When you wound does it feel harder at some point or you can ear a slip and it goes back to be easy to wind?

 

Thanks for the reply

No, that doesn’t happen it just winds normally, the crown is a bit worn which makes it hard to wind near the end but I think that is normal.

 

Why did You decide that hte problem is in the spring? It is much much less probable than problem in balance for example
Have You seen this watch working normally before? Or just bought it and sow it has some problem?
How exactly You oiled the balance stones? Do You have some experience of watch assembling/dissassembling?

 

Hi

I brought the watch as not working, I have disassembled/assembled watches before. I de-cased the watch, then I screwed off the balance bridge and oiled the pivots and the train wheel jewels. The balance wheel seems ok, so I assume the mainspring isn’t giving enough power?
I was hoping somebody could give me advice on what the problem could be as I am a amateur.

Thanks for your time

 

OK, please do the free oscillations test. Read this tread:

Carriage Clock Not Running Smoothly (Update; fixed with...

I have acquired a nice Henri Jacot clock that runs a bit then stops. Looking closely at the original escape mechanism, the hairspring is expanding/contracting nicely, but the oscillations of the balance wheel vary. They are fine at first, then they shorten. Sometimes they return to ‘normal’ but...

www.thewatchforum.co.uk

What You must do is described in message #8, but You must take out only the lever, not the escape wheel. Do the thest in the both positions - dial up and dial down

 

Hi

I just did the oscillation test, link attached for video

I only counted about 40 oscillations, what should I do to increase the amplitude?

Streamable Video

 

Hi, sorry, sometimes I can not answer fast in the weekends.

Amplitude is something else. What You must do is find how the balance loses energy. Now You have significant loses.
Actually, there are two ways it can lose energy - one is thru the hairspring, other is thru the bearings. As the watch is not in my hands, I can only guess, but my guess is the hairspring.

Take a good look at the hairspring. It loses energy when there is some friction in it when the balance moves. The most probable case is the hairspring touches the sprockets of the balance. Another case is it touches the stud. The upper coil may touch the balance bridge. And, a coil of it may touch the next coil...

 

Hi

I took of the balance from the balance bridge to take a look at the bearing jewels, I took some pictures under the microscope.
The second picture is the jewel on the balance bridge and the third picture is the jewel that the balance staff sits on.

The hairspring looks alright to me but I am not professional like you

Thanks for your help

 

The hairspring doesn't look OK at all.
At the picture, the red arrow shows where 3 coils toush eash other ant the green where 2 coils touch.
Before doeing anything, first wash the spring in acetone or pure petrol and demagnetize it, as the coils may have stick due oil or magnetism. But I think that the spring is just bent. The overcoil doesn't look as it should too, but this is another thing.

 

Hi

I took the hairspring off the balance wheel and cleaned it in lighter fluid then dipped it in cleaning solution and then dipped it in isopropyl alcohol. I hope it is ok, any suggestions before I put it back together?

pictures attached of the hairspring after clean

 

Now is beter, but still few issues.

This pictures are not informative enough.
Put the hairspring on a white sheet of paper and make photo from strictly vertical position. This will help to see the problems with the distance between coils in the outer end.

Then, put the hairspring (the stud) on the balance bridge and try making picture from aside, in the plane of the bridge. something like this one

 

I realise that this is already an established thread, but given its technical nature, I have now moved it to a more appropriate section of the Forum.

 

Hi

Thank you @Always"watching"

Attached pictures of hairspring on paper and picture of hairspring on bridge;

 

OK, now it I seen clearly… I should see it on the older pictures, but I didn’t actually expected such thing…

See, this hairspring is not original to the watch and balance. This means that at some point, for some reason, someone has chosen another spring and fitted it to the balance. Still nothing wrong here, but there are some concerns…

The first one is that the Breguet curve of the overcoil should be the normal, standard type, as in the drawings attached. But here we have another, special type of curve, that is needed in completely different movement layout. Further more, the curve is not formed correctly, but it may have had bent wrong later in time.

The second one is that the normal making of the overcoil requires two special bending points, shown on the first drawing. In Your case, the one that formed the overcoil, didn’t use this way, but he gradually lifted the overcoil by twisting the spring in two places. This is a ‘beginner’s’ way, as bending as per the drawing requires some skills. Using this way is possible, as normal Q-factor can be achieved, but in isochronism plane problems may appear…

Another thing is that the hairspring is smaller in diameter, but this is not so important at this point.

