Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Hi all, newbie tinkerer here again with another question...

I bought a Seiko Bellmatic 4006-6011 from May 1973 and received it yesterday. All seems to be in working order, so today I thought I'd wear it and record the accuracy against the clock on the Watchville app on my phone. (I've found that the time on this app matches that on time.is pretty much bang on, so seems good enough for my purposes). This morning I did the figure of 8 winding for 40 seconds then set it and noted it as 31 seconds fast and I recorded the difference against the app five times today. Tonight I made a plot of the change and was surprised to find that the accuracy improved through the day. Below is a basic plot with the actual in red and the projected in blue. 

I've no idea why it would change like this, I honestly thought it would be the other way round (although thinking about it I'm not sure why other than general entropy). I'd love to hear if this is:

  1. Normal;
  2. Indicates a particular problem(s);
  3. It's likely I just cocked up my readings;
  4. Something I've not thought of.

This is a birth month/year watch for a family member so is a bit special and I want it to be as good as I can get it so would be grateful for any thoughts guys and girls.

Thanks,

Pip

Bellmatic Accuracy 20161018.jpg

Posted

Watches run/perform at different rates depending on its position. That is why when regulating a watch it is adjusted in various positions (Dial up/dial down etc.) to get a good mean average. I suspect this is the reason you are getting differences..
Also as the mainspring winds down it will gradually loose power & hence slow down. However if it is an auto then in theory this should not happen. 

  • Like 1
Posted
2 hours ago, clockboy said:

Watches run/perform at different rates depending on its position. That is why when regulating a watch it is adjusted in various positions (Dial up/dial down etc.) to get a good mean average. I suspect this is the reason you are getting differences..
Also as the mainspring winds down it will gradually loose power & hence slow down. However if it is an auto then in theory this should not happen. 

Great point Clockboy, I'd not thought about physical orientation and how that will affect the mechanical works. These readings were taken during the day whilst wearing it. Out and about all morning then office in afternoon and an hours drive followed by working at home on my laptop in the evening. I'll have to do several 24 hour tests in different positions to get a better feeling. Is there a standard way of doing this or just however one fancies?

The main thing I have taken from it is the thing needs a damn good service I guess?

Posted

Different positions effect the balance Pip, the balance wheel will not be in perfect poise, thus giving the positional errors in most cases, (other factors do come into it), happens in all watches, we all strive to get the best possible balance to bring our error number (delta) to an acceptable level.

  • Like 1
Posted
Just now, Brian3 said:

the balance wheel will not be in perfect poise

What?! It's only 43 and a half! My balance was in perfect poise at that age, making me into the fine athlete that I am today. Oh hang on, no - my balance went at about the same time as I started getting served in pubs!

Good point @Brian3, assuming the movement is original then there will be some wear in there as well. When I took the back off to have a quick look there were no service signatures so I can only guess it's not been regularly serviced if indeed at all. This might be one to send off to my man for a good overhaul - it's a bit too precious and I'm still practicing on cheaper pieces albeit I'm not generally destroying them now.

Posted

Out of curiosity when was the watch last serviced?  Then what sort of timekeeping are you hoping for?

So to understand what clockboy saying about regulating and timekeeping of your watch I have a link to a PDF that explains a lot of the terminology.

Then for proper timekeeping you need to time over 24 hours especially if the watch has a calendar mechanism that can affect timekeeping. Then other things that affect timekeeping like where was the watch when you are timing it? In other words were you wearing it in which case the automatic should've been able to keep the thing wound up. With a constant amplitude it should keep reasonably even time. If the watch was wound up and slowly unwinding the rate will change. If the watch hasn't been serviced in a while the rate of change will be more dramatic depending upon the condition of the lubricants and the cleanliness of the watch.

http://www.witschi.com/assets/files/sheets/Calculation of the values X-D-DVH-Di-Im-N.pdf

  • Like 1
Posted
19 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Out of curiosity when was the watch last serviced?  Then what sort of timekeeping are you hoping for?

So to understand what clockboy saying about regulating and timekeeping of your watch I have a link to a PDF that explains a lot of the terminology.

Then for proper timekeeping you need to time over 24 hours especially if the watch has a calendar mechanism that can affect timekeeping. Then other things that affect timekeeping like where was the watch when you are timing it? In other words were you wearing it in which case the automatic should've been able to keep the thing wound up. With a constant amplitude it should keep reasonably even time. If the watch was wound up and slowly unwinding the rate will change. If the watch hasn't been serviced in a while the rate of change will be more dramatic depending upon the condition of the lubricants and the cleanliness of the watch.

http://www.witschi.com/assets/files/sheets/Calculation of the values X-D-DVH-Di-Im-N.pdf

Thanks for the good info John. I don't know if the watch has ever been serviced, there appear to be no marking on the inside of the case which I understand is where people often date/initial it. As the piece is 40+ years old I guess it must have been serviced at some point though or it may have packed up by now? (I don't know how long a Seiko would continue for without being lubricated?)

