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Posted

I have just (re)finished a service on an old Wittnauer 10S that I had previously had problems with knocking due to an over-powered replacement mainspring.  I replaced that with the correct Dennison sized mainspring (shipped from from Boston MA to Australia in 2 weeks!).  Solved the problem with knocking and brought the amplitude up a decent amount compared to the old set mainspring which was delivering about 200 degrees.

Testing it on the timegrapher, I find the following:

Witt10S.PNG.5bc4e180a41371c4dc2e6b6844898dd1.PNG 

Dial Up and Dial Down have a minimal delta rate of 7 secs/ day, all of the vertical positions have a delta rate of 13 secs/ day - not bad for an 70-80 year old movement but the total delta rate is 62 secs per day with a big difference in performance between the horizontal positions and the vertical.

What could be causing this difference between horizontal and vertical and what can I reasonably do to reduce it?

Posted
  On 10/30/2024 at 2:17 AM, Nucejoe said:

BE is high.  

 Did you adjust the  hairspring-boot?  when regulating ? 

 

Expand  

I haven't touched any regulation yet, I wanted to see if I could bring the vertical positions closer to the horizontal before playing around with the regulator. It has a fixed stud carrier, so I will have to rotate the collet to get the beat error right.

I did adjust the hairspring boot when I removed the balance from the cock.  I think I returned it back to its centre position when I reinstalled the balance.  I can see the hairspring vibrating between the pin and the boot with what looks like a minimal gap.  The regulator pin looks upright as well.

Posted

Now You need to close the distance (boot) between the regulator pins as much as possible. This means the spring to be constantly touching the pin and boot, with no free play, but still the regulator to be able to move without grabbing the spring

Posted
  On 10/30/2024 at 7:32 AM, nevenbekriev said:

Now You need to close the distance (boot) between the regulator pins as much as possible. This means the spring to be constantly touching the pin and boot, with no free play, but still the regulator to be able to move without grabbing the spring

Expand  

I will take a look at it and see it can be closed up slightly by turning the boot more. Should I tweak the regulator pin closer to the boot (or will this have an impact on the dial up / dial down positions if the pin gets out of parallel?)

Posted

Turning the boot will not help. You need to bend the pin towards the boot. This doesn't mean that the pin will not be parallel to the boot any more - You can bend the pin more where it gets out of the regulator and bend it back little bit further, so it will be closer and the same time parallel. But being 'parallel' or not doesn't matter any more if there will be no free play of the hairspring. Closing the gap will make slight change in rate - the movement will start working a little faster. It will affect the vertical positions more than horizontal positions, so this is the effect needed.

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Posted
  On 10/30/2024 at 12:49 AM, Simeon said:

I have just (re)finished a service on an old Wittnauer 10S that I had previously had problems with knocking due to an over-powered replacement mainspring.  I replaced that with the correct Dennison sized mainspring (shipped from from Boston MA to Australia in 2 weeks!).  Solved the problem with knocking and brought the amplitude up a decent amount compared to the old set mainspring which was delivering about 200 degrees.

Testing it on the timegrapher, I find the following:

Witt10S.PNG.5bc4e180a41371c4dc2e6b6844898dd1.PNG 

Dial Up and Dial Down have a minimal delta rate of 7 secs/ day, all of the vertical positions have a delta rate of 13 secs/ day - not bad for an 70-80 year old movement but the total delta rate is 62 secs per day with a big difference in performance between the horizontal positions and the vertical.

What could be causing this difference between horizontal and vertical and what can I reasonably do to reduce it?

Expand  

I would get the horizonal positions regulated to their best time rate and then test again.

  On 10/30/2024 at 3:09 AM, Simeon said:

I haven't touched any regulation yet, I wanted to see if I could bring the vertical positions closer to the horizontal before playing around with the regulator. It has a fixed stud carrier, so I will have to rotate the collet to get the beat error right.

I did adjust the hairspring boot when I removed the balance from the cock.  I think I returned it back to its centre position when I reinstalled the balance.  I can see the hairspring vibrating between the pin and the boot with what looks like a minimal gap.  The regulator pin looks upright as well.

Expand  

A gap of half a hairspring width either side of it is generally considered as good with non overcoil springs. But as Nev says as close as possible without trapping the spring so you can regulate without damaging the hairspring.  With old watches that have blued steel springs that are affected by temperature change, having the regulation pins too tight may not allow them to vary their length.

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