Pallet fork lubrication: pallets and pivots.

[EatPeach]

2 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Are we talking pivots of fork arbour or pallets.

Pallet fork arbour pivots, sorry.

[Nucejoe]

Pivots to the arbour of the fork, I don,t oil them at all. Watchweasol points out that discussions get into the type of oil on pallet as well , pallet jewels need oiling, lots of friction there. You also want the least drag on pallet jewels and ordinary oils wont stay on jewels which is why fixodrop comes in to keep the oil stay put. Hope this answers your question.

[JohnR725]

Seiko is interesting with pallet fork pivots lubrication? Depending upon which tech sheet you look at sometimes there are shown as lubricated other times not. Then sometimes a different version will show whatever the opposite of the previous version. Then unfortunately the tech sheets do not explain what was revised with each one. So you don't know somebody got overly enthusiastic with their illustrations and just put lubrication on every pivot just because or whether it's done deliberately.

then there is time module company basically the OEM version of Seiko. I'm attaching a snippet out of their tech sheet alley looked at a couple including one for a new watch so its new as of 2019 and very clearly oil on the pallet fork pivots. What's interesting with time module tech sheets are they give a really nice specifications of how timing is supposed to be but conveniently they never mention how much beat error is acceptable or amplitude which of course would suffer if you lubricated the pallet fork pivots so it's not a problem at least on the tech sheets.

 

https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/5304-lubricating-pallet-fork-pivots-bfg-866/

https://www.timemodule.com/en/product-and-download.php?list=1

[rogart63]

Seiko has usually a low amplitude. So don't oil them. If you do the amplitude will be even lower. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by rogart63

[TrungNguyen]

16 hours ago, rogart63 said:

Seiko has usually a low amplitude. So don't oil them. If you do the amplitude will be even lower. 

Can i ask you a question? Yesterday, i was servicing a orient 46943 movement, at first the amplitude was at 260 but after cleaning and lubrication, it dropped to 220, even 180 when I changed position. All parts are in good condition with no damage (i have checked very carefull). I have no idea where is the problem.

[rogart63]

1 hour ago, TrungNguyen said:

Can i ask you a question? Yesterday, i was servicing a orient 46943 movement, at first the amplitude was at 260 but after cleaning and lubrication, it dropped to 220, even 180 when I changed position. All parts are in good condition with no damage (i have checked very carefull). I have no idea where is the problem.

Sure you can . Can be a number of things. Dirty balance jewels on one side. But if you clean it it should be okay. Can also be that hairspring touching the bridge or balance wheel . Or center wheel . Often see amp dropping a little after service. No big deal as once the oils have settled it usually picks up speed . Make sure you don't overoil. If it drops on one side i would check the balance jewels again. Make sure you have turned the endstone right and it's cleaned . 

 

[EatPeach]

18 hours ago, rogart63 said:

Seiko has usually a low amplitude. So don't oil them. If you do the amplitude will be even lower. 

Yeah Agree. Just wanna know the purpose of the guidence. Why Seiko recommend watchmakers to oil it? This is what puzzles me. BTW I think the things with 7 series is that the MS is soft so the amplitude is lower than swiss movements. But I've seen some 7 series clone, they use a stronger MS so the amplitude is around 280~320. I've one such MS and will try it on a scrap 7s26 and see how things work

[nickelsilver]

Just asked my Japanese watchmaker friend. He said the old style of lubrication there was to lightly oil the pallet pivots, the reason being better isochronal rate and more stable over time between servicing, with a sacrifice in amplitude. The current thought is not oil. His personal approach is no oil on the pivots. As is mine, and the Swiss industry's.

[TrungNguyen]

21 minutes ago, rogart63 said:

Sure you can . Can be a number of things. Dirty balance jewels on one side. But if you clean it it should be okay. Can also be that hairspring touching the bridge or balance wheel . Or center wheel . Often see amp dropping a little after service. No big deal as once the oils have settled it usually picks up speed . Make sure you don't overoil. If it drops on one side i would check the balance jewels again. Make sure you have turned the endstone right and it's cleaned

thank you for your answer, it helped a lot but all of the above issues I have checked carefully, I have disassembled and cleaned a few more times but still not increase the amplitude and the error is still very a lot of. I think it was the manufacturer's fault (only 50% suspected)

[EatPeach]

2 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

Just asked my Japanese watchmaker friend. He said the old style of lubrication there was to lightly oil the pallet pivots, the reason being better isochronal rate and more stable over time between servicing, with a sacrifice in amplitude. The current thought is not oil. His personal approach is no oil on the pivots. As is mine, and the Swiss industry's.

