AS 1187 is there really a Santa Claus?

So I tried the Alum on a scrap movement I had. It worked!

With the pallet bridge removed I could read the caliber number which was AS 1187. I had stripped the rusted parts off the movement before using it as a test case. (Did not realize the dial feet screws were still in it.)

Encouraged by the success. I took some pegwood and cleaned up the movement whicl letting the Val-72 plate soak.
I thought I would see if I had a bridge in my box of spares since I had a pattern to match. I then noticed other movements had the same pattern. These had a distictive bridge. I was able to match a few more parts. I think the delbana I got recently may be a similar movement.

I then started cross referencing the movements on ranfft. Some of the parts look similar across the calibers. I have not done any best fit cross references yet. Looks like I have half a dozen or so of the 1187.

There were also some automatics and a few other AS calibers.

Seems most of these were raided for their balances. I have been wanting a movement for the Wakman dial. So I may have something else to play with. Would be something If I can get another watch out of boxes of random parts.

Really need an AI program to sort through the balances I have. Might have staffs somewhere. Hairsprings are probably the showstopper. I think the textbook relates more to the big pocket watch hairsprings. I still keep thinking there must be a way to come up with some sort of programmable micro electronic tool that can be used to manipulate the hairsprings. Some sort of micro-robot that grab parts on the spring without kacking the spring.





Note the Val 72 and 23 stuff is along the edges of the mat. I would rather be working on the fancy watches, but the old workhorses are probably safer to play with. Less heartache when parts go flying.

Another rabbit hole and this is a good one.

Maybe there is an interdimensional Santa Claus. The thing I was wanting most on Christmas morning was a new watch project as a box of parts. While I have been letting the Val-72 plate soak (the pallet bridge is out but one of the other broken screws is being stubborn.) I sorted through my box of junk movements.

The odds of finding a complete movement in the scrap bin of random parts are not good. There might be parts from 200 movements sorted into the boxes. So the best I would give might be 100 to 1 and that is being generous. At best one can find three or sometimes 5 of a given part. Nothing really matches until this week,

I found a Wakmann dial which fit the plate I have been using to test the Alum solutions and other chemicals. The one thing I figured I would not have is a balance. Years ago in a fit of whatever, I sorted many of the parts into trays. All of the balances got sorted into a tangle. More recently when looking for the Betlach stuff I sorted out those and the remainder to large and small.

Sorting though the smaller balances I found 1/2 a dozen candidates. Some might even have good pivots on the staff. Most of the hairsprings might be tangled. (They have been in the tray for over 20 some years) There is also the issue of incabloc vs flat balances. I think the over coil hairsprings are more likely to tangle. I have the book and I often state I would rather untangle a hair spring than list something on eBay. So now I have more to practice on. (careful what you wish for.)

Even more interesting Is I have this radioactive book of hands. There is a whole page which would be perfect for the Wakmann dial.

I am always seeing A.S. as in A. Schlid as that maker come first alphabetically. They must have made a billion watches and 100s of millions of the 1187/94 caliber. I have also been doing some cross references with the bestfit catalog. Looks like the balances and such may be interchangeable.

I think if there is such a thing as a generic watch part this is it.

Again be careful what you wish for. (on the other hand I may have to take the bench apart to find the Val-72 Hour recorder eccentric that flew off somewhere. I think I heard it hit the mirror. But that will be yet another thread unto itself. )

An update.

I was able to get one of the A Schild watches made from random parts ticking. Still waiting for the tweezers to work on the balance springs. Supposed to be here today. But tracking says they are in Florida, even though they came from Ohio via Detroit. Another thing I am expecting shipped from CA then went to FL and is expected on the 28th of January. There is something really weird with the Post office this month.

In the meantime while waiting, I decided to assemble what I could of the five movement plates that were in various states of assembly. I got two movements complete with one ticking. The other one will not tick. I think it is the hairspring which still has some deviation in it. Since I got the other rusted one (Upper right in the photograph) I wanted to clean the bench for other projects.

