Watchmakers are superheros. Or, at the very least, they possess super-human skills. After MANY (too many to count) hours working on this replacement balance for the 268. I thought I had everything in (nearly) perfect position. I was working with the hairspring off of the balance to make sure the collet was centered on the balance jewel when the stud was mounted in balance bridge. I was (and still am) pretty happy with the results. UNTIL I placed the hairspring back on the balance shaft. I didn't notice until then that the whole spring seemed to be too low (making contact with the balance wheel). So, I spent several more hours trying to adjust for that - and that's when I decided that watchmakers posses super-human skills. I think most of us already knew that - but I have a completely different level of appreciation for that now. Here's what it looks like mounted on the staff... As you can see I switched back to my trusty Olympus with a macro lens. I wish I could find something that would work well with an eyepiece camera. At this point I think it's very close to what it needs to be - but I am thinking that I'll turn it over to a real watchmaker to finish the job. As always - many thanks to @Archer, @ChrisN, @JimInOz, and all of those that take the time to post and so generously share their knowledge. -Paul
Probably my last post on this 1960 ref# 14713. I found a watchmaker (Blake @ ScotchWatch) to make the final tweaks to the hairspring. And she is running very well. The timegrapher traces are nice and clean and straight. The amplitude isn't fabulous - but acceptable and the positional variation is also quite acceptable. Again, here was the original trace... And now this is what it looks like... You can see that it's not adjusted and the beat error is still pretty high (*) - but, all-in-all, I am very happy to see this one running acceptably well again. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE - curious why I don't see two distinct traces with the beat error at 5.7 ms This doesn't make sense to me. Normally I can see two traces even with 0.1 or 0.2 ms. [anyone know what's going on here?] I took another look this morning - as I was writing this post - and found this... So - I see two traces as I would expect. But they are much closer together. Is it that the traces were so far apart in the previous photo - that they were on top of each other. And since the beat error is showing a 0.3 ms difference this morning - they are separated? That would make sense - because I would expect this much gap with a 0.3 ms beat error. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am planing to give it to my oldest brother next month - as it is a "birth-year" model for him. He turns 60 in April. Happily, the second hand cleaned up well enough to be retained. Though it certainly is showing a lot of "character". And the rest of the watch "cleaned up" pretty well also. I know many folks aren't in favor of such "cleaning" - but in this case, I don't think there was any harm. And for me - I would enjoy wearing this much more than if I had left all of the dirt and damage in place. If you look - you can see the lug at 4:30 is bent. It's much straighter here than when I started. But this was about as good as I could get it. I was afraid of deforming the case if I tried to straighten it any further. Not polished to a perfect finish - but major damage greatly reduced. again - not perfectly polished - but cosmetically improved (in my opinion). So grateful for all of the help from the Omega Forum community. You guys are awesome. I picked up a ladies vintage Omega with a cal. 244 movement (for my wife) which needs to be cleaned. I am going to pick up a couple of scrap 244 movements to practice on before I attempt hers. So, that's likely to be a future post. Hope all are well. -Paul