Jump to content

Hello from the coast of Rhode Island


JoeM

Recommended Posts

I'm Joe and completely new to this possible hobby.  Nearing the end of my career as an executive in the business world and contemplating what I may like to do to fill my time.  I play guitar and sing in a rock band and have built my own amplifiers, done my own repairs, etc.  I also spent several years when I was in my early-20's tying flies and got pretty good at it.  Thus, I believe I have a reasonable mechanical aptitude and good fine motor skills :-)

My grandfather was an excellent mechanic and repaired clocks as a hobby - my grandparents had a house full of antique American clocks that he'd fixed up.

I've been buying a few odd watches here and there and now I'm reading "Watch Repair for Beginners: An Illustrated How-To Guide for the Beginner Watch Repairer" by Harold C. Kelly and watching service/repair videos on YouTube.

Getting ready to take the plunge and purchase a few of the basic tools needed to open and look inside the inexpensive watches I've got hanging around.  So I'll be looking for the topic concerning basic tools right away.

Glad to be here and looking forward to meeting all of you in the forum.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome Joe!

I'm reasonably local, in CT. A bit further down the rabbit hole than you, but sounds like we have similar backgrounds (I made custom guitars for a few years and have been playing Drums for over 40)

Feel free to reach out! This is a great community here. Very helpful!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • It looks like the canon pinion function is part of this great wheel. The pinion nearest the clip runs the minute wheel on the dual side. The pinion nearest the wheel is driven by a small wheel from under the setting lever cover plate that engages in hand setting position.    So when assembled the crown was driving the whole great train. Does this mean the pinions are too tight? Should I attempt to disassemble this great wheel and lubricants?
    • Picking up this side-tracked post again as I just removed a balance staff of a 1920's Omega (35,5L-T1) I was impressed by the way @Delgetti had his setup when he had to change out a balance-staff (https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/28854-new-balance-staff-not-riveting-to-balance/page/2/#comment-244054 Not only that, but also the idea of removing the seat first before punching the staff out from the seat-side, avoiding the whole discussion of the rivet yes/no enlarging the hole. I didn't have the fancy clamps & tools Delgetti has, so I used my screw-head polishing tool. Initially I used #1500 grit diamond paste on the steel wheel, which kinda worked, but very slow. I changed to #800 grit diamond paste, which worked better, but still slow. Then I glued #240 sanding paper to the steel disk; That worked and the disk was hand-driven. Once close to the balance wheel, I took the sanding paper off and continued with #800 diamond paste. One can only do this when the balance wheel sits true on the staff and has no "wobble". I went on grinding until I saw some diamond paste on the rim of the balance wheel. This was as far as I could grind and it seemed that there wasn't much left of the seat. Carefully, with my staking set, I knocked the staff from the seat-side out. Turns out that the thickness of the seat left, now a small ring, was only 0.1mm. The balance wheel hole is in perfect shape and no damage done to the wheel at all. Of course, if the wheel has a "wobble" or isn't seated true on the balance staff, you can't get as close and there will be more left of the seat. In my case, it worked perfect 🙂 I'm very happy how this method worked out ! 😊  
    • As is tradition, one step forward, two steps back. Got the board populated and soldered into place without any issues.   But no hum. So I started testing the coils with an ohmmeter. I got 5.84k ohms across D1 (from red to red in the picture below), which is as expected. But I'm getting an open circuit for the other drive coil and feedback coil, D2 and F1 (from green to each of the two yellows).   Since the movement was working with my breadboard setup, it implies I somehow broke the connection between the coils and the solder lugs. They're all the way at the bottom of the lugs, but maybe the heat migrated down and broke the connections? I guess it's possible it happened while cleaning the flux off, but I used a soft artist's brush and isopropyl alcohol. I did a lot of high magnification examination, and I don't see any issues, but let me know if you see anything I missed or if you can think of anything else I should check.
    • 1947 NOS Ambassador 'C'. Actually, the case came without the movement so the movement isn't NOS, but she sure is pretty.
    • Hi attached is the AS 20XX. Service sheet although there is no 2063 mentioned it may be of some use to you AS_AS 2060,1,2,6,4,6.pdf
×
×
  • Create New...