Polishing pivots on a verge pocketwatch balance

[Tmuir]

At the beginning of my watch and clock repair class tonight one of the lecturers had a verge pocket watch that needed the pivots polished on the balance so he brought it in to show a safe method of doing this.

The issue with this compared to a normal balance is one of the pallets are very close to the pivot and if you are not careful its very easy to damage the pallet when you polish the pivot..

Below is a photo of the balance and although the pallet is out of focus you can see how close it is to the pivot

Before you attempt to polish the pivot you need to protect the pallet.

Here you can see the pivot set up to be polished on the Jacot tool with a small wheel which was removed from a junked cheap Japanese watch just slid over the pivot and sitting hard up against the pallet. It had been sanded down in thickness so it was the same thickness as the gap between the end of the pallet and the start of the pivot, providing a barrier to protect the pallet.

Photo from the other side.

And once the pivot had been polished and burnished how it was protected again when rounding off the end of the pivot

Other side

 

Job done.

 

Something so obvious when you are shown it, but not something I would of thought of doing myself