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My first attempt refitting and adjusting pallet stones using shellac

VWatchie
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VWatchie
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Intro A while back I successfully made my first attempt refitting and adjusting pallet stones using shellac. It was something I had dreaded doing (it seemed difficult) but in the end it wasn’t th

VWatchie
VWatchie

Time to add a small tip to this thread—one that I hope someone will find useful. I've always found it tricky and somewhat nerve-wracking to press the pallet stones into the pallet fork.

VWatchie
VWatchie

Servicing my 2nd Omega cal. 268 (service walk-through for my 1st here) I wasn't too happy with the state of the shellac holding the pallet stones in place. The shellac had crackled quite badly and som

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VWatchie Distinguished Member

VWatchie

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Time to add a small tip to this thread—one that I hope someone will find useful.

I've always found it tricky and somewhat nerve-wracking to press the pallet stones into the pallet fork. But then I remembered a video featuring Teddy Baldassarre on a tour of Jaeger-LeCoultre. Wasn't there a segment in that video showing someone inserting pallet stones into pallet forks in an assembly-line fashion? I looked up the video, and sure enough—for once, my memory was correct!

Brasstoolhelpingtopushinpalletstones.thumb.jpg.2860d5a2b7cf262e36d3f2f9d6c1c48b.jpg
Inspired by what I saw, I took a brass rod of suitable size, ground one end into a wedge shape (similar to a screwdriver), and polished the rest of the rod with wet sandpaper to give it an aesthetic finish more in line with Jaeger-LeCoultre. My new brass tool may not have passed the quality control at Jaeger-LeCoultre, but it worked just as intended!

One thing that isn’t visible in the image—and which I should clarify—is that I grip the stone with tweezers and press it in while supporting the opposite side with my new brass tool. It feels safe, easy, and precise.

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nickelsilver Distinguished Member

nickelsilver

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15 hours ago, ObsessiveHorologist said:

So when do you use the staking block + new tool, as opposed to using your Gaston tool which is designed to do this exact thing?

The Gaston tool is more for adjusting the stones, when placing a new stone I think it's easier to do just on a block.

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VWatchie Distinguished Member

VWatchie

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15 hours ago, ObsessiveHorologist said:

So when do you use the staking block + new tool, as opposed to using your Gaston tool which is designed to do this exact thing?

Just as watch collectors can never have too many watches, we can never have too many tools! 😉

Joking aside, I use the brass rod to start placing the stones in the fork before fine-adjusting them with the Gaston pallet tool.

However, the Gaston tool isn’t as precise as one might expect. The angle between the pallet stone's impulse surface and the arms of the Gaston tool isn’t always perfect—this seems especially true for the exit stone. If I recall correctly, the impulse surface angle of the exit stone is steeper in low-beat movements than in high-beat ones. As a result, the arm of the Gaston tool can sometimes push the exit stone in the wrong direction, preventing it from seating properly in the fork.

Additionally, attempting to adjust the stone using tweezers while the fork is fixed in the Gaston tool doesn’t seem to work well either.

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