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Chris has been showing us how its done lately with some absolutely brilliant photo essays which not only give us great pictures but also fantastic write ups which make it easy for us to understand what he is up to and how he goes about fixing stuff. As a moderator I feel he has put me to shame as I have never done anything like this. I was just about to start tearing down an old pocket watch today and decided to try and emulate what Chris has been doing. I will do my best but don’t laugh if it aint up to his very high standard!
I bought this watch at a boot sale around six weeks ago. It was a bit of a shot in the dark as the movement catch was rusted and so there was no chance of getting the movement out for a look. The case is solid silver and has all the hallmarks so I took a gamble and paid the £20. I do have the bow, which is held in place by a long screw, it was just easier to get the movement out with the bow removed.
After some cleaning and scraping of rust I managed to get the movement out(with Daryn’s help). Once most of the rust was removed the movement just swung out, small brass taper pin removed from the hinge and out it came.
The silver inner back cover is quite often damaged on this type of case as people try to lever it open to look at the mechanism, it doesn’t open and even if it did they would only see a dust cover over the movement.
the blued half circular clip is slid back to allow the dust cover to be removed.
Ok, its not as posh looking as your nice American watches, it only has a couple of jewels and is probably not such a great time keeper but hey, each to his own
Nothing more exotic than three tiny brass taper pins to hold the dial on –
The back plate which has a nice smudge of verdigris on one edge
Not having taken a watch of this age apart before I had a good look at things before trying to remove them, if you break anything you won’t have much luck getting a replacement part form a supply house, it will have to be made.
I let down any remaining power in the mainspring and then had a look at the balance cock. This is much different from your standard cock, the hairspring is not attached to it, the hairspring is run through a steel boot which is fixed to the plate and the end of the spring is pinned through a stud which is screwed to the plate, you can just see it next to the balance arm. The cock is held on with 1 screw and lifts straight off.
The rest of the tear down was quite standard apart from the front plate being held on by 4 small brass taper pins(1 of which was missing).
I didn’t take any pictures with the top plate off as it was all pretty standard. One escape wheel tooth was covered in verdigris, the bottom pallet arbor pivot was bent, the roller jewel had been snapped off and there are at least four bushings that will need doing.
More to follow Next week…….
Thanks all for the kind comments
, I will be doing this inbetween paid work so you will have to be a bit patient with me.
@bobpat wrote:Nice post Paul,I look forward to your updates on this watch. How bout when you repair that roller jewel ,you post some pics. I have two to repair and never have done it. What do you use for cleaner in your Sonic?
I will post up some pics of the roller jewel replacement. I dont know how unusual it is to have the hairspring between the roller table and the balance but it is not allowing me to use my staking set roller remover. Going to have to come up with another solution or buy a different tool!
As for the cleaning, this will be done in my watch cleaning machine and not the ultrasonic tank. My ultrasonic tank has a home made solution of Water, pure ammonia and soft soap and is used just for clocks. In my watch cleaning machine I use L&R fluids.Chris, I will probably be doing the same as you would and remove all traces of the green stuff before it goes into the cleaning machine.
One thing I did notice which I forgot to mention is the movement and case have serial numbers which all match so thats nice to find. I will try and steal a little time next week and see how I get on doing some of the bushing.
Paul.Nice demo Paul.
Your pics look great. This should be an interesting thread.
To remove the roller you can cut a ‘V’ or ‘U’ shape into a very thin piece of plate and use that to fit between the roller and hairspring. Then tap the staff out of the roller. The plate would look something like the base plate on a Platax roller/staff remover.
Here are a couple of pics of the tool I use for the underside mounted hairsprings.
Bob
Thanks for that Bob
, I spoke to Daryn and he said I should get one of those roller removers you have shown in your pictures but they are quite scarce now, so if anybody should have one for sale I would be very interested Bernie, thanks for the link – I have that type of stump for my staking set but I can’t see how I can use it on this balance, I need to drive the staff out of the roller table, the hairspring is also between the roller and the balance wheel, not on the other side of the balance wheel as is usuall. I am having difficulty vizualizing how i would use that style of stump to remove the roller.
Sorry if I am being a bit dumb
Red – Balance Wheel
Blue – Hairspring
Silver – Roller Table
Paul.
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