I don't have a timegrapher machine and it's not on my radar at the moment. I do have the cheap and basic Hairspring app on my phone which was recommended to me but I think I will download the Watch Tuner Timegrapher app which I read some decent things about, and at £10 I don't suppose I can go too wrong. 

Posted

I too have recently started in this watch fiddling game, and there are two items that I can't imagine living without, and they are, Timegrapher and Demagnetiser.

Without these you will end up chasing your tail all day long. Timegrapher first, is essential for general fiddling.

  • Like 1
Posted
5 hours ago, Pip said:

Thanks for the good info John. I don't know if the watch has ever been serviced, there appear to be no marking on the inside of the case which I understand is where people often date/initial it.

Just because the inside of the watch isn't marked doesn't mean it hasn't been serviced. It depends upon the policy of whatever serviced it. It seems be the most common things I've seen are scratching variety of secret codes. Felt pen as it's not supposed to be permanent but recently frowned on because supposedly it admits fumes bad for the watch. Or some repair people do not mark the inside of the watch at all. So markings on the back are only a general indication perhaps.

One of the nice things with early organic lubricants is they would gum up with time. This means the watch would come to a stop before bad things happen. Modern lubricants chemically can do just about anything over time or possibly might last forever perhaps. Moebius who makes lubricants used to run interesting advertisements that there oil in this case synt-a-lube/9010. Does not gum up, does not spread and does not evaporate unaffected by atmospheric conditions so we can assume that basically last forever Although they don't actually say that. Strangely enough the new bottles you purchase have dates saying when it expires?

So for instance let's say your watch has never been serviced and Seiko used the same lubricants recommended in the service guide. So looking at the service guide they're using a mix of Moebius Oil in this case synt-a-lube/9010 their oil S-4 and a Moebius grease. Then as the common trend was using light lubricants where as today we would use heavier lubricants. So as far as lasting forever goes Moebius has a lubrication handbook with specifications and interesting information that applies to this discussion. So synt-a-lube/9010 is supposed to never evaporate but it can spread itself to the point of appearing to evaporate. I've noticed this in watches I've serviced over many years it just disappears. So the recommendation to prevent disappearing is surface treating which usually isn't mentioned in tech sheets which is why typically it's not done plus there is a cost factor.

So I was looking up the Watch Tuner Timegrapher app Looks like an interesting program. When you get that we can go back to testing your watch. Amplitude is a real clue of how well the watche is working and looks like timing app has this plus the beat of the watch. So wind the watch up then let it run 15 minutes to an hour to settle down. Usually recommendation to let the watch settle down when it's wound up especially on Non-automatic watches we can put that extra little bit of power which screws up timing results specifically too much power. So you want to time for 24 hours to prevent external influences from changing things you'll keep the watch in a stationary position except when you're timing it. Then for timing pick one position only to make things simple unless you're obsessed. Do not time in either dial up or dial down as they represent your least friction just pick a crown position Crown down 12 o'clock up something you remember. Then we can look at the before and after typically the watch companies time wound up and 24 hours later. But because you've got a nifty app there's nothing wrong with multiple timings during the 24 hours.

Then in the above paragraph Were taking a simple approach to timing the watch companies do time in multiple positions at the start and the end to figure out what's going on but I thought we can start with something simple.

 

 

  • Like 1
Posted

So I was looking up the Watch Tuner Timegrapher app Looks like an interesting program. When you get that we can go back to testing your watch.

I downloaded it tonight, but spent the evening watching **BLEEP**nal smash Ludogorets and so haven't used it yet. Tomorrow I'll fire it up and see what happens.
Thanks for your superb post, excellent info!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Posted

Haha! I can't believe I am unable to say the name of a footy team! Thankfully I'm not from S**BLEEP**horpe...! And if I lived in that famous town on the Isle of Man I don't know what I'd do!

