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Altering jewels


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In this video You can see how to alter a jewel to preferred dimensions. Recently i ordered a jewel lot from Redrooster UK so i was choosing one with good external diameter and thickness. 

0.17mm hole was drilled, oil cap was burnished and the flat side was polished. Ugly video but i hope You can find it usefull.

 

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Outstanding!

I have to admit, though, I have a bunch of questions. Did the jewel come with a hole drilled? Is that why centering was not needed? And, what was the paste you used with the drill? And how was the tool that you used for the cup made? It looked like it was brass?

Thank you so much for this!

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6 hours ago, oldhippy said:

I fell asleep.:D

Me too. I was in hurry and was not watching just wanted something else than a deaf video. Changed to Ferenc Liszt's Rhapsody :)

57 minutes ago, dadistic said:

Did the jewel come with a hole drilled? Is that why centering was not needed? And, what was the paste you used with the drill? And how was the tool that you used for the cup made? It looked like it was brass?

Some are drilled, some are cap-jewels (for the Nachtigall movement i need to drill a cap jewel, that will ned to be centered somehow).  This however was not drilled through, just to about half. Found some with non-center hole as well. 

The paste is advertised as "honing/lapping/polishing diamond paste" on e-bay from China. 1-2 USD/5g. 

Yes, that "tool" is just a piece of 0.7mm winding wire with a near-hemisphere tip. 

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1 hour ago, Michael said:

Amazing work and thanks for posting the vid. Great to see when the jewel fitted and working

I am curious as well, never done such repair before :) 

5 minutes ago, clockboy said:

What is the paste that is used to secure the jewel to the arbour & what are the grading pastes .

Jewel was secured with hot glue, the polishing paste is 3000 grit diamond powder in oil. E-bay 1-2 USD/5g from China, it is sold in syringes in different grades.

Today i will make the other side convex. It will look something like this. The big circle arc is 6.3mm in diameter.

balance jewel.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Another jewel altering adventure. The Nachtigall movement i am working on had an oval shaped roller jewel which i was breaking during repivoting. Yes, i should have removed the roller table but dont have the removing tool yet. It was no problem until the whole thing flown away from the pinion polishing tool. Used that for the first time and didnt hold the polishing file securely. 

Back to the topic. I have measured/calculated the hole dimensions in the roller table on a microscope image. Luckily i had a brick-shaped jewel in the correct size and then i started grinding it from the edges...

Snapshot_20160722_1.PNG

First friction fitted, then started using hot glue.

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Co@rse grinding on honing stone and then polishing on soft copper plate with a drop of polishing paste on it.

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Looking good to me :)

Snapshot_20160722_24.PNGSnapshot_20160722_21.PNG

Now the longer sides...

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Just a tiny bit more from everywhere...

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Almost perfect fit.

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To make it shorter i have mounted it in a pin wise wrapped in soft copper. I was very carefull at this point... didn want to brake it after 6 hour of grinding, measuring, grinding......

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Checking clearance in the pallet fork. 

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Yes, it was flown away once. I could find it in the laptop keyboard... 

It stays in place friction fitted and working excellent!. You may know that i dont have a center wheel yet but if i push a bit harder on the 3rd wheel the balance is overbanking. It seems that the amplitude will be ok.

 

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1 hour ago, vinn3 said:

good work and good show.      im not  sure about using glue inside a watch.  it is done, but hard to remove.     vinn

Ahm the glue is just to mount it on that brass rod while grinding. First i could shape the slot to hold the jewel friction fitted then i couldnt so glued it. It sits in the roller table friction fitted. I will shellak it if everything fits well. 

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12 hours ago, praezis said:

Hello,

what grit is your  "honing/lapping/polishing diamond paste"?

regards

Frank

The honing stone is from my grand dady. He was a carpenter and the stone was used to sharpen plane blades and such. Now i am using that for sharpening gravers and it was excellent for rough shaping the impulse jewel. 

The polishing paste is from e-bay China. 10g quantities are sold in syringes in different particle sizes for really cheap. 

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Thank you!

I was interested in the china paste. They sell a wide variety of grit, 0.5µ to 300µ or so.  Which did you use for your jewel (boring, oil sink etc) for the more co**BLEEP** work before polishing?

Regards

Frank 

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