My 2nd attempt at making a balance staff

[nickelsilver]

This site says 44 degree for the lift angle.

[Neverenoughwatches]

44 minutes ago, caseback said:

52. I don't have any data on this movement, but I figured that I could use the readings I got at 52 deg to see if there were any odd readings/differences. But to be honest, I'm already glad I got it running the way it does with my self-made parts actually . Do you know what the lift angle is?

Lift angle is quite easy to work out from watching the balance. 

[nevenbekriev]

Well, I am so glad to see the movement working. Actually, from very long time I don't feel some kind of excitement or something of the sort when putting watch movement alive, but now this here awakes feelings and reminds me of my youth,  when such excitement was normal.

Amplitude... Have said it many times - it is easily seen without timegrapher, especially when balance is with arm (2 spokes). Try to put a dot with marker on the balance rim. The best place for the dot is under the cock, when balance in rest. Then observe the dot, it is perfectly seen when balance stops in order to change the direction, and smashed when balance rotates fast. So You will be able to see the dot positions when balance is rotated to the maximum, and this is all needed to determine the amplitude. Then, the next step is to learn to do (see) the same, but without dot. Observe the place where the arm (spokes) is connected to the rim. This is like a dot, but actually they are 2. Not a problem at all...

Seems that You amplitude is not so big, but watching it on a video is not relevant, so try to determine it the way I wrote above. Thus You will be able to check if the timegrapher reads amplitude correctly.

 

[caseback]

Yes, it's a lovely feeling I remember from earlier achievement in my youth as well. 

I checked the amplitude using the slow-mo video of my phone. It's about the same as what my timegrapher tells me when I set it at 44 degrees: 240. So, not great, but no complete disaster either. There is more wear to fix in this movement, so I will be able to improve on it.

Thnx for the support!!

 

Edited October 21 by caseback
Typo

[caseback]

On 10/21/2024 at 6:51 AM, nevenbekriev said:

Yes, the 0.1mm bit on the picture has 1,2mm carbide tail. 0.6 and 0.7 too have suitable tails for making cutters out of them. Of course, one should use broken bits that are good for this purpose only. The 3.17mm tail can be turned in the lathe to 2mm or whatever the milling attachment is made to take. Sometimes it is soft enough, sometimes needs annealing. It is of some kind special, not usual tool steel.

Another source for carbide material suitable are carbide drill bits with 1.5mm tail, they are made entirely of carbide.

Following your suggestions, I've made something vaguely resembling a cutter. 

I'll set this up on my milling machine and will try using it on brass first to see what it does..

[nevenbekriev]

Excellent! I can't do it better.

[caseback]

I've almost finished making a crude flycutter. It needs 2 grub screws and tapping the threads for those.

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, caseback said:

I've almost finished making a crude flycutter. It needs 2 grub screws and tapping the threads for those.

 

Be sure to cut the excess off the back end of the cutter lol  

[caseback]

11 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Be sure to cut the excess off the back end of the cutter lol  

Or maybe I could just grind a matching profile on the other end and centre the cutter in the holder...

Edited October 28 by caseback

[Neverenoughwatches]

59 minutes ago, caseback said:

Or maybe I could just grind a matching profile on the other end and centre the cutter in the holder...

you better have any play on that fly cutter down to nothing and a torque wrench on those grub screws then and stand well back behind a riot shield lol, you're a better man than me

21 hours ago, caseback said:

I'll set this up on my milling machine 

Caseback can i have a look at your machine please.

[caseback]

2 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Caseback can i have a look at your machine please.

Probably too old and worn (talking about the machines...) to do any real precision work, but you never know until you try, right? 

The milling machine is a Rambaudi.

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, caseback said:

Probably too old and worn (talking about the machines...) to do any real precision work, but you never know until you try, right? 

The milling machine is a Rambaudi.

Aw man cool workshop, i wanna come play

Is there a pot belly in the corner as well ? 

....stove......

[caseback]

15 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Aw man cool workshop, i wanna come play

Is there a pot belly in the corner as well ? 

....stove......

If you want to come over and make a drawbar or something, no problem. 

The usual place for the grate in the corner is on the floor in front of the milling machine. It avoids me standing in metal chips. There's one in front of the lathe as well.  

Edited October 28 by caseback

[RichardHarris123]

I'm starting a new thread, I  need input from people with machining experience. 

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

I'm starting a new thread, I  need input from people with machining experience. 

I'm there matey, i have all the machining experience that money can buy.....as long as its wood machines

2 hours ago, caseback said:

If you want to come over and make a drawbar or something, no problem. 

The usual place for the grate in the corner is on the floor in front of the milling machine. It avoids me standing in metal chips. There's one in front of the lathe as well.  

I suggest you stop eating all the pork pies matey

[caseback]

Testing flycutter and milling setup..

 

[caseback]

On 10/16/2024 at 12:38 PM, praezis said:

But you can repair the tooth only, I did it sometimes before I had such wheels laser cut. Well made it looks not at all ugly as Nev said and you don‘t need milling gear.

Cut a slot in the wheel, wide and long as the missing tooth. There are thin separating wheels, use your lathe and a table in the hand rest post. Silver solder a piece of steel into the slot, replacing the tooth. Grind / finish to a tooth shape.

Frank

 

While attempting to make a new ratchet wheel (btw, does anyone please have any suggestions on the steel I should use? O1 perhaps?), I decided to try the other route as well, if only for the learning experience.. So I cut a slot in the wheel and silver soldered in a piece of steel wire that was ground square(ish). The result isn't too bad. But before I go ahead doing some polishing to make it look a bit nicer, should I heat treat it? If it was hardened originally, I imagine the soldering will have made the part softer. Or am I overcomplicating things now?