  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • Escapement adjusting always interesting and depending upon the reference always confusing. Okay maybe it's not always confusing but it does lead to confusion. I have a PDF below it's actually a whole bunch of separate stuff including a hand out that came from a lecture that's on you tube. Then from that we get this image Consequences of doing things especially if you do things out of order or you do things for the wrong reason. Oh and even if the watches working I made the mistake one so showing my boss how tweaking the banking pins on a full plate on the timing machine made the amplitude get better and now he thinks that's what they're for and I don't think a fully grasped exactly what horn clearance means. Consequence of doing things. Notice what it says about opening and closing the banking pins and total lock? So yes I've had that on a full plate where it won't unlock at all and that's the banking pins or a combination of things basically. So banking pins unfortunately get moved. One of the ways to tell if it's been moved is the look straight down at the end of the fork with the balance wheel removed. Power on the fork push at the one side look at it push it to the other side also look at it and compare anything with the center reference the balance jewel and see if both sides of the same. No guarantee after the same there in the right place but at least are the same typically when people play with things one side will be way off from the other because they had no idea what they were doing at all because of course it's a full plate and you really have to paying attention and even then there's still hard to do. Then the other thing that comes up like it shows below is people often adjust the banking pins to do all those other things as opposed to horn clearance which is all that it's therefore and maybe bonus Guard pin clearance although you're supposed to deal with the guard pin is a separate thing like single roller gets bent in Or out or sometimes physically gets moved in and out. Some full plates older escapement's typically pallet forks held together with screws and you can actually unscrew and move the entire assembly in Or out more complications to deal with.     Escapement handout wostep nscc.pdf
    • If he was much younger and some sort of sports player it wouldn't be a problem. They would be in there and doing surgery and he'd be back on the field in no time. Unfortunately when you get older little things are bad and big things can be really bad so not good at all.
    • Where I work everything incoming watches whatever detailed descriptions are taken entered into a computer program and photograph of each item. Then ideally although it depends on who's doing the paperwork detailed descriptions can be quite good other times there lacking. Like I really like it with pocket watches if they would record the serial number it avoids confusion later on. Then when watch repairs are completed that is also entered in. It's one of the amusements I learned when I was in school instructor had a shop and commented about the important aspect of keeping detailed records of repairs. Because oftentimes a customer who got a new crystal will come back later on when the watch doesn't work and expect you to fix the entire watch for free. Then you can remind them that they just got a crystal. Strangely enough that keeps coming up or occasionally comes up where I work now. One of the problems of using the service marks on the case is that in the case of pocket watches oftentimes that's not the original case. Then case marks? What I was doing warranty work for a company I used to describe a code number in the back of the case and it would tell me the next time I see the watch that basically what I did I made no attempt at keeping track of customers because we had literally thousands of them I think they sold 30,000 of these watches and they would come back by the hundreds because they had a lifetime warranty. Yes that's a story all of itself but I would put a code number that would reference what was done to the watch the last time and think I had a date in there somehow so it did tell a story if you knew the code. Another shop I once worked out the number would reference the page in the book. So other than knowing we had been in there you would have no idea what happened because you have to go look at the page in the book to see what happened. Then the problem of how you examine a watch you should examine the watch in detail every single time to avoid complications. Although on vintage watches and this is a of amusement I have at work when people ask something and I say of the watches done when it leaves. This is because on vintage oftentimes problems won't show up until the watches much farther into the repair like it's now running and you discover things that you can't discover before because it wasn't running to discover them that also become sometimes difficult to have exact rigid prices are estimates of repairs or in the case of a pocket watch you may not find out if a casing problem to later on when you case it up in the watches running. I was just thinking for all those people that would like to leave a mark maybe you should learn to do what some of the past watchmakers did? Leave a mark but leave it in such a way that no one will ever find it? Typically not done for repair purposes but done for other reasons like identifying it's legit. I have a friend with a Gruen watch and one of the Roman numbers the bottom line that just looks like a line under extreme magnification actually says Gruen watch company or something equivalent. So here's a link showing how to mark your watch without being seen although that's not the actual title. So if you can learn micro engraving you can engrave the watch someplace probably just about any place you just have to remember where you put it. https://cnaluxury.channelnewsasia.com/obsessions/how-to-prove-if-watches-are-authentic-secret-signatures-182516  
    • I have acquired a Citizen Leopard 36000 watch. My reason for purchasing it was my desire to own a timepiece with a 36,000 BPH movement, and the price was reasonable. Another motivating factor was gaining hands-on experience with the mechanism. The watch is in good condition, but I intend to fully disassemble it for maintenance. First and foremost, if anyone has prior experience with this particular model, I would greatly appreciate their insights. I do not have access to Citizen’s specialized lubricants and will need to use the ones available to me, such as 9010, 8000, and 8300 grease. Additionally, I do not possess the appropriate oil for the pallet jewels and will only be able to clean them.
    • Hello all, I am working on an older Valjoux Chrono. It doesn't have a stamp on the movement anywhere but I believe it is a Valjoux 72. I installed the train of wheels and they will not turn. The problem appears to be the 4th wheel and the escape wheel are not interfacing correctly. I had to replace both of these parts as the pivots were broken on each. I sourced genuine Valjoux/ETA replacements. I think the problem is with the escape wheel as all the wheels turn perfectly if I remove just the escape wheel.  My question to those with more Valjoux experience is am I mistaken? Is this some other model altogether and I have the wrong part or parts?    
×
×
  • Create New...