greeting from a newbie plus two questions

[pocketwatchbro]

Hello everyone! I am new to watch repair, just started watching Bob’s videos and found he’s showing much more useful information than i could ever gotten from any websites… surprised me a lot that i learned about watch repair from others’ instruction were actually WRONG…! Starting to appreciate Bob so much because i realized already for a fact that i won’t be sending more of my precious pocket watches for POINTLESS SERVICES when they are not gonna make any better… and here are my first two questions, is using coleman fuel any good for cleaning a watch? if not, what should be the proper solvant to use? Also, i was curious what would cause the tilting of a balance wheel? I sent my Hamilton 940 to a watchmaker for service and i noticed the balance is tilting when swinging, so i made a stupid dicision to just take the balance wheel off the plate when the watch was running, and found a little piece of tinfoil underneath the balance cock, i though that was what caused the tilting of the balance wheel so i removed that piece of tinfoil and simply put the balance cock back onto the plate, afterward the balance would still swing freely but only when facing down, when i have the watch in different positions(i.e. face up, crown up), the balance would run either much slower or completely stops. Please help! I’m having thousands of questions but i think i should really take em’ step by step… my sincere appreciation to whoever willing to help with my confusion… Thanks!

(Haven’t figure out how to attach a loupe to the camera, sorry for not being able to attach a pic)

Yuxiang

[oldmantime]

Hello Yuxlang,
I have used Naptha ****Coleman fuel **** for many years. When I began this is all that I had on hand and used it for both cleaning and rinse and it worked real well. I still use it in jars to soak parts as needed but have switched over to L&R solutions in my machines now. There are other solutions available.
Here are links to a discussion we had here on the forum that might help you.
https://clockrepairtips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1802
My post to discussion https://clockrepairtips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1802&p=14687#p14687

You will find many time that balance cocks are shimmed with paper and other materials. This is not a proper repair and is used by some watchmakers to adjust for balance cocks that have been bent down slightly or for balance staffs that have been replaced that are to long.
if you balances staff or a jewel is not broken then the balance tilt you have might be result of the bent balance cock not maintaining vertical alignment.

The best to you,
Peter

[pocketwatchbro]

Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for your explanation! I wonder if there’s any way to fix a bent balance cock, would replacement of a longer balance staff solve the issue of tilting balance? Also for manually cleaning the parts with coleman fuel, how long would you let the parts sit in the fuel? And is there any part of the watch that i’m not supposed to soak into the fuel?
Again, thank you so much Peter!
Kurt(Yuxiang)

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