this springs will never be isochronic again.  Well, my own observations are that such thing happens, but not in all the cases and it depends on the case if the result is acceptable or not. I will not suppose here that this spring has been repaired, but it has some strange behavior watching at it's work. It will be good if it is possible to test the movement with another balance or thest the balance on another movement...

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, nevenbekriev said:

This seems to be complicated case...

We have many variables here and we need to exclude some of them to make some progress.

We have plots that show amplitude variations, but we don't know if this variations are significant, as they can be 'amplified' or 'smoothed' by the software. So, some observation of the amplitude by eye will be of help.

Then, if we really have not isochronical work, then the main reason for this would be the hairspring being not 'linear'. And not linear may be sometimes not only because 'touching', but because bad hairsping material structure. Some of the advanced watchmakers claim that repairing badly bent hairspring is useless, because this springs will never be isochronic again.  Well, my own observations are that such thing happens, but not in all the cases and it depends on the case if the result is acceptable or not. I will not suppose here that this spring has been repaired, but it has some strange behavior watching at it's work. It will be good if it is possible to test the movement with another balance or thest the balance on another movement...

I have always had it in my mind that hairsprings can fatigue in just the same way as mainsprings can. If a hairspring has gone through a rough process of repair then its structure will have changed ( bending any metal backwards and forwards will cause micro fractures and eventually breakage ) in those areas of heavy manipulation. Its strength and elasticity is no longer linear over its full length so no longer isochronical.  

[luiazazrambo]

12 hours ago, VWatchie said:

What kind of impact could this have had?

Didn't you see the impact on your time machine?  Nobody told me this / or read it in any books but whenever I have a reading like yours one of the first things I check is the plate screws and in the majority of the cases the readings get better after tightening them, smoothing out your curves. If they are tighten enough it makes no sense to tighten them more as it brings no benefit but excessive force might cause the screwheads to brake off. You have the feel for it after a while. I have seen cases where the plate screws were not tight on purpose just to sort out some end shake issues but needless to say that's not the right way to go. Plate screws must be tight enough  just like the critical screws in automotive otherwise you screw up the whole movement in my opinion. I must stress that this is only my own opinion and i am just a hobbyist. 

[Nucejoe]

On 3/14/2024 at 3:00 PM, VWatchie said:

Here are the equivalent graphs for a newly serviced Peseux 7040. This is a movement that keeps very good time and I was surprised to see the variation in amplitude. No difference really compared to the ETA 2763. Of course, the amplitude is considerably higher but the variation over time seems to be the same, that is about 30°. It's really a bit puzzling... The variation in rate differs a lot compared to the ETA movement though.

Are we ignoring  that another watch on tg showed similar rate fluctuation. Did I miss any conclusion made on this sigificant  point ?

 

 Springs have high fatigue threshold,   meaning angle of  bend/distortion  has to be very sharp to cause material fatigue .  An evidence to this point is the bend we form at end of terminal curve or the bend at the collet,  are we causing fatigue there? definately not. 

 

 

 

[VWatchie]

39 minutes ago, luiazazrambo said:

Didn't you see the impact on your time machine?

I guess it is a possibility, but the train wheel bridge was pressed down all the way so I'm not so sure. Then again, the screws weren't tightened at all (imagine being screwed down all the way but using a piece of Rodico instead of a screwdriver). Anyway, the movement is now fully stripped so we'll have to see once I've assembled it again. BTW I found the post where @nickelsilver wrote about tightening screws:

As he writes: "In school, if your screws aren't tight, like you think they might snap, you get your movement tossed in the sawdust box!"

I'm really curious to know why it is so important to tighten the screws that hard. I usually stop when it feels like there is no chance the screw can start to unscrew itself. Also, screwing down that hard requires perfectly dressed and perfectly sized screwdrivers to avoid slippage and/or damaging the screw slot.

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I have always had it in my mind that hairsprings can fatigue in just the same way as mainsprings can. If a hairspring has gone through a rough process of repair then its structure will have changed ( bending any metal backwards and forwards will cause micro fractures and eventually breakage ) in those areas of heavy manipulation. Its strength and elasticity is no longer linear over its full length so no longer isochronical. 

somewhere in the universe although as I'm answering this I remembered which discussion group. Somebody had a similar question loss basically expanded it to the watch would totally disintegrate in my think like 30 years. I'd have to go back and find the original discussion if I can the person seem to think that they hairspring would disintegrate like you describe and just metal on metal wearing out the entire watch. Except of course we all work on watches over 30 years and they obviously do not disintegrate. Plus somebody came along and explained why hairsprings do not have the same issues as mainsprings. Although hairsprings do end up with watchmakers insisting on bending and playing with them and torturing them etc. and that obviously is not good for the metal at all.

