Reply To: Waltham rattle…

Great job zeroing in on the problem Tom and really good, clear description on how you moved through the check list!
I am a little confused on one part though. I’ll get to it in a second.
Yes it is possible that the hole in the jewel is too large or that the pivot is too small. Also possible that the jewel setting has been replaced with one a bit taller which might move the cap jewel out too far. How’s the end shake look? Things do sometimes get replaced with the wrong parts over the years. Other possibilities too like pivot broken off or ground down too short. Sometimes hard to tell.
When you say “The safety roller appears to be a replacement and looked to be seated squarely onto the balance cross arm/balance seat and seemed to be installed correctly. The safety jewel seems to be well secured and nicely perpendicular to the safety roller table”. I’m not quite sure what you mean. When you say safety roller are you referring to a double roller or the roller jewel? If a double roller is it possible that it isn’t an 1883 movement? What are you seeing that makes you feel that the roller might be a replacement? Is it the bottom part of a double roller (safety roller) that’s dragging or is it the roller jewel? If it’s a single roller and the jewel is hitting then the jewel may be too long or the table is sitting too low. I think as you suggested I would check that the roller is seated all the way up against the hub. If it’s not and it’s a double roller then it could drag on the foot. Also double rollers are located on a taper so if it’s sitting too low it can tilt off axis and may be dragging on a high point on the foot. Certainly worth checking. The 1883 uses two different staffs. One is the 1365 (small waist) and the other is the 1364 (large waist). The taper for the roller is slightly different. If your watch was replaced with the wrong staff then the roller may possibly be sitting a tad lower than it should be and could sit slightly off axis. George Townsends staff interchangeability list shows the major dia. of the small waist staff being .60mm tapering down to .53mm and the large waist staff as .59mm down to .57mm measured over same length…hence more taper on the small waist staff. When I measure the two staffs here I’m not getting that much variation between the two. It’s something to consider though.

Bob