JLC 218 entry pallet stone

[gerene]

First attempt of turning a staff. I don’t know if I will succeed, but I was thinking about giving it a try… The lathe I am using might not be the best one for the job though, but I wanted to see how far I could get. Feels a bit like using a sledge hammer with the staking set 🙄 , but when I take very light cuts it seems to work. So, maybe it might work? I suppose a watchmakers lathe would be more appropriate

[Bob Tascione]

It’s certainly worth a try Jan and should be great practice.
Please let us know how it goes and how the Taig performs with something so small.

Good luck!
Bob

[david pierce]

Jan,
As long as you are experimenting why don’t you give your NANO lathe a try. If you can get ahold of some jeweling chucks they will push the blank out past the tightening nut. If necessary you can make your own jeweling chuck, which is essentially a slotted sleeve insert, with the equipment you already have.
david

[gerene]

Thanks Bob and David. The Taig performs reasonable and I was able to make something of that size. It was not (yet) perfect in size, I will have to practice a little more before I can achieve the accuracy needed for a balance staff. It turned out that using the cross slide makes things a little easier. The way the Taig moves the saddle is rather crude and the cross slide has a finer feed.

I also tried the nano lathe as David suggested and it works fine. Work holding was with the ER-11 collets, which is fine. I don’t think turning the staff around will work, since it might not be true. I did not try it. I could not find any jewelling chucks and am not quite sure if I understand what David means by making my own. I will have to investigate a little further into this matter.

One of the more difficult tasks in machining such a small object is taking measurements of the work in the lathe and comparing to a drawing or the original object. I need to learn how to do that and what kind of instruments are needed to accomplish this.

Jan

[willofiam]

Hey Jan, looks like your learning alot lately, feels good doesnt it you have probably already read up on this but for some of those measurement you can use the actual parts that will fit on it. have you thought of how you will cut the rivet? thanks for sharing, William

[gerene]

Yes it does feel good William . I like the challenge of learning something new. Don’t know if I will ever succeed in making my own usable staff. I don’t know yet how I will cut the rivet.
Anyhow, in the mean time my factory made staff arrived and I will continue with that one. Making my own staff will however be on my list of things to be mastered. , Jan

[gerene]

Well the learning experience seems to continue. I am starting to think that this little clock is cursed .
I managed to get the balance assembled again and tried to assemble the balance and the balance cock, but while doing so the hairspring stud came loose from the hairspring. 😳

So now I am faced with the next challenge: reattach the hairspring stud to the hairspring. Any help and/or idea is welcome.

I don’t know if I will ever finish this clock, but I do know that I will have learned quite a bit while trying.

Jan

[daryn]

With regards to the pallet warming, if you’ve a small hand vice, like a pinvice with a vice head on, you can hold the pallet frame in the corner of this and then in turn hold this in the bench vice (to free up both hands) then a normal cheap soldering iron touched just behind the offending stone gives you lovely heat control to adjust the stone with ease
Kind regards
Daryn

[david pierce]

Jan,
If you have a copy of THE WATCH REPAIRER’S MANUAL by Henry Fried, chapter 8 has a section devoted to making a balance staff. One of the workholding techniques this book and many other books cover, is the use of a wax chuck. You can purchase one off of Ebay or make your own out of a piece of brass rod by machining a cone center into one end that will accept the staff you wish to hold. It works by melting shellac into the hole and putting the staff end into the liquid shellac. You center the part by running the lathe and pushing on the shaft with a match stick until the shellac hardens. It sounds difficult but with a little practice you can put your staff dead on center. It looks to me like your NANO LATHE would be better suited for extremely small turning jobs. One thing I noticed from your photo is the staff is sticking too far out of the collet. As a general rule you always want an unsupported shaft to be sticking out from a chuck no more than it needs to be. This will make the part stiffer when the cutter is applied to the work.
There is a Steffan Pahlow video on Youtube called “MAKING A GLASUTTE WATCH STAFF” or something close to that. He makes the staff on a Lorch Jr lathe and turns it between (cone) centers. When a piece is fixtured this way it will be on center even if it is removed and turned around.
david

[Bob Tascione]

Hi Jan,
Re-pinning the hairspring is actually easier than it looks. You should be able to determine the approximate pinning point under high magnification. If you miss and the length of the spring is either too long or too short you can always move the pin out slightly and re-position the spring. The pin should have a slight taper to it and could possibly have a flat ground on one side of it. If it doesn’t have a flat then you can put one on the pin by sliding it along a piece of emery paper or stone. This flat portion of the pin is inserted into the hole of the stud and is the side that makes contact with the hairspring. The stud can be adjusted perfectly parallel to the flat of the hairspring by rotating the tapered pin in the required direction. The flat on the pin will cause the hairspring to rotate with it when adjusting. Also remember to insert the hairspring into the stud and then slide the pin along the ‘outside’ of the spring so the hairspring curves in and away from the end of the pin. The end of the spring should not make contact or interfere with the spring. If it does it’s pinned on the wrong side. When finished the watch should keep time when the regulator is adjusted halfway between it’s fast and slow limit. If it’s too far to one side or the other then the effective length of the spring can be either lengthened or shortened by re-pinning.

I hope this makes sense Jan but if not let me know and I’ll try to word it more clearly in the morning after a cup of strong coffee.

Bob

[gerene]

@Daryn wrote:

With regards to the pallet warming, if you’ve a small hand vice, like a pinvice with a vice head on, you can hold the pallet frame in the corner of this and then in turn hold this in the bench vice (to free up both hands) then a normal cheap soldering iron touched just behind the offending stone gives you lovely heat control to adjust the stone with ease
Kind regards
Daryn

Thanks Daryn, I will try that next time.

[gerene]

David,

I do have a copy of Fried”s book and will reread chapter 8! I have read the use of the wax chuck in several books but I never tried to use this technique. I will give it a try soon. It sounds indeed difficult (that’s why I never tried ), but I should try it out.
Thanks for the hint on the length of the workpiece sticking out. I am learning all this by myself and can use all help I can get!
Great link to that video. I have seen it a while ago, but will look at it once more and pay attention to turning between centers.
Thanks again for your most valued help.

Jan

[gerene]

Bob,

I will try repinning the hairpsring. I was reading Fried’s “Bench practices for watch and clockmakers” . Chapter 5 is devoted to “studding the hairspring”. He has some good advice. Your advice is clear to me (for the moment, I will see if I need more advice when actually doing it . I wonder if I would be able to reuse the pin.

Jan

[gerene]

I finally did repin the hairspring to the stud.

It took a while but I had to wait for the new pins to arrive and I had a terrible cold: fever, shaking hands, dripping nose… It has been almost continuous rain for the whole of august around here. Forecast is that the sun will be back next week (when school starts again).

Now I hope I can continue assembling this movement.

Jan

[chris mabbott]

Looking good Jan. A good trick is to roll up some Kleenex and plug your nose while bending over 😆 I had to do this with all the damn pollen floating around here, I looked foolish but I didn’t want salty drips on the HS..

I hope you feel better so that you can put this puppy to sleep, it has been one of those “one thing after another” movements, just when you think you’re done….

[Author]

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