Frying Pan, Fire, Back and Forth

[DDean]

I'm going to start this by saying , "I'm hooked".  No one needs to try and talk me off a ledge or anything, but I do need to vent, and I don't know where else to do it.  No one else in my life right now gets my fascination with watches and "huge" parts (that are actually smaller than a grain of rice) vs small parts (that can be hard to see with a 20X loupe unless you're you're looking right at t

I'm now three movements in.  All of them "run" (they started that way) but none run well:

• I actually sourced a donor movement for the Gruen 380 parts I needed.  At the end of the day, I realized that I had sitting on the bench a main plate that had not had an oversized dial foot screw forced into it (but had a number of other broken parts hanging off of it) and decided to put my good parts on it instead of back on the abused main plate I started with.  Great thought until I encountered an end shake problem with the second wheel ("end shake problem" = "there isn't any").  I sense an expensive tool in my near future.
• The FHF 76 that runs, but has terrible amplitude (new mainspring, and spotlessly clean).  I suspect that this is going to be another end shake thing, I just have no idea where the problem is.
• And finally the Gruen 452SS (AKA Pierce 105).  If I'm understanding what I'm seeing correctly, I have deformed jewel hole in the pallet cock.  Image attached.  The symptoms are that it runs pretty well in the dial up and dial down positions.  In the pendant positions, it runs like someone lubed it with a handful of sand.  I've had the thing apart a number of times, and finally notice an odd side-shake on the pallet fork.  (There is alot of play along the axis of the pallet cock neck.)  So I hauled out the macro lens again, and zoomed in.  Unless I'm crazy, the jewel hole in the pallet bridge looks oval, and off center.  Again, I sense expensive tools.  At least one of them is the same tool as is needed for the Gruen pocket watch.  Am I crazy?

Are there styles of bench micrometers that are better for measuring jewels than others?  Are there any alternatives that I can get away with using my existing calipers?

Then comes the $64K question Seitz tool or Horia (or maybe a Chinese clone if I get cheap and the accountant yells too much.)  My sense is that the answer is "Horia", but that's just my sense from too much reading on the Interwebs.

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, DDean said:

I'm going to start this by saying , "I'm hooked".  No one needs to try and talk me off a ledge or anything, but I do need to vent, and I don't know where else to do it.  No one else in my life right now gets my fascination with watches and "huge" parts (that are actually smaller than a grain of rice) vs small parts (that can be hard to see with a 20X loupe unless you're you're looking right at t

I'm now three movements in.  All of them "run" (they started that way) but none run well:

• I actually sourced a donor movement for the Gruen 380 parts I needed.  At the end of the day, I realized that I had sitting on the bench a main plate that had not had an oversized dial foot screw forced into it (but had a number of other broken parts hanging off of it) and decided to put my good parts on it instead of back on the abused main plate I started with.  Great thought until I encountered an end shake problem with the second wheel ("end shake problem" = "there isn't any").  I sense an expensive tool in my near future.
• The FHF 76 that runs, but has terrible amplitude (new mainspring, and spotlessly clean).  I suspect that this is going to be another end shake thing, I just have no idea where the problem is.
• And finally the Gruen 452SS (AKA Pierce 105).  If I'm understanding what I'm seeing correctly, I have deformed jewel hole in the pallet cock.  Image attached.  The symptoms are that it runs pretty well in the dial up and dial down positions.  In the pendant positions, it runs like someone lubed it with a handful of sand.  I've had the thing apart a number of times, and finally notice an odd side-shake on the pallet fork.  (There is alot of play along the axis of the pallet cock neck.)  So I hauled out the macro lens again, and zoomed in.  Unless I'm crazy, the jewel hole in the pallet bridge looks oval, and off center.  Again, I sense expensive tools.  At least one of them is the same tool as is needed for the Gruen pocket watch.  Am I crazy?

Are there styles of bench micrometers that are better for measuring jewels than others?  Are there any alternatives that I can get away with using my existing calipers?

Then comes the $64K question Seitz tool or Horia (or maybe a Chinese clone if I get cheap and the accountant yells too much.)  My sense is that the answer is "Horia", but that's just my sense from too much reading on the Interwebs.

Thats the nature of the game dean, i spent 2 hours yesterday lining up an impulse jewel with a friction fit staff and roller in one, polishing the heck out of the pivots and straightening the pivots only for one of them to break on me at the last hurdle. If not looking directly down at the jewel hole it can look off center from the cup, thats not to say i haven't seen them come poorly manufactured this way. There can be a thousand and one reasons why amplitude is low and incorrect endshake is just one of them. If you have plenty of money then the Horia tool, the clone version is ok for what we pay for it but thats about it, the pushers and stumps surfaces are a bit rough but can be improved. Are you crazy ?  This is watch repair, if you aren't now then you soon will be, we all are, welcome to the club

 

 

[DDean]

12 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

If not looking directly down at the jewel hole it can look off center from the cup, thats not to say i haven't seen them come poorly manufactured this way. There can be a thousand and one reasons why amplitude is low and incorrect endshake is just one of them.

So I considered parallax and did my best to observe perpendicular to the plane of the jewel.  I was able to convince myself that it looks like a piece might have broken out of the side of the hole.

That said, even if I'm wrong about the location of the hole, I can't unsee the oblong nature of the hole that can feel if I put everything together and check for sideshake on the pallet fork.  The whole thing moves back and forth, alot.  That's what got me to looking at it directly.

As I'm somewhat limited in what I can set up with my macro lens I'm all ears if anyone has any suggestions I can use to corroborate (or refute) what I think I'm seeing.

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, DDean said:

I can't unsee the oblong nature of the hole that can feel if I put everything together and check for sideshake on the pallet fork.  The whole thing moves back and forth, alot.  That's what got me to looking at it directly.

 

Yes i did see the ovalated jewel hole, and the pivot will jump from one end of the jewel hole to the other. I've seen it a lot in plate and bridge hole bearings of cheap and old watches, but i have also seen it in jewels.  Jewels are so hard that they dont wear...complete tosh . Manufacturing quality control...more tosh