Watch Running Slow

[fuse63]

So i have a watch im servicing and its running extremely slow. I have cleaned the crap out of it, oiled it and it still is running slow. Nothing is broken, no broken jewels or anything. On my timing machine it is saying -634 and amplitude at 235. Any ideas?

[Blacklab]

Here's a list of things I stole from a site years ago:

 

Watch not cleaned and oiled properly.

Rusty hairspring.

Hands rubbing together, hitting on face, or on the crystal.

Stem not staying in or the watch was left in set mode.

Loose cannon pinion pinion.

Regulator set wrong.

Bent wheel.

Bent or dirty teeth on wheel or pinion.

Damaged jewel.

Worn bushings.

Bent pivot.

Out of beat.

Hairspring not in regulator.

Regulator pins to far apart.

Balance arms bent out.

Loose timing screws.

Mainspring sticking.

 

I would put my money on the mainspring, but then again when I put my money on anything I normally loose it. What is it by the way?

[fuse63]

Thanks, everything on that list ive checked and everything is good. I was betting my money on the mainspring. Its an omega 601

[Blacklab]

Have you replaced the old mainspring with a new one?

[fuse63]

I have not but i am going to because that is the only factor i can think of as to why its running slow

[JohnR725]

One of the problems with diagnosing watches is it's really helpful if we could see the watch. It be nice to see a close-up picture of the balance assembly where the regulator is? Usually Omega watches have a floating regulator which will move independent of the indicating arm. Then there's usually a floating stud holder for putting the watch in beat also. Sometimes on the Omega watches it's hard to tell as it all looks like it's one piece.

 

So 235° for serviced watch is a bit low if the watches fully wound up but the watch should still keep time. You can see at the link below has service the watch and they have 270°. Several things are possible with timing machines especially the Chinese if the amplitude is way below 200 the timing machine will have a hard time picking up what it's supposed to pick up and pickup the wrong part of the waveform. Then it will give you a much higher amplitude than it really is. Usually you get a indication of this if the numeric numbers take a long time to come up because the timing machine is having a hard time figuring out what it's supposed to be doing. This is one of the reasons I asked what the beat error of the watch is because if things are really bad some of the numbers may not come up at all. Then an extreme one this is a 19,800bph watch and if the timing machine is set to 18,000 interesting things will happen. Then is not the change the amplitude much but the lift angles 49°.

 

http://watchguy.co.uk/service-omega-seamaster-600-135-011-calibre-601/

 

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Omega_601

[wheelnut]

Resurrecting an old thread here but I'm servicing a Smiths watch and had this problem, did a search and came up with this page and thought I'd share my experience, after re-assembly the watch was running -715 seconds according to the timegrapher.

Thought about using the regulator but of course there is no way the regulator could make up that amount. I had a look at the balance spring to see how it was running and the spring didn't appear to be in the curb pins.

Which is number 13 on the list above.

I very carefully with my finest tweezers placed it back in, put the regulator at the centre position, gave the watch a full wind and put it back on the timegrapher, running at -20 seconds.

Edited March 21, 2023 by wheelnut