Finished Oris 291 after nearly 3 years

[Neverenoughwatches]

Yey finally got back around to finishing this. One of the first watches i ever bought when i started for a fiver it was put aside as the amp was really low around 150° and it had a cracked fancy crystal and i didn't know what the hell i was doing back then. Re started this about 3 days ago by finding a new oversize crystal in a big box of fancy shapes i aquired. The shape is known as a military rectangle which curves to match the case, after grinding to shape and carefully filing i had a good tight fit ( no glue might i add ) I'm a-nal when it comes to fitting bits together that comes from being a 1st class joiner . Tried everything to get the amplitude up but it was a no go 180 DD was the max i could get the Oris 291 is an old pin pallet 1940's and wasn't playing ball and the spring was a teeny tiny round effort of coils. Found another with just about the same profile, .01mm extra on the strength, the hight was bang on but it needed trimming to length and a new tongue fitting , that was today's mission. Mission accomplished and the old Oris has been turbo charged to 250° Here is a few wrist shots and the tg DD, we wont discuss any vertical positions if thats ok did i mention it's an 80 year old pin pallet. Strap is temporary so dont panic i have a little taste in wrist wear at least. 

[mikepilk]

I've never had a pin pallet escapement. Do you expect to a similar amplitude to Swiss lever?

[oldhippy]

Why has it got an open cannon pinion when it is not a center seconds. 

Edited May 30 by oldhippy

[Neverenoughwatches]

3 hours ago, mikepilk said:

I've never had a pin pallet escapement. Do you expect to a similar amplitude to Swiss lever?

I have a few pin pallets,they are challenging to get any half decent reading on a tg, thats part of the allure of them for me  you can see here the trace is not that good, the lines are a little dotted around, though i have had better on a couple of others. You just have to live with what you can get, when you watch how the pallet pin releases the escape teeth you will understand why, it has no finesse. The tolerances make Russian watches look like Rolexes . The amplitude is a bit of a guess as there is no lift angle for the Oris 291 anywhere, visually the impulse pin is reaching to around 3/4 of a beat possibly a little more, this is due entirely to the mainspring i put in ( likely it will shake itself to pieces if keep fully winding the movement. But generally 220- 240 would be about the average I've managed to get up to now besides this , so no not as high a swiss lever for me anyway, maybe they're not designed for it, they are cheap movements. If they keep to a minute a day thats probably good, though my Smiths Empire after a lot of adjustment over time has reached within a minute of accurate per week a couple of times, precision record has averaged at approx 4 minutes per week over 2 months so 2 minutes either side of accurate time. 

21 minutes ago, oldhippy said:

Why has it got an open cannon pinion when it is not a center seconds. 

Good question oh i wondered that myself , i can only assume its from something else . The 261 and 292 are sweep seconds, i wonder if the cannon pinion is the same from them ?

Edited May 30 by Neverenoughwatches

[mikepilk]

52 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I have a few pin pallets,they are challenging to get any half decent reading on a tg, thats part of the allure of them for me 

Not for me then   . I've never bought anything with less than 15Jewels. And as you can buy decent 15+ jewel movements so cheaply (£10-£20), I think I'll stick to them. 

But then again, I might try one of the 5J or 7J Smiths, just for fun.

[Neverenoughwatches]

13 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

Not for me then   . I've never bought anything with less than 15Jewels. And as you can buy decent 15+ jewel movements so cheaply (£10-£20), I think I'll stick to them. 

But then again, I might try one of the 5J or 7J Smiths, just for fun.

You hit the nail on the head Mike its just for the fun of it, you have no expectations of how it will turn out. I relate them to 1970's Skodas