Reply To: 16 Elgin blues…

[tmac1956]

All:

I took everything apart and checked the jewels and pivots for the gear train under 15x magnification. Everything looks good. Following David’s advice, I assembled the train without the mainspring barrel and the pallet fork, and it spins just fine – very smooth. However, when I put the pallet fork in it locks. Now, I can adjust the banking pins wide open on the out positions and it will (sometimes) spin, but when it stops, you have to giggle the train to get it going again. Based upon the process off elimination, the problem appears to lie in the pivot fork. There’s less than 5 degrees of side shake with the pivot setting in the bottom jewel and when the fork cock is in place the pivot fork moves smoothly without much slop in either axis.

It seems to me that it might be the interface between the escape wheel and the pivot fork jewels. I replaced three of those and none of them made a difference.
I have also installed three different escape wheel – no difference.

Any thoughts? There’s obviously something going on that I just don’t understand. I know it’s all part of the learning process and I thanks everyone hear for babying me through this.

Thanks!
Tom