Ultrasonic cleaning and pallate forks

[clam71]

Just took a size 16 Waltham apart. One of my precious ones.
It ran so-so- the mainspring sticks, I thought.
Put the small parts in the US cleaner. Looked great when taken out.
SMALL thing still in the tank.. one of the jewels fell off the fork !!!!

Anyone know what adhesive or bonding agent were used in 1906 ?
Poop ! Just wanted to clean up a good running watch !
So, now, gotta put parts gingerly away ’till I can deal with it !

Good thing I’m not doing this to customer’s watches !

Thinking about epoxy but it’s gonna be a super-delicate operation !!!

[tokei]

Ouch, that’s a bummer!
As far as I know you use shellac to attach the jewels to the pallet.
But you need a pallet warmer and a way to adjust the jewel position in the groove.
Not something I’ve done yet so can’t help much.
Good luck!

[samspade]

Hi Clam. take a look at the pic. I replaced both pallets (Watch is Henri Sandoz) a few days ago as one did the same thing as yours only in a jar of rinse water so it was going to come off anyway one day. Glad it didn’t do it in side the watch 😮

I haven’t cleaned them up yet so there’s a little more shellac on them than I’d like but I’ll get around to it.
Tokei’s right by the way, you need a some shellack some pegwood a bench lamp or spirit lamp and a pallet warmer which is one of those tools that bob probably has in his shop though lesser mortal have never seen. I bought mine yonks go from a junk sale for around $5 us. Been a real goodsend and great fun learing to do the job as there must be at least 100 pallet stones on my floor! I’d give you a blow by blow account how to do it but I don’t think Bob’s server has a 1000000000teragig hard drive. And if you don’t have the tools a bit pointless really. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t try super/crazy glue or any shuch thing you’ll end up crying 😥

If you can’t do the job yourself then find a real good watchmaker or maybe someone on here can offer you help or recomend someone?

It’s a pain I know but as long as you have the stone it only need replacing so not the end of the world. Feels like it though whenit happens. Good luck and let us know how you get on.
Scott.

Hey! I just found this. http://mb.nawcc.org/showthread.php?t=38764 good bit of info on here.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Tamas Richard.

[clam71]

@samspade and all who have responded.
My game plan is to make a tiny holder for the jewel to hold it in place.
Mount it and slip it under the microscope. The same for the fork.
Once I’m sure I can move the parts in place, a tiny touch of epoxy.
Got other movements to work on. It’ll be a while ’till I get back to this one.
And ,samspade, you’re right. Best to have it fall off while cleaning because
it would eventually have happened anyway and the jewell would surely be forever lost.

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