 

 

[praezis]

The replacement bit is a bit clumsy (I used the width of one tooth) but a superb result!

I didn‘t heat treat, imo it was still sufficient resistant.

Frank

[caseback]

39 minutes ago, praezis said:

The replacement bit is a bit clumsy (I used the width of one tooth) but a superb result!

I didn‘t heat treat, imo it was still sufficient resistant.

Frank

Thnx!

I didn't have any thinner cutting disks available. Question of doing the best with what you have. I had never done any silver soldering before, but it filled the gap nicely.

I'll clean it up and put it in the watch to see how it works.

Thanks for the advice.

Cees

[nevenbekriev]

Something to say here.

The ratchet and the crown wheels are 'the face' of the movement. One expects to see perfect decoration there. Of course, it is not a problem to replace broken teeth, but hard soldering will leave at least half of the wheel soft and will make impossible hardening, as the solder will melt before hardening temperature is reached. Then, the wheel will usually bend out of flat when soldering, and thus will need a lot of grinding when decorating the wheel, the wheel will get thinner. The soft wheel will work fine, but the same reason for which hardened tooth breaks will make he soft tooth smash. This is the why I recommended to leave the original wheel 'as is' rather than replacing the broken tooth

[caseback]

32 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

Something to say here.

The ratchet and the crown wheels are 'the face' of the movement. One expects to see perfect decoration there. Of course, it is not a problem to replace broken teeth, but hard soldering will leave at least half of the wheel soft and will make impossible hardening, as the solder will melt before hardening temperature is reached. Then, the wheel will usually bend out of flat when soldering, and thus will need a lot of grinding when decorating the wheel, the wheel will get thinner. The soft wheel will work fine, but the same reason for which hardened tooth breaks will make he soft tooth smash. This is the why I recommended to leave the original wheel 'as is' rather than replacing the broken tooth

Thank you. That is something I hadn't considered yet.

This watch is, as you can see, very much a learning experience for me. I have just started my attempts to make a steel ratchet wheel, so eventually that will replace this dental patient..

Do you have any suggestions for the material to use? Hardened steel, or an oil hardening O1 for instance?

Again, I very much appreciate all the helpful feedback I'm getting!

On 10/15/2024 at 11:19 PM, nevenbekriev said:

But the main thing to know here is how this teeth break so to avoid breaking them here and in other movements in the future. When winding, never release the crown to turn back until the click locking suddenly by the spring force. Move fingers to rotate forward and back without releasing the crown

After putting in the ratchet wheel and keyless, I understood what you meant here. There is indeed a lot(!) of force in this mainspring. Releasing the crown suddenly will have a big impact on the crown- and ratchet wheel..

[nevenbekriev]

You need tool steel with carbon content 0.7-1% or so called 'silver steel'. I am not much familiar with american and european steels, I have and use some USSR steels, for important things - some 115CrV3. Sometimes tool steel can be got out of ... tools. Chinese hex wrenches, cutting disks like

when steel sheet is needed. The steel of this kind of disks is soft enough for machining and only hardening and annealing after the part is cut is needed.

O1 was commented as good for balance staffs, this means it is good for everything else. But, the best steel for someone will be the one that He is familiar with it's hardening regime, feels comfortable with it and every time gets good results. If the steel is new, then He would try to harden some example, try it with file, then anneal to desired hardness and break it to see the crystal structure.

For making the ratchet wheel, I would use piece from middle of the disk shown. Then would make the square hole by forcing in smaller hole a square tool, shaped like 4 side broach. Next will be turning of the piece fixed with shellac on the face of a rod, centered by the hole - first one side, then another, in order to roughly thin it to size and to exact diameter, then cut the teeth, harden, anneal. Then final turning the sides to the thickness needed, form the recess for the screw head, and finally - the decoration

[caseback]

7 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

You need tool steel with carbon content 0.7-1% or so called 'silver steel'. I am not much familiar with american and european steels, I have and use some USSR steels, for important things - some 115CrV3. Sometimes tool steel can be got out of ... tools. Chinese hex wrenches, cutting disks like

when steel sheet is needed. The steel of this kind of disks is soft enough for machining and only hardening and annealing after the part is cut is needed.

O1 was commented as good for balance staffs, this means it is good for everything else. But, the best steel for someone will be the one that He is familiar with it's hardening regime, feels comfortable with it and every time gets good results. If the steel is new, then He would try to harden some example, try it with file, then anneal to desired hardness and break it to see the crystal structure.

For making the ratchet wheel, I would use piece from middle of the disk shown. Then would make the square hole by forcing in smaller hole a square tool, shaped like 4 side broach. Next will be turning of the piece fixed with shellac on the face of a rod, centered by the hole - first one side, then another, in order to roughly thin it to size and to exact diameter, then cut the teeth, harden, anneal. Then final turning the sides to the thickness needed, form the recess for the screw head, and finally - the decoration

Thank you for your continuing advice Nev! Very helpful and much appreciated.

After making the rough part, I will very much like to hear more about this final step.

[nevenbekriev]

There is good Stephen Pahlow video about decoration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_S8oA9HdlY&t=168s

[Michael60]

On 10/17/2024 at 7:18 PM, nevenbekriev said:

OK, here are some old  photos of the first design of my milling attachment. Ver. 1.0.

Yes.

Finally, I got the chance to see clear images of what I have seen on your YouTube channel for a long time.
You are truly an inspiring and creative person and that is what makes me follow you actually.
I hope you continue to share your work because you have a different approach.
Thank you very much