Make sense！Thank you 

[EatPeach]

52 minutes ago, TrungNguyen said:

thank you for your answer, it helped a lot but all of the above issues I have checked carefully, I have disassembled and cleaned a few more times but still not increase the amplitude and the error is still very a lot of. I think it was the manufacturer's fault (only 50% suspected)

Did you check the MS, can you fully wind it? And sometime the end shake of the center wheel might cause some problem. 

[JohnR725]

6 hours ago, TrungNguyen said:

Can i ask you a question? Yesterday, i was servicing a orient 46943 movement,

you can ask questions not a problem always best if you start a new discussion unless of course your problem is related to oiling the pallet fork pivots. this is because the only people will see this particular discussion are ones that looking at the specific title so if you change to some other subject other people who can help you may not see this discussion.

6 hours ago, TrungNguyen said:

at first the amplitude was at 260 but after cleaning and lubrication, it dropped to 220, even 180 when I changed position

so little more background would be nice?so it appears to be you started with a running watch with 260° amplitude? You then service the watch and it's not doing the same as before correct? It helps the narrow down problems if we understand what's changed from it was running great until now it's not an obviously cleaning it lots of times isn't helping. What kind of lubrication's are you using and how are you timing the watch what sort of timing procedure are you following?

 

[Nucejoe]

Perfect time to ask Master @Nickelsilver my question. Other than a basic definition, I understand little of isochronism. I am all ears. TIA

[JohnR725]

6 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

reason being better isochronal rate and more stable over time between servicing

somewhere in time I saw a reference that it made the printout look better on a paper tape machine.

In real life if the amplitude would just stay consistent it doesn't matter if it's low. so they sacrifice high amplitude in the hopes of getting consistency and reasonable time keeping. Reasonable is not considered a chronometer if you've ever looked at their tech sheets where it lists out what the timekeeping is supposed to be. But obviously it's good enough that they sell millions of watches.

[Nucejoe]

Was it lenin who said, we( the soviets) will hang the west with the rope we buy from them. Well he couldn't. Seems to me japs have done this with swiss horology, they bought every swiss company that closed down in the eve of quartz( citizen is now worlds largest watch company) and seiko sells fat watches to swiss in millions. Well shoot me, but I adore the elegance and worksmanship that go into every piece of audemars piguet, you know you are wearing a jewel, not a hunk of SS called seiko.

[nickelsilver]

14 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Perfect time to ask Master @Nickelsilver my question. Other than a basic definition, I understand little of isochronism. I am all ears. TIA

It means the same timekeeping at high and low amplitude (and in between). There are many many factors that come into play; how well the escapement is adjusted, how well the hairspring is adjusted, if it has an overcoil, if it is free sprung, what type of hairspring collet it used, the alloy of the hairspring/ alloy of balance, the size and finishing of the balance pivots. Ideally a watch will have the same or almost same rate in all positions at full wind and after 24 hours of running. On a flat hairspring watch, with everything already optimized, the main adjustment point is the gap between the regulator pins. On an overcoil watch, everything optimized, the regulator pins can be manipulated but in some cases to get it really good the overcoil is adjusted. Very basically, to make it gain at lower amplitude the overcoil is adjusted closer to the balance center. To make it lose it is adjusted further away.

[jdm]

1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

 Seems to me japs have done this with swiss horology, they bought every swiss company that closed down in the eve of quartz( citizen is now worlds largest watch company) and seiko sells fat watches to swiss in millions.

I am not sure what are you talking about. Japanese never bought largely in the Swiss industry. Just recently some Chinese and other Asians bought dead brands, and one smaller Swiss movt manufacture. If you want to learn how things are evolving have a read to the below and other articles from the same magazine

https://www.europastar.com/watch-knowledge/1004087450-mechanical-who-will-succeed-eta.html

1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

, not a hunk of SS called seiko.

Again I am afraid that you have ignorance fueling prejudice. Seiko makes large SS watches because that's what the market demands, last time I checked that is the same other brands are also making. Then if you care about learning one thing or three about Japanese manufacture I suggest that you have a read about past and present Grand Seiko offering, and the long gone time when they were giving the Swiss an hard time at the Chronograph competition using a flat hairspring, before the nice hosts of the venue changed the rules to avoid further loss of face.

[Nucejoe]

I do have a grand seiko, a spring drive, that is as proud as seiko ever got, it simply lacks elegance, glory,its heavy, looks nothing like a jewel. some who have a only a couple of hundered box to pay, wouldn,t even think of getting an IWC so they just settle for a Seiko. g Gosh, are you saying seiko can measure up to a jaeger Lecoultre, in any way, shape, manner. I wouldn't trade just the paint on dial of JLC for a brand new Seiko. Haven't seen a rich man wear a Seiko, have you?

