Rocky Road

[david pierce]

Chris,
Beautiful job on this watch and the motor. Great work! If you suspect that a piece was stamped in a punch press look at the edge of the piece. There will be a smooth layer followed by a rough layer in the metal. This is due to the stamping action. When the punch first hits the metal it sheers down about half way then tears loose which accounts for the smooth and rough layers.
david

[chris mabbott]

Thanks, David, I’ll try to get a side shot of the edge, maybe you can tell, because one minute I think stamped out, the next… mold, then, no, hand cut 😆

OK I’m doing this a bit backasswards but it was late, or early when I made the previous posts, so welcome to my normal state of being 😆

I also made an error earlier, I said that there were two adjusting screws for the balance jewels, in actual fact there are three, the lower jewels have 2 for up & down adjustment, because we always make adjustments on the low side and “never” (almost never) on the cock.
Has anyone noticed that ANYWHERE else, if we were to write cock, people would be offended, but on a watch forum it is as common as AND, OR, IT. We can even say that we spent time polishing, straightening, aligning and even fiddling with the cock and no offense would taken 😆

OOOOk back to reality… The lower balance jewel was also toasted, obviously a rub-in type, which I like to keep original, Paul is going to shudder as I say that I rammed that sucker out of its former comfy home and into the harsh cruel world of broken part.

I won’t go into an essay or preach my technique of why I just push them out instead of gently massaging them free, but I will say that this lip is thin, so rubbing out can actually weaken, break or remove the material. If the jewel is cracked, it’s NFG anyway, diametric size is easy enough to copy, pivot size, we don’t need the old jewel, we have the pivot.

So here is the setting after the jewel has been pushed through ( I say pushed which sounds forceful, but really, it shatters out with zero force)
You can see that the lip is not damaged at all, they usually never are from pushing, but they are from Rubbing OUT. Simply because there is not enough lip for the tool to get under, so what happens? The tool rides on the top of the lip and removes material, by friction, or rubbing.

Here, after the jewel has been removed, we have a nice lip that we can now insert the tip of the tool, expand it slightly and gently give it a turn, this opens the lip rather than folding the stock back.

[chris mabbott]

We can now open our setting the 0.01mm to accept our new little bearing ….cUUte
What we have here is a nice clean lip, ready to be gently pressed and ever so slightly rubbed back over the bearing lip..

Remember to keep your tool and the setting as linear as humanly possibly. It should be done on a staking set, lathe or seitz tool, but my opener cannot fit these mediums, so it’s with the good eye 😯

[chris mabbott]

Here is the freshly rubbed in little turd ready and anxious to carry its own weight in the world 😮

[chris mabbott]

Here is the NOS dial that I had for this watch, this is the original style for this model, well, one of them, as there are three types, all Roman numerals, two of which are actually double sunk, this one just has the illusionary double sunk black circle, still, it was choice. I suppose a person could have chosen any of the available dials but IMHO these may have, or may not have, been the dial originally intended for these movements by the designer? Who knows, but they sure suit them, and this one is a huge improvement over the POS paper replacement dial that was on it, from the 20’s probably.
The dial next to it is the other actual DS from a sister movement that I have to work on.

I managed to find a NOS set of blued morning glory hands which I’m waiting to arrive, impatiently as always :geek:

You’ll notice that I’ve since installed the cool looking index plate SLASH micrometric adjuster, now highly polished to reflect every possible facet, of light.
I’m far from finished as now I have to repair the MS I messed up, set the timing, do positional checks, which i perform over the course of days. Then the fun part, the real world carry test

[chris mabbott]

Another interesting innovation from Rockford was the introduction of a cam, which was activated or controlled by a screw on the movement plate.

It displays L & P Lever or Pendent, which allowed the user to use this, as the selections offer, as either a lever set model or a pendent set type.
The mechanism from this watch had been removed, possibly as a none essential part, which it isn’t and the watch will work on default, Lever, without it. This would have been discarded if the repairer didn’t have a replacement and didn’t posses the exact measurements to make a new one.

