Another bound-up train…

[willofiam]

Hey Tom, one more question, maybe…… when you first ran the watch after cleaning and oiling, were the banking pins still too close? if so try putting it back together with the pins out and see how it runs. I am thinking 🙄 that grinding your pallets down is possibly not necessary and a last resort. There are other adjustments and I think Bob asking for the new pictures will help determine course of action.

tmac1956 wrote:

All: I think the last person to put in these pallet stones wanted to make sure that they didn’t come out.

[attachment=0:2gadljwe]Fork 2.jpg[/attachment:2gadljwe]
To me Tom, and I may be wrong, this looks proper if the shellac is on the underside. some other opinions would be nice.
William

[tmac1956]

William:

I adjusted the banking pins all the way out and I could run the thing by moving one of the gears. However, I understand now that to be incorrect. However, I will certainly take some more pics with them adjusted that way.

Thanks for your help!
Tom

[willofiam]

Tom, What I mean is with the mainspring and balance installed also.

[Bob Tascione]

Hi Tom,
Yes if possible a couple of pics similar to the second pic you posted at the beginning of your thread. What I would like to see is the tooth resting against a pallet (lock) when the lever is resting against the banking pin. So a couple like the second pic and a couple of pics zoomed into pallet locking. If no lock is possible on one side then bring the tooth as close as possible to the pallet stone. As William said, This will help determine the best course of action.

Thanks,
Bob

[david pierce]

Tom,
There is a good video covering the shellacking process on the Watch Repair Channel. In this case he is replacing a roller jewel but he does a good job showing how to step through the process and pitfalls of heating and applying shellac to a watch part.
david

[tmac1956]

@willofiam wrote:

Tom, What I mean is with the mainspring and balance installed also.

William:

I tried running it with the banking pins adjusted out (in and about half way between the two) with the balance and mainspring installed. After a winding it would run but I had to give the balance a spin – however it would stop after a few rotations.

I hope I am understanding you correctly.

Thanks again!
Tom

[willofiam]

Hey Tom, sorry, I was miss understanding you. one thing I thought about was when you said you had to “push” the mainspring arbor in. Did you take care of that also? could be hindering the power your getting to the escapement. but then I think you said it was running down without the escapement in, if it is and then backing up a bit at the end of the stored power you should be o.k. there.

Another thing could be that it is way out of beat.

Tom, it is kind of difficult to give the right advice without the watch in hand, and I know you can get all kinds of ideas thrown at yah….I would just suggest going thru those simple kind of adjustments making sure any major adjusting is the real problem, I dont want to see you buying stuff and spending tons of time making major adjustments just to find out that it wasnt the real issue, (but hey….how else can we justify getting more tools 😆 ) William

[tmac1956]

All:

Here are the images that you requested. DISCLAIMER: In order to get clear images I had to removed the plates and pallet fork cock, which causes it to be prone to move – especially when I relocated the movement from the camera to the microscope.

Pallet fork on left banking pin (as viewed from above):

Continued…

[tmac1956]

continued:

Pallet fork on right banking pin:

Ok.. I realized that the close up shots weren’t even close to the stone to escape teeth relationships in the photo, so obviously the thing moved more than I thought. I just deleted those photos.

Thanks!
Tom

[tmac1956]

@willofiam wrote:

Hey Tom, sorry, I was miss understanding you. one thing I thought about was when you said you had to “push” the mainspring arbor in. Did you take care of that also? could be hindering the power your getting to the escapement. but then I think you said it was running down without the escapement in, if it is and then backing up a bit at the end of the stored power you should be o.k. there.

William:

I mic’d the mainspring arbor that bears on the bottom plate, and selected a reamer from my Seitz set that was about +-.004″ larger than the arbor. I reamed the hole in the plate out and the mainspring barrel now spins freely with pretty good side shake. It’s one of the easiest adjustments I’ve made of late. I don’t know but I suspect that the arbor isn’t original to the watch. These $30.00 “fixer-uppers” are usually in crappy shape and have been raped by others, then tinkered together for sale on eBay. However, they are a challenge and if I can get a handle some of the finer points, I should be able to fix just about anything that comes my way. But hey… I can’t even work on my car so what makes me think I can fix a mechanical watch.

Honestly, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to babysit my butt on this stuff. I don’t know how but perhaps one day I’ll be able to return the favor. If not to you guys, then perhaps to someone else.

Later,
Tom

[willofiam]

@tmac1956 wrote:

perhaps one day I’ll be able to return the favor. If not to you guys, then perhaps to someone else.

Thats what its all about Tom

[willofiam]

@tmac1956 wrote:

However, they are a challenge and if I can get a handle some of the finer points, I should be able to fix just about anything that comes my way

Great way to think about it

[arutha]

I am reading each post as it comes through and learning a lot from it so Tom, don’t ever worry about repaying the help, you already are by asking the questions
I too keep buying the cheap watches and am thinking the same as you Tom, if I can fix these then normal stuff should be easy
Paul.

[Bob Tascione]

In order to get clear images I had to removed the plates and pallet fork cock, which causes it to be prone to move – especially when I relocated the movement from the camera to the microscope.

Hi Tom,
Yes I would imagine it’s difficult to keep the gears from flopping around or turning on you when you try to get a shot. From what I can tell it looks like the banking pins are turned all the way out for maximum lever travel. You might try putting the watch together now and take a few shots through the observation holes in the piller plate. You’ll be able to put some power to the train which will keep the escape wheel tooth locked against a pallet stone. By manually moving the lever over from one side to the other and taking a good close up shot of the lock we will be able to determine what to do next. It would be nice to see the drop too but I won’t put you through that…not yet at least
You’ll need to check this anyway to make the adjustments so figure it’s all part of the job!

Good luck,
Bob

[tmac1956]

Bob:

I popped the pivot off of a brand new staff that I had recently installed trying to adjust the banking pins. (I won’t do that again). However, I have another Elgin 16s with apparently the same issue that I was working on at the same time with which I can use to do the shots that you want. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait until I get another balance staff in to do the photos. Believe it or not, this is a common ailment in the cheap movements that I buy off of eBay. I’ll try to get to it this weekend and post them so we can take this to the next level.

Thanks!
Tom

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