Seiko 6309 escapement issue

[Bonzer]

I have been struggling to find the cause of a poor timegraph trace for a Seiko 6309.

As shown in the attached screenshot, I get a good beat one side but the other side is all over the place. When zoomed in, each cycle of the 'wavy' line seems to be 15 dots so I assume this is an escape wheel issue. However, the escape wheel seems fine - no teeth missing, no pinion leaves missing etc. The pallet fork looks to be in good shape-jewels are not loose or dirty and I even replaced the pallet fork with a spare just in case. The balance roller jewel is solid and not broken either.

So, any ideas what it might be? Thanks in advance.

[jdm]

10 hours ago, Bonzer said:

I get a good beat one side but the other side is all over the place.

Which way is off? If it's dial down, it could be that the roller plate comes too close the horns, so check again end play. Our it could be that the escape pivot supporting the bad position is not perfectly straight. Also worth to give all the involved jewels a good look under the microscope. In the end one could be trying another escape wheel.

[Nucejoe]

Hi 

Check end shake on all arbours in the escapement, that is:  escape wheel + fork arbour+balance staff.

Also wobble in escape wheel.

  Regs

[JohnR725]

10 hours ago, Bonzer said:

15 dots so I assume this is an escape wheel issue.

The problem with the escape wheel theory is that the same escape wheel for the other line. So if the escape wheel was physically bad it should show up on both lines.

10 hours ago, Bonzer said:

The pallet fork looks to be in good shape-jewels are not loose or dirty and I even replaced the pallet fork with a spare just in case.

I assume by spare you mean used pallet fork? Then when you swap the pallet fork did you read lubricate everything?

10 hours ago, Bonzer said:

The balance roller jewel is solid and not broken either.

Did you look at it with a microscope? Everything looked perfect and did you check to make sure it's not loose?

7 hours ago, jdm said:

Which way is off? If it's dial down, it could be that the roller plate comes too close the horns, so check again end play. Our it could be that the escape pivot supporting the bad position is not perfectly straight. Also worth to give all the involved jewels good look under the microscope

I'm attaching an image classically 11 line is bad it represents one side of the escapement. That would be one of the pallet stones is somehow bad. I've even occasionally seen were a roller jewel should be common to both can somehow wobble and one side and not the other. Or if one side is chipped or damaged.

But as pointed out above it's anything on one side. Does this is an older watchfully don't know what service history and you didn't give us a history of the condition of the watch before you service that we don't know it's been done to it. Another thing this related the one side would be the equivalent of the banking pins? But these don't have banking pins though somebody got creative and filed one side versus the other. Not finding a good picture online for what I want to look at it looks like they might be part of the pallet fork bridge so flip that overlook up that very carefully.

Also just look really carefully at the entire roller table is it off-center somehow did somebody restaffed the watch and do a poor job. Somewhere one side is not right. The holder watch if somebody's worked on it it could be just about anything so everything has to be looked at a microscope would be a really good idea.

 

[Bonzer]

8 hours ago, jdm said:

Which way is off? If it's dial down, it could be that the roller plate comes too close the horns, so check again end play. Our it could be that the escape pivot supporting the bad position is not perfectly straight. Also worth to give all the involved jewels good look under the microscope. If the end one could be trying another escape wheel.

It seems to be the same in all positions to a greater or lesser extent. By that, I mean the trace is noisier in some positions than others but all positions exhibit the same strong beat and 'wavy' line combination. 

You mention checking the jewels, in particular the escape wheel jewel. This is the same movement mentioned in this post about the jewels not having oil cups. I have since changed the mainplate so that one has now has an oil cup but the bridge does not. I wonder if the replacement jewel in the bridge is causing an issue?

 

1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

Hi 

Check end shake on all arbours in the escapement, that is:  escape wheel + fork arbour+balance staff.

Also wobble in escape wheel.

  Regs

I'm still learning what the ideal should be, but the endshakes seem to be ok - a small amount of play but not too much.

 

[JohnR725]

8 minutes ago, Bonzer said:

I have since changed the mainplate

One of the reasons I asked for history was stuff like this. When it should try putting the old one back on seeing what happens

[mikepilk]

Are you sure one of the jewels isn't lose? I had a similar plot when the shellac looked OK but it was no longer holding the jewel.

[Bonzer]

2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

I'm attaching an image classically 11 line is bad it represents one side of the escapement. That would be one of the pallet stones is somehow bad. I've even occasionally seen were a roller jewel should be common to both can somehow wobble and one side and not the other. Or if one side is chipped or damaged.

But as pointed out above it's anything on one side. Does this is an older watchfully don't know what service history and you didn't give us a history of the condition of the watch before you service that we don't know it's been done to it. Another thing this related the one side would be the equivalent of the banking pins? But these don't have banking pins though somebody got creative and filed one side versus the other. Not finding a good picture online for what I want to look at it looks like they might be part of the pallet fork bridge so flip that overlook up that very carefully.

Also just look really carefully at the entire roller table is it off-center somehow did somebody restaffed the watch and do a poor job. Somewhere one side is not right. The holder watch if somebody's worked on it it could be just about anything so everything has to be looked at a microscope would be a really good idea.

Thanks JohnR, your observations about it being one-sided are interesting and I will check banking and the balance roller table too. I'll also try with the original mainplate once again

 

1 hour ago, mikepilk said:

Are you sure one of the jewels isn't lose? I had a similar plot when the shellac looked OK but it was no longer holding the jewel.

Yes, I've checked, prodded and poked but they seem solid.

[Nucejoe]

2 hours ago, Bonzer said:

I'm still learning what the ideal should be, but the endshakes seem to be ok - a small amount of play but not too much.
 

Ideal end shake is .02mm or less. 

 Obviously whatever is rubbing in one position and not the opposite comes to play when arbours move " axially " , which includes pivot shoulder rubbing on the setting( short pivot) and roller table, or bad  pivot/ end stone which you already have dismissed.

Regs

[Bonzer]

2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

 

I assume by spare you mean used pallet fork? Then when you swap the pallet fork did you read lubricate everything?

Did you look at it with a microscope? Everything looked perfect and did you check to make sure it's not loose?

Yes, everything re-cleaned and then lubricated. I haven't got a microscope yet so I was looking using a x10 loupe

[rodabod]

You’ll commonly see this sort of a trace when you get a sticky pallet jewel. Or a sticky escape wheel in terms of the faces which scrape against the pallet stones. 

I am wondering though if you may possibly have a mislocking issue. What I would do is observe the action of the lever - note the depth of lock, the amount of draw, and whether or not you can easily make it mislock. A giveaway sometimes is that the pallet fork will flutter side-to-side when you go to push it to one side with an oiler. 

[Bonzer]

3 hours ago, rodabod said:

You’ll commonly see this sort of a trace when you get a sticky pallet jewel.

Well, I discovered the problem and I am sorry to say that it was caused by my lack of skill.

Given the information received from everyone, the problem seemed to point to the pallets, or a single pallet. I knew they were not cracked but I removed the fork and took a closer look and saw that there was some oil on the top surface of the exit jewel, which made me think that I may have put too much oil on the jewel as well as a poor job of oil placement. I cleaned the fork once again and placed it back without re-lubricating and got a nice clean trace!! After cleaning the whole movement and parts once again, I carefully oiled the exit jewel and still have a nice clean trace on the TG. Success.

The moral of this story: Get better at oiling pallets!

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.