3 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

This seems to be complicated case...

We have many variables here and we need to exclude some of them to make some progress.

We have plots that show amplitude variations, but we don't know if this variations are significant, as they can be 'amplified' or 'smoothed' by the software. So, some observation of the amplitude by eye will be of help.

one of the problems that you're having here it is what is the purpose of the test that started this discussion? Let me go and snip out the original image

as you can see from images above this watch is horrible. Or is it? What is the purpose of the images up above in other words what exactly would use this test for? The real purpose this test is show the effect of amplitude on timekeeping. Or specifically you're looking for mechanical issues that are causing fluctuations in amplitude which unfortunately shows up  with timekeeping. or basically everything affects timekeeping but amplitude is affected by the mechanical characteristics of the watch from the mainspring to the balance wheel and unfortunately as it's a mechanical watch your always going to have power fluctuations. so how do we rule out unacceptable fluctuations versus the natural characteristic of the watch? Usually if you can find a repeating pattern you can narrow it down to the offending components for instance I'm attaching a PDF. on the second page of the PDF it talks about 21st-century equipment versus paper tape timing machines. Then they give an example of timing problems solely caused by a faulty component. although off you have a user's manual for a paper tape machine it does explain that you can find faulty components by looking at the variations on your paper tape seeing how often they repeat and do the same thing without the fancy software. Even though it was claimed that you couldn't do that in other words you couldn't find a pattern?

One of the problems that comes up with modern LCD-based timing machines versus software is limited screen size. In other words it makes it very hard to look for patterns you'll see variations in numbers but it's hard to tell what's going on which is why the display above is really nice to see if there is a problem.

for instance here's a paper printout from a witschi timing machine it does look distorted because I changed the speed at which the image would move across the screen. In other words I was trying to figure out a way to extend the screen to being much longer as I was looking for a pattern as you can see there doesn't appear to be a pattern at all

so basically we end up with a watch that I cannot time at all they cannot really figure out what the problem is and I actually cannot find a pattern even begin the figure out where the problem might be. Plus I agreed to service this watch for free as I was going to use it for the purposes of a lecture. In other words it's a nice railroad grade pocket watch and I wanted to show before how horrible amplitude is and how wonderful it looks after serviced and after servicing it looked exactly the same still horrible. Then I used software for a clock timing machine and came up with this interesting image

one a minor problems we have with time plots and  how they look is that they all do things a little bit differently. So this was occurring approximately every five minutes.

Then we need another chart

then I replaced something in the watch and we now get this

one of the things that I was always bothered with was if I had put the hands on after servicing would the watch have Time? Because the pattern was repeating the watch would average that out may  it would have Time. Oh and what did I change somebody had swapped the mainspring barrel for something different were getting a binding between the mainspring in the center wheel pinion.

4 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

This seems to be complicated case...

We have many variables here and we need to exclude some of them to make some progress.

so the problem you're having is what exactly is the problem?

the purpose of the test image is to look for mechanical problems causing amplitude problems. Because it's a mechanical watch your always going to have variations so are the variations in this watch abnormal or normal for this watch? Once we eliminate the mechanical issues beyond it's a mechanical watch then you can work on timing issues.

for timing issues I recommend going back to the normal display that were used to and make sure you have your averaging times set correctly. In other words while the graphical display is basically real time years of the numbers are averaged over time. Anywhere from 20 to 40 seconds depending upon whose specs you're looking at. So basically they will average out the problems were seeing on this time plot.

 

3 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

As he writes: "In school, if your screws aren't tight, like you think they might snap, you get your movement tossed in the sawdust box!"

I'm really curious to know why it is so important to tighten the screws that hard. I usually stop when it feels like there is no chance the screw can start to unscrew itself. Also, screwing down that hard requires perfectly dressed and perfectly sized screwdrivers to avoid slippage and/or damaging the screw slot.

one of my amusements with students that go to the same school is that you have different instructors. So this gives you different experiences like what exactly is tight anyway as I don't remember any thing like this? Then did you know that Rolex at least in Geneva as I visited their service center replace all the screws in the watch every time they service the watch. then why did they do that because they use power screwdrivers and tighten those things down as tight as you can get them which has a problem. How many times can you tighten screw down really tight before the hints break off. So they replace the screws every single time.

