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Gear Train Binding


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I have a watch in which the gear train worked fine when I first got it. After removing and reinstalling the cannon pinion, however, the gears no longer turned freely. Specifically, the center wheel and fourth wheel no longer turned independently but instead are bound up and turned as a one. In the photos, the center wheel is on bottom and the fourth wheel is on top. I suspect that when reinstalling the cannon pinion that the gear position shifted on the shaft. I therefore pulled the center wheel away from the bridge which allowed it to turn freely again, however, it binds up when the main bridge is installed.

Any idea what's going on here?

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Initially I ran it through the ultrasonic cleaner. When that didn't work, I soaked it in lighter fluid and then oiled it but still no success. Something is keeping the center wheel from freely rotating on the shaft, possibly dirt that the cleaning isn't getting.

Can the center wheel be removed from the shaft for further cleaning? If so, what is the procedure for removing it?

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1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

So I'm probably not answering your question because I'm confused with what I'm seeing. What is the item in the picture that I circled?

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Good question. At first, I thought it might have been a shadow as the photos are showing a funny colour, a sort of blue haze. I would also like to know what is the make and cal of the movement.

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The thing in the picture appears to be some type of collet. I've provided better photos below. It does not rotate and is attached to the end of the shaft. This end of the shaft goes through the main plate and the cannon pinion then attaches to it.

The caliber is an A. Schild 1430.

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So I actually know what it is sometimes I do questions rather than answers for learning purposes. Look at your secondhand is it missing of the tube that goes on the fourth wheel? A unfortunate problem that occurs to all of us is removing the hand the tube stays behind the hand comes off.

 

 

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I don't suppose you have a spare SWEEP SECOND WHEEL as we need to free that. So how to free things? So it be better if you put the assembly back on the main plate. It gives you the main plate to hold onto your less likely to break or bend anything.

So simplistic basically grabbed the tube pull it straight off. The problem is how to grab the tube. One way is with your hand Removers and it look like in the photo I had that you can see the end of the tube of the secondhand. This means you can bring your hand removing tool down there and hopefully just pull the tube Off.

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So I was able to remove the tube from the sweep second wheel shaft fairly easily. Once removed, I was able to disassemble the gear train and give it a thorough cleaning. However, reassembling it did not alleviate the binding.

I noticed that there are two round nubs near the end of the sweep second wheel shaft (first photo). When the main bridge is installed, it forces the center wheel (second photo) to lock onto these nubs, in fact I can hear it click when it does (third photo). At this point, the sweep second wheel and center wheel are binding.

Looking at the tube on the center wheel, it appears that it's designed to accept the two nubs so I don't understand why it's binding.

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OK, problem solved. It appears that when I removed the cannon pinion, I damaged the center wheel tube by elongating the opening. This  caused it to bind on the shaft of the sweep seconds wheel. I was able to make the opening round again by inserting the pointed leg from a pair of dividers into the opening. It no longer binds and the gear train now turns freely.

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