Fortunately, but sadly, I picked up an even older rocky like this only 5 years younger. It was basically stripped before I got it, but it did have the parts for this attachment. Shown here…

[mahlon]

Nice work Chris, and you make it look so simple that I am tem. no I’m not going to lie. I still have no desire to work on some thing that small, but I have the utmost respect for those of you that do. Mahlon

[tmac1956]

Chris:

That’s a really good job my friend. Thanks for posting the rubbed in work too.

Later,
Tom

[tmac1956]

Chris:

Can you give me a rule of thumb about which way to push out rubbed in jewels? It looks like you pushed that one out toward the inside of the movement. For me at least, it is sometimes difficult to determine which way the things should come out.

As to trying to rub them out… I have screwed up more than one practice plate trying to get the hang of this technique. Cudos to those who have the touch. (My mom always said I was like a bull in a china shop)

Thanks!
Tom

[chris mabbott]

Sorry for the delayed response Tom, I was away over the weekend..

There is only one way to push out a rubbed in jewel, and if you look closely at both sides, only one of them has the lip. So you push from the opposite side to the lip, so that the slight pressure of the jewel being pressed out, opens that lip.

I think you have a Seitz set, what I do is…. I set up for the push, choose the stump with a hole that is large enough for the old jewel to fall through, but that is small enough to catch the outer edge of the setting.
Choose a flat pusher of the correct diameter, it doesn’t have to be accurate, even a tad smaller is fine.
With the palm of your hand, push gently down on the lever. Use the micrometer to lower the spindle/pusher so that it just touches the jewel, I hold the setting with my tweezers and gently wiggle it until it touches.
With the palm of your hand still pressing down on the lever, gently turn the micrometer until you hear the jewel go POP, or CRUNCH LOL

If it’s badly shattered already, chances are that even if you rub it out, it will come out in bits anyway.

Make sure that once it’s out, that you use a small brush dipped in naphtha to clean inside the groove, the use a toothpick to gently scrape any shards of broken jewel away, then brush it again.

You can use a pin vice to hold the setting and then slightly open it, just a hair. In fact what I sometimes do is NOT open it until I find a jewel that is close diametrically. Which is a challenge because all of the jewels I have are mixed up 😯 But I have my method down packed now so I can zip through PDQ.

Don’t forget to measure the thickness of the old jewel before you push it out. You have to also take into consideration that the old jewel may be the flat, straight hole type. I usually replace these with convex olive hole jewels which are much better, especially for the balance..

As a disclaimer, for anyone reading this, THIS IS NOT THE APPROVED METHOD This is the way I choose that is easy for me, mainly because of lack of info on the WWW, I had to help me, help me 😆
I’m sure if I posted this on NAWCC that I would be shipped off to Switzerland, stripped naked, hung up by my thumbs and have my buttocks whipped with dry twigs, Hang on, maybe I will post this 😆

[david pierce]

Chris,
The NAWCC must have found out that you were into that!
david

[tmac1956]

Chris:

It is my understanding that in the case of poor jewel removal techniques, the Swiss’ preferred method of hanging one is by some other appendage than the thumbs.

Thanks for the information – that really helps as I do have a Sietz set.

Later tater…
Tom

[david pierce]

That certainly clears up the mystery of all of the high pitch yodeling that comes out of that place. You can always make a special stump out of brass to the proper size you need for a special purpose. Every watch tool does not have to be hardened and heat treated.
david

[chris mabbott]

Why do my threads always seem to head down that dark alley that leads to the gutter 🙄 😆

[tmac1956]

@Chris Mabbott wrote:

Why do my threads always seem to head down that dark alley that leads to the gutter 🙄 😆

Hmmm… Perhaps it is because I am a part of it. Time for self reflection, penance, and flagellation.
Tom

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