So personally I don't think they have to be so tight that you're in danger snapping head off that's too tight in my opinion. but the screws definitely shouldn't be falling out either which I've occasionally see and where people just don't tighten their screws tight enough.

 

Horologica Times -- May 2004 From the Workshop witschi time plot.pdf

[Neverenoughwatches]

13 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Funny that you should mention it! I just stripped the entire movement and when unscrewing the train wheel bridge, I noticed that I hadn't secured the screws. They weren't exactly loose, but not one bit tightened. However, the bridge was pressed down all the way. Before tightening the screws I always make sure the pivots are in the jewel holes and that everything spins freely and looks right. I simply must have forgotten to tighten the screws this time around. What kind of impact could this have had? I believe I remember @nickelsilver mentioning it "being a crime" (or something along those lines) not to tighten the screws very hard when he was in school. I didn't think much of it when I read it but perhaps it was a reason for it, no?

As can be seen in the picture and hopefully in the video I tried to adjust the terminal curve to the best of my ability. Not perfect, but at least a bit better than it was. It had no real effect on the problem with the hugely varying rates between the horizontal and vertical positions though. So, I have decided to strip and re-service the movement. I only had the time to strip it tonight, but hopefully, I'll find the time to keep working on it in the coming days.

Couple of things H. There surely seems to be a reoccurring fluctuation pattern  of somewhere around every 5 minutes. More noticable with your crown left trace having a large peak gradually reducing to 2 small peaks and troughs then back up to another large peak. Nev posted a download link to a book by Harold Kelly not so long back that i started to read while i was away. There was a good section on wheel and pinion ratios, rotation periods of wheels of different beat frequencies that's worth a read. Then something that bugs me comparing the amplitude and timing rate changes with your dial up trace which i chose to avoid wheel imbalances . The amplitude fluctuates by an extreme of 30 ° and the rate fluctuates by an extreme of 21 seconds as per your reading. In normal circumstances a movement dropping its power over the course of the mainspring unwinding, a hairspring acting isochronical will maintain its rate almost to the end of the power reserve. Similarly power wound into a movement increasing its amplitude from 265° to 295° a hairspring again acting isochronical will again maintain its rate aside from a brief few moments until it settles into it's rate. From that it seems to me that because the amplitude difference isn't big enough to affect a rate change then the amplitude fluctuation cause is not coming from anywhere but from the balance. So its whatever is causing the rate to change increase and decrease within the balance is also slowing and speeding up the hairspring swings. I'm not quite sure if I've just gone around in circles with that, it made sense to me when i started 

34 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Are we ignoring  that another watch on tg showed similar rate fluctuation. Did I miss any conclusion made on this sigificant  point ?

 

 Springs have high fatigue threshold,   meaning angle of  bend/distortion  has to be very sharp to cause material fatigue .  An evidence to this point is the bend we form at end of terminal curve or the bend at the collet,  are we causing fatigue there? definately not. 

 

 

 

We did have a discussion a while back when i asked if rate could come from that point as well as from the regulator pins. This area can be electro stiffened in high grade hs i remember was the answer.

20 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

I guess it is a possibility, but the train wheel bridge was pressed down all the way so I'm not so sure. Then again, the screws weren't tightened at all (imagine being screwed down all the way but using a piece of Rodico instead of a screwdriver). Anyway, the movement is now fully stripped so we'll have to see once I've assembled it again. BTW I found the post where @nickelsilver wrote about tightening screws:

As he writes: "In school, if your screws aren't tight, like you think they might snap, you get your movement tossed in the sawdust box!"

I'm really curious to know why it is so important to tighten the screws that hard. I usually stop when it feels like there is no chance the screw can start to unscrew itself. Also, screwing down that hard requires perfectly dressed and perfectly sized screwdrivers to avoid slippage and/or damaging the screw slot.

I remember that over Ross's issue with balance endshake.

[VWatchie]

21 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Are we ignoring  that another watch on tg showed similar rate fluctuation. Did I miss any conclusion made on this sigificant  point ?

No, the Peseux 7040 is doing very well as far as the rate (and amplitude) is concerned. The maximum delta measured was 20 seconds between fully wound, crown down (+8 s/d) and fully wound minus 24 hours, crown up (-12 s/d). Compare that to the ETA 2763 having a delta of over 80 seconds.

