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You spend 2 hours assembling a vintage watch, carefully oil everything, drop in the balance and you can instantly see you have obviously missed something else not right.

I just did this, watch only has an amplitude of around 140 degrees. I replaced the mainspring so I know that is good, but obviously I am loosing power somewhere.

Time to stop tonight, have a whiskey and strip it back down tomorrow and look for what I missed

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Yes I have been there many many times, and the next day I seem to have the magic solution, everything goes perfect. Then I say to myself " You know this Always Happens so next time just leave it until tomorrow, everything will be OK" . However, I never listen to myself.:)

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26 minutes ago, TimFitz said:

Yes I have been there many many times, and the next day I seem to have the magic solution, everything goes perfect. Then I say to myself " You know this Always Happens so next time just leave it until tomorrow, everything will be OK" . However, I never listen to myself.:)

For me is the other way around. I finish the watch and it runs like a dream . Next morning i put it on the timegrapher it runs like sh.. .  But sometimes i am out of ideas i put it aside and usually i come up with something to test or fix when i do something else. 

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Did you check the train runs down freely without the pallet fork/balance installed? Worn barrel holes are usualy a prime suspect for some watches.

My most recent faux pas was not closing the barrel properly.. It was sticking up only a little but but enough to affect the amplitude.

Good luck

Anilv

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21 hours ago, Tmuir said:

You spend 2 hours assembling a vintage watch, carefully oil everything, drop in the balance and you can instantly see you have obviously missed something else not right.

I just did this, watch only has an amplitude of around 140 degrees. I replaced the mainspring so I know that is good, but obviously I am loosing power somewhere.

Time to stop tonight, have a whiskey and strip it back down tomorrow and look for what I missed

Story of my life...

At this point, I'm more surprised when it all goes back together perfectly and actually runs as it should :D

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On 7/31/2018 at 9:53 PM, Tmuir said:

You spend 2 hours assembling a vintage watch, carefully oil everything, drop in the balance and you can instantly see you have obviously missed something else not right.

It seems I have been defeated so many times already that I don't even care anymore :)

- Spent 5 hours making a new component, only to ruin it on the last operation? Just start over. The second time you can do it in 4 or 3 hours anyway. 

- Bent hairspring by catching it on center wheel again? Learn to be more careful and spend 2 hours spring-tweaking under the microscope. Even more fun if it's a ladies watch.

- Some part pings into oblivion? Scout for new one on ebay. I actually force myself to purchase a new (old) part as a form of self-punishment, even if the watch is not worth the expense (unless extreme, hehe). 

One part of learning watchmaking is to stay calm in the face of soul-crushing defeat. :)

A few days ago I assembled and cased an ETA 2824 in a miserable front-remove case. The watch ran great on the timing machine without the automatic module installed. I installed the module, closed the back and wore it for testing -- and it stopped after just a few minutes. I haven't quite figured out what's wrong, but if the ratchet driver wheel of the automatic module exerts pressure on the ratchet wheel, the wheel train loses power somewhere. Most likely there's something wrong with the barrel, or the intermediate wheel. So, start from scratch!

Cheers!

     Rob

 

 

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    • Hello everybody, sorry for the late reply. Thank you all so much for your help and your tips. I got lucky and found a replacement wheel bridge for cheap which actually ended up being in decent condition. I decided not to do anything about the mainspring barrel pivot since I didn't have the right tools and the barrel didn't have much endshake anyhow. I am happy to report that the watch now runs great, I have regulated it to about +-10/s day which is fine by my standards. The timegrapher result looks decent as well, although beat error is around 0.6ms which could be better I suppose. Amplitude reaches over 230 quite consistently which I'm happy with also. My lighter fluid has also been replaced by balance spring cleaning solution and now the springs don't stick to themselves anymore - who would have thought. I'm super happy with this watch, it might not be worth a whole lot but it's awesome that I could restore it and it makes me wear it with pride. To me it's a genuinely good lucking watch, it'll be my daily driver for a while. Thanks again to everybody for their input! I couldn't have done the repair without your help.   Here are some images for those interested, the bracelet isn't original but I don't really mind:    
    • Balance-hairspring system is oscillator with big Q-factor. When all in the movement is OK, the rate (frequency) is verry close to the own resonant frequency of the balance-hairspring. But in some cases, the movement (with foult) will force the resonator to work on pritty different frequency, sometimes faster, and sometimes slower. When this happens, the amplitude is always weak. So, the first thing to ask is what is the amplitude. If it is more than 180 and the hairspring doesn't touch itself and anything else, then for sure it is 'short'. If the amplitude is weak, then the first thing to do is to understand why and rectify the problem. At this time no point to check timekeeping. But, if one doubts that the hairspring is not correct, then He needs to calcullate the rate of the movement, then to 'vibrate' the balance-hairspring out of the movement and to measure the free oscillations frequency (period) with timer in order to ensure that they comply with the rate. If we have pictures, then it will be easier to tell something about that wheel.
    • So much work has gone into this! Thanks again @Jon. I will go back and check my adjustments from last weekend. A few questions for you, if you don't mind. In the reset position, I can understand the problem if the gap between the hammer and the minute counter heart is too big (slide 77) but what is bad about both hammers being in contact with the cams (slide 76)? I read somewhere that Landeron recommended grease on the runner cam, but the minute counter heart should be dry. Is that so, and why? How many tads in a ligne?
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