a stroll thru a 125 year old pocket watch

[dallen]

heres a shot of the replacement wheel and pinion that I will install maybe tonight tomorrow for sure.

   

[doubleboost]

Hi David
Very interesting post
A bit on the small side for me

I rarely go below 4 mm
Bolt size
I wonder how many hours it took to build a piece like that
John

[krv3000]

oooo just up my street as regarding oil the stuff for pocket watches is nut oil you only oil the pivots and winding mechanism never the wheels and pinons i have dun one its a ingersoll triumph it keeps good time to i wood love to have a go at a reel old one but the price of sum of the parts to get replaced put me off good fix keep them coming

[Tony Wells]

(03-26-2013, 08:47 AM)dallen Wrote: Tony, thanks for the compliment. I used to always say I wish I could work on a watch guess I can't say that any more. The funny thing is that unless your trying to make parts for one there not that hard to take apart and put back together. I do find it enjoyable to mess with them. what sucks is when you loose a part and can't find it or find it three days after receiving the replacement had that happen with a shaft.

I checked out the site you linked to, I do believe that a lot of their watches are out of my league.

as an up date the watch that I started this thread about even with a rusted pinion in it is still running this morning. wish I could say that for some of the crap that they make now days.

David

Well, they're way out of my league too, I can only dream and drool over those beauties. I hope maybe someday to buy one and carry it. Once in a while I browse through their selection because they do change as they buy and sell them. The craftsmanship is outstanding, especially considering the only other people to see most of the decoration are subsequent repairmen.

A friend of mine heard I was interested in pocket watches and had found one while scrap hunting. It was a new cheapie little promo inscribed with some polo club insignia. I doesn't keep time worth a flip, so maybe I'll open it up and see if it's even worth messing with. I doubt it. The old Pocket ben still has luminous markings, so it is radioactive a bit, even though it's pretty dim.

[dallen]

Tony give it a shot. you may be able to fix it, but if it runs fine and just doesn't keep time I would take it to a watch repair shop and let them adjust it, thats the delicate part that I don't think I would ever be able to do with out going to a watch school and buying a lot of stuff that I probably can't afford.

anyway heres some more photo's would of posted them last night but was up late dealing with this watch trying to swap out the fourth wheel with one from a different watch, sad to say but the swap didn't fix it. anyway here some photos of basically the clutch, or for those that don't know what shifts between winding and setting.

First off this is a lever set watch, which means you have to open the crystal and pull out a little lever which shifts the clutch from winding mode to setting mode.

First photo is of the plate with all the clutch in place with the lever on the top right of the plate.
   
Second Photo is of the clutch removed from the plate, pretty nasty with all the dried up oil and gunk.
   
Third is of the spring barrel and cover with the spring coiled inside.
   
Fourth is of the wheel that I was hoping to use to replace the one with the rusted pinion but the pivot on the short side is to tight in the jewel and it won't let the watch run and I don't have any thing to dress the pivot or jewel.
   

some of the pinion's screw onto the arbors which would mean that I would only have to change the one part and not the complete assembly but so far I haven't been able to determine if the pinion is thread on or not so its back to trying to find either one that will work of a jewel that will fit the piviot.

Here's a shot of the center wheel and assorted parts that go on it when in a watch. hard thing about this one is that it came out of a watch movement that is only about and 1" in diameter. Its one that the pinion screws on, it came loose and the hole in the wheel is trashed from the parts spinning.
   

[sasquatch]

AND,,,,,,,,,,,,, Some of us think rebuilding an automatic transmission is tricky!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol

[EdK]

David,

What camera and lens are you using to take your pictures. The DOF is quite shallow, that's not necessarily bad, I'm just curious being that photography is a hobby of mine.

Thanks,
Ed

[dallen]

most of these were taken with a cannon EF-5-60 mm macro lens, but the last one in post 15 I think I also placed and old 4x magnifier I had from the old film days in from of it.

I worked on this #$%^ watch all night, found tonight that I don't have any parts that will work to get it running, its not only got a bad wheel. The Jewel bearing on the back side that it runs in is cracked. SO I took the hair spring and Balance Wheel and put it into a different movement that I had and so far its running pretty smooth.

John I believe said that he only works on 4 MM and larger fasteners. heres a shot of a steel scale laying beside one of the retaining screws for a Jewel, not all jewels are secured with screws some are swaged in.
   

Plus I also dropped this little thing and it ended up in the rug which is about the same color as the part.
   

[EdK]

(03-27-2013, 10:38 PM)dallen Wrote: most of these were taken with a cannon EF-5-60 mm macro lens, but the last one in post 15 I think I also placed and old 4x magnifier I had from the old film days in from of it.

Thanks, I thought it might be a macro lens. The pictures just have that look.

Ed

[dallen]

I try to take decent photographs, not all of the photos are taken with the Macro lens some I use a 28 - 200 mm lens that I take most of the pictures I post with, but some photos you just have to get a little closer. I bought the Macro Lens when I was working because of that very reason of needing to take close up pictures of cracks in weld's on equipment that I was working on to as they say Cover My A#$, and its true a picture is worth a million dollars in the right circumstance's.

Here's a shot of the watch that I have been working on with the movement that I put it it last night so far it seems to be keeping time, most of these old pocket watches all would either run fast or slow because most people couldn't afford a watch that had been adjusted to all positions, and ships Chronometer's were only adjusted for one position and that was laying flat on its back and what ever it was off was always factored in by the navigator.