All this leads to the question if the hairspring is good for the balance, so the watch will keep time after solving the problem with loses…

Let’s hope that the one that has chosen the spring knew how it should be done!

Now, I will advice to reshape the Breguet curve as per the second drawing. Don’t regard the diameters shown on the drawing, but just the shape. The final portion of the spring, which goes thru regulator pins, must be a part of circle, which center is the hairspring center, and radius is the distance between the regulator pins and the stone on the bridge. This way, when You put the spring on the bridge, the collet will position right above the stone, and when moving the regulator from one end to another, the position of the spring will not change. This is very important… In the end, it must look something like this:

Another thing You must achieve is that the hairspring (as on the last You pictures) must stay much closer to the bridge. The overcoil must be not that high above the hairspring body as now. And it must stay in plane that is strictly parallel to the bridge. This is in order to avoid situation when hairspring will be pressed down and it thus will meet the sprockets of the balance. You must do this by untwisting the spring in suitable places. Don’t try for now to curve the spring as per the first drawing. If You decide to do that, first exercise on another useless spring…

 

Hi

I was looking at images of hairsprings of similar American Elgin movements and I saw that the hairsprings overcoil has a gradual overcoil like mine, did Elgin make the overcoil like this? Is there multiple types of hairspring overcoil?

Thanks

 

Hi there,

OK, seems to me a little strange (not much American movements here), but appears that they really did use this kind of overcoil. I found one Elgin movement and made photos of the hairspring, here they are attached:

Here I made photos of a Waltham hairspring, the overcoil is formed traditional way, like in all swiss movements.

So, then try to form the hairspring the way it is in my Elgin movement. The really important thing here is that in the end, the hairspring will stay in the movement centered, parallel to the plain of the movement and will touch nothing. In no case it must stay rested on the balance sprockets, there must be enough sanitary space between hairspring and the sprockets in all positions when balance rotates.

 

Hi

I will give it a try, but I have never done it before. Any tips or advice before I attempt it

thanks

 

OK, I will try...

Little teory at first:
In principle, there can be 3 types of problems in a bent hairspring.

1. Section with local change in radius (bent place), but this area is in the plane of the hairspring.
Easier to fix with tweezers and a needle. When correcting, we strive to keep the area in the plane.

2. Area in which the hairspring (the strip of which it is made) is twisted. This leads to the result htat portion of the spring goes out of the plane of the main part of the spring.
Fixed with two tweezers. The first tweezer holds the beginning of the twisted section, and the second holds the end. We twist between the tweezers in the opposite direction. If the section is long, we divide it into small sections and fix them separately. We try to bring the 'out of the plane' part back in the plane of the main body.

3. A section where the strip turns around, like a turning road (this is like the sharp bending points for making the Breguet overcoil). Can be fixed with one tweezer. We grasp the middle of the curved section and press it lightly against a soft material, such as cork.

They can exist in a damaged hairspring singly or in any combination. When in combination, we start the correction from the highest number, i.e. first 3, then 2 and finally 1. This is because correction of type 3 can lead to the appearance of types 2 and 1, and correction of type 2 can lead to the appearance of type 1, which is normal and we should not despair of that.

If we have only one bent place of type 1 in the middle of the spiral, it manifests itself in the fact that in one place the turns will be closer to each other, and in the other they will be vice versa - farther from each other. So we see 2 defects, but they have one reason. This is so despite the fact that the bent place may be a decrease in radius, or vice versa - an increase in radius. This can easily mislead an inexperienced person where the bent place is. Therefore, before trying to fix it, it is necessary to examine well and determine exactly where the bent place itself is, otherwise we will not fix anything, but on the contrary, we will already have 2 bent places.

With all this in mind, we begin to correct the defective hairspring starting from the first bent place, which is closer to the center, and correcting, we gradually go to the periphery, trying to maintain the interturn distance, concentricity and plane of the spiral as much as possible.

Now to the point:
You don't have type 3, but only 1 and 2. You must only correct the overcoil, this is easier than correcting in the middle of the main body.
For beginning, grasp with the tweezwes where marked with red ovals and press with needle where pointed with red arrow. This is a type 1... The result must be that the part, where the green oval is, will go to the new correct place, where pointed with the green arrow. Then make a picture (from above)

and show the result

 

@nevenbekriev this is a great explanation. I have seen a few videos on YouTube about this and I have tried myself with some success using springs that are damaged For practice. Your explanation is excellent. I need to save this for future reference

 

Hi

sorry , I have been a bit busy

I will give it a go otherwise I could buy a new old stock complete balance for the same grade? It would be less headache