What’s on your watchmaker's bench today?

eBay parts I ordered before I got @ErichKeane 's project watch ...

these were advertised as 550 parts. Most are actually 33x parts. I suspect the bridge marked 24 jewels and the set spring are from a 563. The forks and bridges are from the old collection -- these were out as I was trying to see if I had a set of 33x/34x wheels or 55x wheels. They are 33x subseconds wheels. This gives me another set of tick tock parts for one of the 342 plates.

Balance hairsprings remain in short supply. For some reason I am missing a bunch of 33x barrel arbors. Barel cover seems to be from 33x.

Of all the parts though the 55x rotor gib is the most useful, as for some reason I am short rotor gibs and these tend to list for the price I paid for this set.

The 33x pawel bearing bridge is the best bonus, as I managed to lose and still have not found the missing pawel screw. I had ordered the 350 winding ratchet wheel to replace the rusted one. What I lost the first screw from.

Screws are a mix of 55x and 33x. Always interesting how one finds up with extra screws that never seem to fit anything.

With What I got from Erich and these parts I probably have enough for 4 movements sans hairsprings. Ignoring that these are missing the lower rotor jewels.

should figure out the tool for dissembling the 55x 1464 winding wheel set. These came disassembled. I have one from the rust rat what is frozen solid even after a week soaking in siliKroil. These are not much use as the little nanoscopic star wheels were not included. The big winding wheel is also a nice bonus. The one on the rust rat has a huge chunk missing that turned to dust. Curious how, looking for those parts lead to finding this massive hoard of 33x parts. Why is it we can never find what we are looking for, but always seem to find other lost stuff?

Only one of the 7 35x canon pinions is in frame. Learned that 34x cannon pinions are slightly smaller so they are not interchangeable, even though both are drilled through. The 7 are also of different heights. So like 55x base calibers 33x also have different height dials.

Sorted yesterdays parts and assembled what I can into movements ...

Looks like there may be five with wheel trains. No hairsprings, and a few need lower rotor jewels. Waiting for the other good balance. Goat watch in the 2577 case is not keeping time. Probably tear that down again and use one of the plates with the case pin in it. I could make a case pin. -- but I never do. Nor do I take the time to trim and grind the winding stems down.

Banished from the bench for the time being is the 55x base caliber 360 degree rotor movements.


The extra screws went into a few where there was only a single screw holding a plate. Over the 18 moths or so I have been accumulating 55x and 56x bits. So I found where I got the same part three times or so. Looks like I may have 4 complete rotor sets, and bits for several others. There was a time where I only had one working auto wind rotor set.

Too much happiness here.

Today's bench: Annick branded Landeron 151. Arrived as a 'just stopped working'.

A LITTLE different from the Landeron 51 from my Esembl-o-Graf book, but I took photos 😀

Pulling apart I ran into 3 problems;
1- Cracked/crazed crystal. I have a new one on the way.
2- The hour wheel and cannon pinion were 'stuck' together. I couldn't get the hour wheel moved at all. It took a couple of taps on the staking set, but it came apart.
3- The balance will move on its own, but only a few degrees at a time. Hopefully the pivots are just filthy, so I'll give that a shot 😀

Today's oopsie.

Offered this one to a coworker today but timegrapher was ugly(2 ms beat error plus a bit of a mis read every handful of ticks). I had worked on it in the past and decided it was good enough.

BUT figured I should see if I could get it better. I took the back off, then tried to get the auto works off just to realize when I heard a wirrr that it was the movement bridge screws I pulled.

Watchmaker side assembly went perfectly and the newly cleaned pallet and balance got it basically perfect, and regulation got it to 0.1 ms, 270 amp, etc.

I put the back on and went to do my function check and saw this.

Dial was bad anyway, but replacements aren't really worth it. So this wonderfly working 503 goes to the parts drawer 🙁

I share your grief! When I serviced my Hamilton 992 several days ago, a pallet stone shifted out of place with the watch fully wound. First time that I have seen “sparks” issuing forth from a watch as the train ran down. I shellacked the pallet stone back in place and put the watch back together. It ran fine, but gained 7 seconds every minute once it was running again! Anyone care to guess what I discovered when I pulled the balance out, and manipulated the anchor?

No takers guessing the cause of my Hamilton 992 to run okay, but pick up 7 seconds in every minute? The cause did not involve the balance wheel screws or the hairspring. The pallet stones were properly depthed.

Did a piece of the old shellack get stuck in the hairspring?

No. Neither the balance wheel, balance wheel screws, nor hairspring caused such an enormous gain. The pallet stones were properly depthed. In all my years of pursuing this craft, I have never run into such a situation!

You’re guessing, right? Not a paper clip! I considered several conditions that might cause that much gain. I dismissed them one by one. Then I wondered if it could be………………! It was!

🍿

Dial furnaturei index?

Okay everyone. As the escape wheel spun, one tooth broke out of the wheel! I discovered that a watch that had a tooth missing out of the escape wheel will still run! This one gained 7 seconds every minute.

Sounds like it should just move to Alabama and embrace its grill 😂