What I was trying to convey was that I observed that the much higher amplitude of the Peseux movement during a 12-minute measuring period could momentarily fluctuate by 30° just like the much lower amplitude on the ETA 2763. I haven't studied the History graph on @praezis PCTM software for any other than these two movements but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these fluctuations in amplitude during a 12-minute measuring period are the rule rather than the exception for all typical non-high-end-chronometer movements.

This graph is from my most reliable movement, an ETA calibre 2804-2. It too is a manual wound movement. Over a 12-minute measuring period, it is clear that the amplitude is constantly fluctuating. The average amplitude, as can be seen, is 292° but the delta is 26° So, I would think that rapid fluctuations in amplitude are perfectly normal. The reason I bring this up is that it is sort of new to me and not visible in the same way on a Weishi TM. On the Weishi there's only a number for the amplitude to look at it doesn't seem to change very often.

[luiazazrambo]

He talked about the balance cock screw but it may be also applied to the plate screws as well. Anyway rodico tight is definitely not good enough and there is a chance that this contributed to your readings. Open your sawdust box please!  

Edited March 19 by luiazazrambo

[nevenbekriev]

The problem (as I see it) is not amplitude fluctuations, they can be normal if the readings are correct. The real problem is that the rate changes much from horizontal to verical positions and from fully wound to unwound spring. In other words, the rate strongly depends on amplitude. In this situation (where amlitude increase leads to rare increase), the first thing to do is to close the regulator pins as much as possible to avoid the free play of hairspring and see if this will affect the rate change enough. I don't believe it will be enough, but at least a slight improvement is expected.

The thing that would be interesting (if the software can do it) is to show a graph of rate versus amplitude. It will be interesting to see if the graph is calm or there is a 'break point' in it

[VWatchie]

16 hours ago, mikepilk said:

Also getting close to the stud, which could be @VWatchie's problem.

I've tried to do my very best to get the utmost coil to collide with the stud. However, there is a very healthy distance even when I rotate the balance nearly 360° to expand the coils as much as possible.

Here's a little pixel measuring experiment:

Follow the spring clockwise from the red circle. As we progress towards the outer coil the distance should gradually increase somewhat provided the camera is held perfectly parallel with the spring, which it was not, but let's ignore that. Looking at the numbers I would concur that the collet isn't centred.

'
Again, follow the spring from the red circle, but this time in a counterclockwise direction. As we progress towards the outer coil the distance should gradually increase somewhat provided the camera is held perfectly parallel with the spring, which it was not, but again, let's ignore that. Looking at the numbers this time, however, I would say that the collet is reasonably centred.

I have two things to say about this.

Firstly, I don't think my hairspring needs any tweaking and it's my impression most of you would agree, but I would still appreciate hearing if anyone has a different opinion.

Secondly, and this truly surprised me, Mike's spring is coiling in a clockwise direction when we follow it from the collet, whereas my spring is coiling in a counterclockwise direction when followed from the collet. Is this normal or is your picture mirrored, Mike? I have never reflected on this but if someone had asked me about this I would have said that all hairsprings are coiled in the same direction.

16 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

In this situation (where amlitude increase leads to rare increase), the first thing to do is to close the regulator pins as much as possible to avoid the free play of hairspring and see if this will affect the rate change enough. I don't believe it will be enough, but at least a slight improvement is expected.

You may recall that I slightly opened the regulator pins as I assessed the distance to be too small, perhaps just 1.5x the thickness of the spring. However, as I remember it this made no noticeable difference. Anyway, as an experiment I'm willing to close the regulator pins again once the movement has been reassembled. I wasn't aware that the distance between the regulator pins had the effect you describe so I'm grateful for the information! 

21 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

The thing that would be interesting (if the software can do it) is to show a graph of rate versus amplitude. It will be interesting to see if the graph is calm or there is a 'break point' in it

Not sure I understand what you're asking for, but if you look at the graphs in this post you'll see that the graph for the amplitude is green whereas the graph for the rate is blue. The two graphs are plotted in parallel by the software as the measuring progresses over time. Anyway, @praezis who is the father of the software hopefully has a better answer.

BTW, is the correct terminology hairspring or balance spring? Kalle Slaap (Chronoglide) very firmly explained in one of his videos that the correct term is balance spring, which happens to be a hairspring type. I've noticed most of us use the term hairspring and so do I. After all, there's only one spring in a (normal) watch movement that is of hairspring type so I see little or no risk for confusion but I'm curious about your opinion.

