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Things I learnt the hard way


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I been at this for about a year and I learnt a lot of things the hard way. I don't see any thread about lessons learn the hard way so I'll start here.

  1. Tea leave holders are not good parts holders. The two halves don't clamp down hard enough and small parts will slip through.
  2. Hairsprings are hard.
  3. Mainsprings are fragile.
  4. Just because someone been in business for 40 years doesn't mean they can't mislead you about vintage watches. Do you homework and don't only take the seller's word.
  5. If you don't know what an expensive vintage watch supposed to look like, don't buy it. 
  6. You will not save money by buying a bunch of "cheap" watches.
  7. You can't (or shouldn't) oil a watch with a single oil and grease.
  8. Organizing a lot of parts is hard.
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LOL.

I'm with you on point 2 and a gree with you on point 4,5,6 and 7 too.

I've been far too many clocks and watches butchered by so called professional watch and clock repairers.

The best one just last week which had been at a high street shop andamongst all the otehr things wrong with it they tried to put it in poise by soldering lumps of copper to the bimetallic balance.......

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You said it. Well almost.

May I add section 9 and..

Don,t lean over work bench or the piece. Instead hold your head as if looking streight forward and hold the piece up. 

Have a CT scan of your neck taken and ask your physiotherapist for thorough neck examination.

Make sure you got the right and good quality tools.

 

Take pictures at each disassembly stage if working on unfamiliar piece. 

If ths piece is givng you a hard time, leave it alone till later.

Don,t lend your good tools.

Get a new H/S if the old one  reminds you of macaroni sauce.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Unfortunately I don't have any photos, that was only some of the damage that was done to the watch, the whole movement was a right off. They also lost the hairspring, lost the regulating leaver, broke the jewels on the balance bridge, cracked the glass, lost the winder and tried to bush 2 pivot holes on the bridges and just trashed the bridge.

But very kindly they told the owner there was no charge for the service...............

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    • I have always had it in my mind that hairsprings can fatigue in just the same way as mainsprings can. If a hairspring has gone through a rough process of repair then its structure will have changed ( bending any metal backwards and forwards will cause micro fractures and eventually breakage ) in those areas of heavy manipulation. Its strength and elasticity is no longer linear over its full length so no longer isochronical.  
    • This seems to be complicated case... We have many variables here and we need to exclude some of them to make some progress. We have plots that show amplitude variations, but we don't know if this variations are significant, as they can be 'amplified' or 'smoothed' by the software. So, some observation of the amplitude by eye will be of help. Then, if we really have not isochronical work, then the main reason for this would be the hairspring being not 'linear'. And not linear may be sometimes not only because 'touching', but because bad hairsping material structure. Some of the advanced watchmakers claim that repairing badly bent hairspring is useless, because this springs will never be isochronic again.  Well, my own observations are that such thing happens, but not in all the cases and it depends on the case if the result is acceptable or not. I will not suppose here that this spring has been repaired, but it has some strange behavior watching at it's work. It will be good if it is possible to test the movement with another balance or thest the balance on another movement...
    • The more common Jewel hole diameters are from about 0.07mm to 0.50mm. Those are the sizes in the Seitz jewel gauge tool.
    • Hello and welcome from Leeds, England. 
    • OK, several things to say here. The thought thay if with the old spring the movement works 16 hours, then replacing the spring will solve that - is totally wrong. With a new spring the movement probably will work for 17 hours. The power reserve is practically not reduced when the spring gets weak with the age. It is rather something wrong with the movement. As You worked on the hairspring, we need to  confirm that it is OK now before everything else. So, thake the lever out and do the free oscillations test. What is the result? I expect numbers, not only 'it is good' or 'it is not good'. Then, this is no jewels pin lever movement, so this is not unusual to have not well regulated or even worn escapement, this is the main reason that this kind of watches doesn't work as long and reliable as the jeweled escapement ones. You can find many of them with no wear at the crown and case, and this is because they stopped working normally pritty soon after purchase.
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