[EatPeach]

8 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

I do have a grand seiko, a spring drive, that is as proud as seiko ever got, it simply lacks elegance, glory,its heavy, looks nothing like a jewel. some who have a only a couple of hundered box to pay, wouldn,t even think of getting an IWC so they just settle for a Seiko. g Gosh, are you saying seiko can measure up to a jaeger Lecoultre, in any way, shape, manner. I wouldn't trade just the paint on dial of JLC for a brand new Seiko. Haven't seen a rich man wear a Seiko, have you?

I think after all this is a watch repair forum not a watch appreciation forum. So if any watchmaker like their craftmanship and so be it. BTW I wouldnt agree that a justification of watch brand depends on how many rich men wear it. 

[meanoldmanning]

I was curious about Seiko oiling the pivots at the factory, and since I hadn’t really paid attention when disassembling a mov’t from this series I figured I’d go ahead and pull off the balance assembly and pallet fork from an unused 4R36 and see what was going on. Sure enough it appeared to have been oiled at the factory.

Here’s how it was running beforehand

Dial up, hour off ‘full’ wind



Dial up 12 hours off ‘full’ wind




Dial up 24 hours off ‘full’ wind




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[EatPeach]

6 minutes ago, meanoldmanning said:

I was curious about Seiko oiling the pivots at the factory, and since I hadn’t really paid attention when disassembling a mov’t from this series I figured I’d go ahead and pull off the balance assembly and pallet fork from an unused 4R36 and see what was going on. Sure enough it appeared to have been oiled at the factory.

Here’s how it was running beforehand

Dial up, hour off ‘full’ wind



Dial up 12 hours off ‘full’ wind




Dial up 24 hours off ‘full’ wind




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

did you test the positional error? There's reply said that oiling the pallet fork pivots is aimming to achieve a better time-keeping in different position while sacrificing the amplitude.

[meanoldmanning]

Not vertical. I kind of spaced out on that and regret it. DU and DD were nearly identical which isn’t surprising. I did simply put everything back together though, and while it’s not ideal I’ll go ahead and run it again and compare the results.

Curiously, on a slightly different point, the oiling across the pallet faces seemed kind of light to me. There was an obvious line of oil but kind of faint


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, meanoldmanning said:

Curiously, on a slightly different point, the oiling across the pallet faces seemed kind of light to me. There was an obvious line of oil but kind of faint

one of the things important to remember here is amplitude isn't entirely the most important thing if it would just remain consistent for 24 hours.  lot of the watch companies that do publisher timing specifications typically don't worry about amplitude except at the end of 24 hours. 

then pallet fork lubrication if they're using 9415 there is a concern that a little is good too much is bad. So too much will cost you amplitude. So if you look at the attached document starting at page 13 you'll see a procedure. So the trying to go minimalistic to avoid problems..

then you really need to do some of the pendant/crown positions because resting on the pivot is absolutely ideal for timing. You're always going to lose amplitude in the pendant/crown positions and you still want to be above a certain  amount. But that does depend upon the watch especially if you look at Omega's specifications.

cousinsuk.com Omega 8645_WI_40_rules for lubrication-4.pdf

[rodabod]

On 5/10/2020 at 3:33 PM, nickelsilver said:

Just asked my Japanese watchmaker friend. He said the old style of lubrication there was to lightly oil the pallet pivots, the reason being better isochronal rate and more stable over time between servicing, with a sacrifice in amplitude. The current thought is not oil. His personal approach is no oil on the pivots. As is mine, and the Swiss industry's.

Very interesting. Do you happen to know the true reason why they tend to run with relatively lower amplitude? Is it perhaps to avoid premature wear by running with less torque in the train?

It is obviously easier in many ways with watches which run with greater torque in the train. I recently found an untouched Smiths 12.15 from the late 40's which I believe had never been worn. Oiled it and set it running before cleaning to find it was banging out over 300 degrees and running excellently.

[JohnR725]

34 minutes ago, rodabod said:

Do you happen to know the true reason why they tend to run with relatively lower amplitude?

as I was reading your response I had an idea? Lower amplitude could mean weaker mainspring. Weaker mainspring would be easier for the automatic mechanism to wind up. Then in real life Lori amplitude doesn't matter as long as it stays relatively consistent throughout the 24 hours. So in other words at the end of 24 hours you're still above 200° it doesn't really matter if it's consistent.