[nevenbekriev]

Yes, the hairspring is not perfrctly centered. But it is not enough to cause 'touching' to the collet. It makes the hairspring center move in circle and this movement is partly transmitted to the outer coil, making it's distance to the studd to change in odd manner. But if You don't see any touching to the studd (this distance never gets dangerously close to 0), then no problem from that. But for the sport, You can try to center the spring at the collet.

There are left hand and right nand wound springs, this is normal. The layout of the movements are different.

I meen graph that has amplitude for one axis and rate for the other. May be the graph then will be not line, but something like cloud of dots.

[mikepilk]

I have to agree with your numbers, it is centred.  The shape of the first coil makes it look off centre.

I too had not thought about the direction of the springs.  It depends on which way the balance cock points. Yours points clockwise, hence the spring must be anti-clock for the stud to be on the outside.

Mine is the other way

[nickelsilver]

36 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

I've tried to do my very best to get the utmost coil to collide with the stud. However, there is a very healthy distance even when I rotate the balance nearly 360° to expand the coils as much as possible.

Here's a little pixel measuring experiment:

Follow the spring clockwise from the red circle. As we progress towards the outer coil the distance should gradually increase somewhat provided the camera is held perfectly parallel with the spring, which it was not, but let's ignore that. Looking at the numbers I would concur that the collet isn't centred.

'
 

 

First one would go in the sawdust ! Second one you wouldn't pass the hairspring exam. And I wouldn't let it out if I serviced it without truing it at the collet.

[RichardHarris123]

1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

BTW, is the correct terminology hairspring or balance spring?

From everything I have read, I  believe the terms are interchangeable.  Hair, due to the thinness of the spring and balance for obvious reasons. 

[Nucejoe]

Apparently,  we'll soon run out of sawdust. 

 

 

 

 

 

[RichardHarris123]

2 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Apparently,  we'll soon run out of sawdust. 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact @Neverenoughwatches, he's a joiner. Hehe. 

[Nucejoe]

21 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Contact @Neverenoughwatches, he's a joiner. Hehe. 

To save time , Neverenough should be the first to volunteerly jump in the sawdust box.  lol

[Neverenoughwatches]

35 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Contact @Neverenoughwatches, he's a joiner. Hehe. 

No problem i have a four poster bed to make for my daughter this week. Where am i sending the sawdust to ?

9 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

To save time , Neverenough should be the first to volunteerly jump in the sawdust box.  lol

Aw Joe thats my second favourite thing to do,in cherrywood shavings hmmmm ❤

[mikepilk]

1 hour ago, nickelsilver said:

First one would go in the sawdust ! Second one you wouldn't pass the hairspring exam. And I wouldn't let it out if I serviced it without truing it at the collet.

Go in the sawdust ?  I don't get it 

[VWatchie]

2 hours ago, mikepilk said:

I too had not thought about the direction of the springs.  It depends on which way the balance cock points. Yours points clockwise, hence the spring must be anti-clock for the stud to be on the outside.

Well, when working on watches we seem to learn something new (and unexpected) almost every day! 

2 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

Second one you wouldn't pass the hairspring exam. And I wouldn't let it out if I serviced it without truing it at the collet.

Since Master NickelSilver fails me, I guess I have no choice but to retake the exam. However, it's nice not to have a deadline and that I have plenty of scraps to practice on.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Mike will also pass his degree. 

47 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

Go in the sawdust ?  I don't get it 

Let me assist!

On 2/26/2024 at 2:10 PM, nickelsilver said:

Back in the day you would always dry parts in sawdust; it soaks off the solvent (benzine, maybe alcohol) and avoids condensation. There were little boxes with a layer of sawdust at every bench. The "dust" part is misleading- more like dust-free micro wood chips.

 

This was still common, at least in the restoration end of things, when I was in school. If you brought something to the teacher to check that was clearly wrong, you might get away with it once, but after that your movement went in the sawdust. Meaning you got to take it all apart and reclean and oil it... so you got good at bringing things up that were worth the teacher's time, haha!.

 

I still use sawdust sometimes, but I didn't drop student's movements in it when I was teaching, and don't do it to the new guys at the workshop- though I have been pretty tempted.

 

[RichardHarris123]

45 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

Well, when working on watches we seem to learn something new (and unexpected) almost every day! 

As @rossjackson01says, "good this hobby, isn't it " or words to that effect.  I'm not sure that I do learn daily but no matter how much I do learn, there's always something new and I'm constantly learning.  So yes, since I love learning, this is a brilliant hobby or profession.