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Balance disassembly and reassembly advice

Terrinecold
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Terrinecold Watch Enthusiast

Terrinecold

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Hello,

those of you who read my thread on my first experience disassembling and reassembling a movement know I damaged the hairspring. 
Therefore on my second movement I decided to practice that. I also filmed myself and was hoping someone could comment on what I am doing wrong and can improve and what I am doing correctly. 
Sorry if I am talking in French in the video but I really only say that I am practicing  

 

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mikepilk Distinguished Member

mikepilk

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After many mistakes, what I do

Loosen the balance cock by levering first with a screwdriver. I always keep my thumb on the edge of the movement alongside the balance, to prevent the balance cock falling over the edge (we've all done it).

I then slide the tweezers in horizontally to get a better hold. The way you are holding it in the hole, you are likely to slip and drop it. 

If the balance does not easily come free, I have an old oiler (bent over at the end) which I slip under the edge of the balance to lift it free. If it's an old type blue steel spring, you can hold it with the oiler to prevent it over stretching.

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Neverenoughwatches Distinguished Member

Neverenoughwatches

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1 hour ago, Terrinecold said:

Hello,

those of you who read my thread on my first experience disassembling and reassembling a movement know I damaged the hairspring. 
Therefore on my second movement I decided to practice that. I also filmed myself and was hoping someone could comment on what I am doing wrong and can improve and what I am doing correctly. 
Sorry if I am talking in French in the video but I really only say that I am practicing  

 

Remove the power then I prefer to hold the cock top and bottom with wide tipped tweezers after releasing it with a sharp oiler or other. Gripping it through the screw hole can lead to it slipping off.  Tip the holder for removing and installing to help with disengaging and engaging with the fork slot. Instead i use a small brush to tilt the balance wheel, i also use it to support it while i transfer to a tack. If its to be a while before reinstalling i flip the cock over and lay the balance inside. 

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Terrinecold Watch Enthusiast

Terrinecold

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@Neverenoughwatches the small brush is interesting, I have plenty of those used for painting miniatures. I am unclear when you use it. Compared to what I did in the video is it where I was blowing air into the balance?  
I find that I have a hard time getting the upper pivot to be in the jewel.  I may be wrong but I think I now know when the lower jewel is in the pivot as the balance starts to tremble but then I have a hard time with the upper pivot. 
I know for sure when that one is in as I see it through the jewel at high magnification. 
 

Also about the power you are of course all correct and when actually disassembling the watch I did that first. But here I was just practicing over and over mostly the assembly of the balance and I thought it was acceptable in that case. 
 

Finally I agree that grabbing by the screw hold feels fiddly I did that based on  a video from learnwatchmaking.com where they recommended it to avoid scratches on the other hand I have fairly sturdy brass tweezers which won’t scratch either so I’ll definitely do that. 
 

Once again thank you everyone for the advices

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Knebo WRT Addict

Knebo

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16 hours ago, mikepilk said:

After many mistakes, what I do

Loosen the balance cock by levering first with a screwdriver. I always keep my thumb on the edge of the movement alongside the balance, to prevent the balance cock falling over the edge (we've all done it).

I then slide the tweezers in horizontally to get a better hold. The way you are holding it in the hole, you are likely to slip and drop it. 

If the balance does not easily come free, I have an old oiler (bent over at the end) which I slip under the edge of the balance to lift it free. If it's an old type blue steel spring, you can hold it with the oiler to prevent it over stretching.

these three points are very good advice.

as for letting the power down, I don't think it's really necessary for the balance removal. But definitely when you get the pallet fork.

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Terrinecold Watch Enthusiast

Terrinecold

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8 hours ago, Knebo said:

.

as for letting the power down, I don't think it's really necessary for the balance removal. But definitely when you get the pallet fork.

I am glad about that as right now I am looking at a DG2813 I have removed the rotor but I don’t think I can let the power down without removing the main bridge. I will take the balance of the movement first though

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Neverenoughwatches Distinguished Member

Neverenoughwatches

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9 minutes ago, Terrinecold said:

@RichardHarris123right on time. I can’t see it and was still wondering about what to do. I figure if I remove the bridge while there is tension on the gear train things will go wrong 

image.jpg

Dont pull the bridge, that will go very wrong.  Worse case is to lock the train and remove the pallet fork then with two sticks let the train unwind slowly catching the spokes.

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Terrinecold Watch Enthusiast

Terrinecold

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That was the video of me practicing on the ST36. 
I commented that I was happy that releasing power before removing the balance was OK because on today’s project I couldn’t find how to do it. 
However after removing the balance I realized I still needed to find how to remove the power. There was no way removing a bridge which holds the gear train was a good idea. There is Avery nice video from the watch smith in the assembly of the DG2813 but I couldn’t find one of the disassembly 

With the bridge removed it is clearer that the thing I previously circled is the click. 
It is hidden by that pink wheel which I think is part of the automatic mechanism 

IMG_9985.jpeg

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Knebo WRT Addict

Knebo

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22 minutes ago, Terrinecold said:

I think I found the click in the blue circle  I figured this was a Miyota 8215 clone and I found a disassembly video for thatIMG_9984.thumb.jpeg.d769443f2161c891b54b7642c8a4327e.jpeg

I can confirm that this is a Miyota 8215 and that you correctly circled the click. 

Turn the crown slowly as if you were manually winding the watch. You should see the click moving. As the click moves and releases the wheel, hold it back with good tweezers or a small screwdriver. Then let the power out while keeping some grip on the crown to slow down the release. 

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