Illinoise Lincoln balance slows when plates are face up

[nic422]

Anyone here know where I can find an Illinois size 13 hair spring, or, anyone here know how to true a hairspring and would be willing to look at this for me, and time it?

I’ve studied the Chicago watch school hair spring truing section and gave it a shot, but to no avail it is now much worse 😆

😥

This movement balance assembly has been a pain in my ………

[david pierce]

Nic,
If I was confronted with the same watch timing issues I would pull the balance wheel out of the watch and check the oscilation rate. This is the heart of the timing process and If it is wrong it needs to be corrected before going any further. A couple of years ago another forum member (Watchdog or something like that) had a similar problem. It turned out that someone put in a replacement balance wheel that was the wrong diameter for that particular watch. When he put the proper size balance wheel in the watch it solved the problem. This may not be the case with your watch but you need to know what the balance wheel is actually doing and work from there. It will at least rule that out as a cause.
david

[nic422]

Thanks David, I would love to do that, but the current hair spring is all out of true (looks true, but rubs in places I can’t see therefore stopping the movement). Once I have the hairspring, I could go back to the other wheel with the current staff (or new one). That’s why I was wondering if anyone can true a hairspring,or can help me find the right part.

[chris mabbott]

Nic,

Sounds like you have a total mess going on buddy..

Your only solutions are these

1. Completely rebuild THE ORIGINAL balance wheel. Find the correct part OR find an identical OLD movement and use that balance. PLEASE don’t chop shop a good movement.

2. Once the roller/hairspring have been removed, you will have to rebalance the balance wheel.
This means dynamically balancing using the various weighted screws/washers
Until it is in perfect poise.

3. Install the roller table and again, you’ll have to either remove or add weight to bring it into poise with the roller and jewel..

4. Purchase a NOS blued hairspring, or possibly 3, depending on what type of HS configuration it is. In case you mess one up.

5. you will have to form the inner coil & attach the collet.

6. Attach the uncut HS to the poised balance wheel.
Find a good movement to use for setting the beat. Make yourself a jig to hold the HS, you can find info online.
Then set the beat to the good movement..

This is the basic guideline and doesn’t include setting the meantime screws or making fine adjustments.

This is a time consuming and not easy job, you’ll have a difficult time finding someone to restore it, at least for free haha. A correct re setting/repair of a balance wheel could cost you at least $300 in parts and labor as you’re looking at… At least 4-6 hours of very detailed work and testing. 4-6 hours is a low low estimate, as is $300, unless the repairer is proficient at this job, as in specialized and doing these all the time, it would take longer.

I think you can use this one as a learning watch, put it in a container and move on to the next watch.
I understand your determination but, take it from me, that continued head banging on this one will only cause frustration and discouragement. Leave it until you find the parts. You haven’t lost the war. Just one battle LOL

Also, for something like this, it’s helps us to help you if we can see what is going on… Post photos please.

[bernie weishapl]

Thanks Chris. That is some good info. I have a basket (granddad used a different word for these that started with a b…..d case) case. 😆 I know for starts that the staff is the wrong one but not sure about the rest yet. I just bought a identical watch of the bay which says the staff is good so that may give me some clues along with my elgin manual.

[nic422]

Chris, I want to applaud you on your commitment here. You have given me the motivation I needed in order to commit myself to the work needed on this project. The facts you gave me made me realize the amount of time I would put into it would have probably been just a little longer than sending it to someone. You caused me to man up. From now on I will refer to you as “Coach” 😆

Teacher Bob, I would really appreciate having that “timing without needing a timing machine” tutorial as well. If you don’t post it here, it would be great to have it somewhere!

Anyway, all the talk here from you Bob and David about the balance wheel being weighted differently per movement with screw arrangement etc, being specific to weight and timing made me realize, I had used the Autocrat movement balance wheel on the Lincoln (due to the working staff on the assembly), thinking the were the same spec because they were the same size 13 made in the same factory, and likely with the same tooling. However, I finally realized after the last couple of posts from you both, I was probably wrong and that was what was causing the 50 minutes a day too slow problem. I had no idea before this thread. Now I remember, before when I had that problem, it was because the hairspring was not secure between the pins (like you said earlier as well Bob).

To recap, the autocrat was a spare ‘non-working’ movement I bought on the bay to fix and replace some parts on another autocrat I could not buy elsewhere, so @Chris Mabbott wrote:

PLEASE don’t chop shop a good movement.

don’t worry Chris I didn’t.

Yesterday, I took the balance out of the autocrat balance assembly (was a pain on this model because the balance arm itself it tucked between the curved part of the staff (which is shaped and hardened that way, not staked), and a normal cut into the staff would not get it out). I ended up bending both the assemblies a little, but was able to flatten them in my staking set. I replaced the staff from the autocrat onto the original assembly for the lincoln. Then I massaged the original lincoln hairpring back into shape. Eventually I got it there. I put it all together and now it is keeping time within a minute per 24 hours

I am a bit relieved.

Thanks everyone for your comments and motivational speaking ❗

[chris mabbott]

That’s great Nic, but you know what the really amazing thing is??

