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Posted

I've discovered an excellent way of finding bits I've dropped, such as incabloc jewels: after crawling around until my knees hurt, simply order them from Cousins, paying extra for speedy delivery. Magically the dropped part will appear behind your microscope, where you looked before.

Sigh.

If anyone needs an upper incabloc 1347, gimme a shout - I'll have a spare on Wednesday...

  • Like 1
Posted

Ha - my sympathies! I was changing a watch strap t'other day and the pin slipped out of the strap and plinked on to the floor... Luckily, in wristwatch terms, a strap pin is pretty big, and I spotted it straightaway.

Posted

Spent many a happy hour on all fours trying to find something that`s invisibly small.  A nice bright led flashlight is a big help, as is a telescopic magnet (although not much use for jewels).  I noticed on videos of the American watch factories that some of the workers wore an apron with a neck loop,  the other end was fixed to the workbench,  this would help in catching runaway parts.

Posted

I've found using a horsehair shoe brush which is dense in bristles and soft, so things don't ping about a great sweeper to draw tiny "things" into a pile great for aiding the recovery of such "things" lol

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

There was one student in my class who lost an escape wheel and did use a magnet, check the apron and still couldn't find it. He had a large beard and wouldn't you know the escape wheel fell out of his beard. True story

I apologize for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Karim Noorani and I live in Fresno California. I am in to watch repair as a hobby.

  • Like 1
  • 3 months later...
Posted

Hello Karim and welcome,

 

I am as bald as the veritable coot without a beard but to compensate I have a moustache.  I shall now check it first before getting on my knees.

 

Cheers,

 

Vich

Posted

had a spring ping into the "black hole", days later, putting on socks, that had been through the wash and on the garden line. There it was, embedded in the weave of the sock...... :)

Posted

had a spring ping into the "black hole", days later, putting on socks, that had been through the wash and on the garden line. There it was, embedded in the weave of the sock...... :)

Looks like you need a new washing machine then! :-)

Posted

Was working on a carriage clock yesterday. Couldn't find the endstone jewel for aaaaaaages. Started trying to find substitutes, sorting my box of spares under a microscope. It was stuck to the side of my hand...

Best. Hobby. Ever.

Posted

I have a polished length of steel and attach 2 small (25mm dia) powerful magnets I rescued from the closure flap of a gift box!!  Easy to sweep large areas, and then go through the 'rubbish' with an eyeglass. 

 

For non-metals I use short length of duct tape (Gaffer tape) which is very sticky and again sweep/dab the areas with this and inspect with eyeglass. 

 

I used duct tape to find a cap jewel (took several pieces and much time!), checked pieces several times and found nothing except some pinkish fibre blobs. Angry and frustrated I decided to give up and try and source one elewhere, but ever the optimist I decided to check the tapes one last time before I binned them!  Joy and relief to see the jewel on the 2nd (of 8) strip of tape, which I must have missed several times or thought it to be some of the pinkish fibre,  I did have a clean floor and bench though!! 

 

However some parts still vanish for ever!!!!

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    • Regarding the spring winders, I made my own and used copper pipe reducers as the tubes to retain the spring. You will need to cut out a section for the end of the spring to protrude but if you watch one of the many videos on this subject that will make sense. You can find a selection of sizes on Ebay for very little cost. I'll attach a pic showing one of mine.  Good luck!
    • There were things bothering me about this discussion that took me a while to figure out the problem. In the image below it appears to be the spring may be pushing up? Normally when Omega has a spring pushing up the pinion has a pivot with a bridge to hold it in place so in other words the spring can push on something that stationary as opposed to this which appears to be floating? To understand the problem with the above image we need another image of side view which I have below. In my image down below on the left-hand side it agrees with the image up above. But the only problem is the left-hand side is defective and the right-hand side image is the way it's supposed to look. Then Omega if you can access the right documents does explain how and why this problem occurs. With the pinion floating around it might be assumed that you support it when putting on all the hands but you do not because as noted below if you do this small bush on the pinion will relocate out of position exactly what we see in the image up above.   Then Omega does not mention this but there is a possibility of also damaging the pinion and causing the bush to move to where it's not supposed to be when removing the hands.   
    • Maybe show us 1) the watch, 2) timegrapher readings in DU, DD, PU, and PD.
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