The wakmann (what the random parts movement will go into.) Is the 'Santa Clause' watch, because it was on the Christmas weekend I realized I had at least enough parts for one watch. (Like Santa left them there.) This was supposed to be a simple project.

Still seem to have quite a few extra parts. It is interesting what remains missing. Cap jewels and click springs. Not to mention palette and balance bridge screws. The one failing of this caliber is that there are so many cap jewels. The pivots will not stay in place without them. Three of the movements do not have incabloc. They are really old (So the dials probably are not from them. The other movement with incabloc, I do not have the lower jewel seat.

I lost one of the click spring last night. I have swept the floor at least once a week for the last few months. I still found three unrelated screws and several watch hand sets. I still can not account for why things appear from no where. I am attempting to keep what I can clean and organized as possible. (Have not found the Val-72 eccentric -- but that may entail disassembling the bench and the bookshelves behind it.)

At least with the watches assembled, the parts are mostly kept in place. Apart from those pesky missing bridge screws.

Also now that I know from yesterdays rusty watch that cases can be marked Hong Kong (even though the movements are swiss.) I may have other cases which will fit these movements. (and make them easier to store.)

Too bad the enicar dial and case do not fit this caliber. Seems like most of the 'cheap watch' spares are only sold on eBay from India. And there does not seem to be a way to exclude a single country from searches. I can NOT find this caliber in the US of A marked enicar, but no AR1140s listed in North America.

And it is cased and strapped.

I am impressed how It came out. The NOS hands look really good even if the sweep hand is not quite correct and the lume is more green which the photograph tends to enhance.

Pretty good for a collection of random part that have been in a drawer for decades. I still think Santa Claus hid the dial on Christmas as I did not realize I had all the parts to complete it til then, when I was looking online dreaming of getting a project watch for Christmas.

The main plate, Is the one I tested the Alum on as it had a broken pallet bridge. So was somewhat identical to the Val-72 stuck screw. I also ran some of the parts through the Evap-O-Rust.

Next will be to se what Evap-O-Rust does to the chronograph parts.

This is so inspiring.

"Show code"(this phrase comes from a comedic morning radio show we used to listen to where if you did something dumb, it was "show code" to tell everyone about it ... so here goes) -- I was putting together an old Waltham 7 jewel date that my local watchmaker gave me to practice on last night. Just finished getting the date ring on and I realized I didn't put the spring in there. So I pull off the date wheel, the retainer, AND THEN I FLIP IT OVER for some reason. Date gear and driver down. Found the gear after standing up after giving up on both of them. Maybe I'll find the driver later.

Updated: Found the drive wheel! It fell in a drawer. These tiny parts really have a way of finding a new, unexpected home rather quickly.

I keep a small tray for parts I find on the floor. (sometimes several trays in different parts of the room.) This is a mix of watch parts, camera parts, and electronic parts. Even clock parts.

Granted this is a six month to many years accumulation. Sometimes I do find something interesting in it. I separated out the chronograph parts, which also do not make sense when the part is accounted for in all the existing examples.

I have posted this before as 'sacrifices to the watch gods.' Where do these parts come from? why do I find unrelated parts when I sweep the floor at least once a week. Or daily when I am working on a watch?

Currently I am only aware of one missing part which I think went behind the bench. So why do I find screws that do not fit anything I am currently working on?

I can sort of understand hour wheels and dial washers. These fall out when I inspect things. Spring bridles shoot out when the mainspring unwound. Some of the camera parts make sense as well as I was scrapping APS cameras.

It must be contagious. Now I realize why the spring I'm trying to put back isn't fitting. It's because I just realized I'm missing the date jumper spring and a yoke spring makes a terrible replacement. I found this out after a random Google lens search on the date side brought me to a post about another version (fe 140) of the movement which lead me to finding the right one (fe 140-1) and a PDF of the diagram.

Fun fun.