That I composed the previous post on the god awful iPhone keypad and I only counted a couple of grammatical errors 😆

[david pierce]

Nic,
Had you simply pulled the old part out of the watch, replaced it with a new part and the watch worked perfectly, you would have learned very little. The type of problem you had and learned from is one of the most important teachers that one can have when learning how watches work and how to repair them. There are some concepts in physics and mathematics that explain what happened to your watch such as: moment of inertia, radius of gyration, angular velocity and so on; but these are outside the scope of normal watch repair and there are other ways to look at and correct these timing issues.
A timing machine can be a tremendous asset in nailing down these types of problems and can be purchased new for less than $200.00 off of Ebay. Bernie, Bob and some of the other members (not me) have been repairing watches longer than most people have been alive, and know how to deal with these issues without a timing machine. I assure you however that both of them own timing machines and use them. I own one of the $200.00 machines and am very happy with it. A few months ago Bernie posted a machine he owns that can do a few things my machine can’t. The same company that made Bernie’s unit offers a machine and some accessories that will do balance wheel vibrating. I plan to get one down the road after I pay off some bills accrued from buying watch tools. Good job.
david

[bernie weishapl]

Nic great job and learning process. I went thru a simalar process many years ago with a 16s 15j thinking I could change a complete balance from one 16s to another. So no you are not the only one that has been thru this but like David said you learned a invaluable lesson. You can’t find that in the books.

[nic422]

Thanks David and Bernie,

Btw, what is balance wheel vibrating?

another mystery to me is,

For whoever reads this, what is your preferred method of straightening and truing a balance wheel and arm (bent out of shape from removing a stubborn staff) whether it has two arms on the wheel or is a solid non detached single wheel? So far I can get them operational with a little distortion, but haven’t been able to get rid totally of distortion (just a little wobble from side viewing is left).

Still looking forward to your timing instructions Bob

[Bob Tascione]

Hi Nic,

Teacher Bob, I would really appreciate having that “timing without needing a timing machine” tutorial as well. If you don’t post it here, it would be great to have it somewhere!

I think I touched on manual timing in the text section in the watch course called ‘Timing Out’. If you are referring to checking for cannon pinion slippage that was discussed earlier in your thread then I can give a quick way to diagnose the problem. In your case the watch was running 30 to 60 MINUTES per day slow. This is quite a bit and can be checked in two 30 minute intervals (or less) in the pendent up (open face pocket watch) position. If the cannon pinion is slipping it will be more pronounced when the hand is climbing from the 30 to the 60 minute marker. If any slippage occurs during this period then the hand will track slower than the actual time. After reaching 12 the weight of the hand will prevent slipping backwards and could possibly even slip forward resulting in true time lagging behind the apparent time indicated by the hand. If you see a difference between the two 30 minute intervals then a loose cannon pinion is suspect. Also going by ‘feel’ when setting the hands can reveal a loose, tight or faulty cannon pinion. If the test shows a difference between the two 30 minute intervals and the ‘feel’ test leans towards a loose cannon pinion then you can be fairly certain that the cannon pinion is loose.

Hope this helps Nic,
Bob

[david pierce]

Nic,
If you watch Bob’s video on CLOCKS you will see that he spends a lot of time talking about the pendulum. This is because the pendulum is the component in a clock that actually tells the time. The rest of the clock essentially records the information from the pendulum. In a watch the pendulum has been replaced with a balance wheel and a hair spring. The circular balance wheel replaces the pendulum and the hairspring replaces gravity. If either the pendulum or the balance wheel do not keep proper time then the watch or clock will record this and indicate incorrect time. Setting the vibration of the balance wheel refers to changing the effective length of the hairspring to make the balance wheel oscillate at the desired rate. This rate is usually 18,000 beats per hour especially in large American pocket watches. Smaller wrist watches with smaller balance wheels can vibrate faster. The theory is that the faster the oscillation, the greater the probablity is for error cancellation. Electronic watches use small tuning forks that vibrate at extremely high frequencies and keep better time (within 5 seconds per month) than almost any mechanical watch.
david

[david pierce]

Nic,
Putting a balance wheel back into the round and the flat is a job for the Truing Calipers. If you are fortunate enough to have a copy of the Chicago School of Watchmaking, there is a set of step by step instructions in lesson 16 section 362 explaining the process. Tom can send you a link that will allow you to order a copy. This is a great work and is worth every penny of its cost. Uncle Larry’s Watch Shop usually has several sets of Truing Calipers for sale at any given moment and they are not super expensive. If you buy one make sure the indicator is still with the calipers. If you contact Larry he can make sure that the calipers are complete and working properly. You will also need an adjusting wrench which he may be able to provide as well.
david

[bernie weishapl]

I found this link and downloaded the Chicago School of Watchmaking. Don’t know but it was free. I have tried it several times after burning to a CD. Seems to work fine.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/c868g98kneaq4b8/Chicago+CD.iso

[nic422]

excellent stuff! Thanks Bob, David, and Bernie. I have the Chicago School and will be looking at all of this. Thank you!

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