What is wrong with this balance?

[fmarton]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to this amizing hobby with only one year of "experience", and now I've run into a balance that causes me a headache.

It's a Citizen 8210A automatic movement with date function.

When I got it, it was very dirty inside, the mainspring barrel was completely stuck fully winded, and the watch runs only for a few seconds then stop.

After cleaning everything, the auto winding mechanism looks totally fine, just like all the other parts, I have not noticed any missing or broken or worn part.

Now I have put together the bottom side and wanted to check movement, but for some reason the balance wheel only ticks a few, then stopped.

For the first look I noticed that the hairspring center is shifted slightly to one side, and I think it can be because there was a weird curve right after the stud and before the terminal curve, so I have gently manipulated to make the hairspring concentric. I think I succeeded to do it, but when I reinstalled I noticed that the hairspring is vertically tilted to a side, so I took it apart again to see whats wrong.

When the balance cock is removed, the hairspring has a very nice form, it is flat and concentric. But if I attach the balance cock and put it in place, then the hairspring looks horrifying.

I put the hairspring in place without the balance cock, and realised that stud-end of the hairspring is about 60 degrees away from the place it should be when the pivot stone is in the fork (when fork is middle position) Luckily the stud holder is adjustable on this cock, so I have marked on the pivot jewel on the balance wheel's top side, so that I can see where should I position the wheel and what position will it give to the stud. I marked that position on the case, then I adjusted the stud holder on the cock to match with this latter mark.

Now I have mounted the balance again to its stud and installed it in place, however the situation is unchanged, the hairspring looks weird, now for the sake of fun it has a conical shape, and still does not tick as it should. The balance staff looks healthy and straight, top and bottom jewels are cleaned and lubricated. 

It is not magnetized and cleaned three times in lighter fluid and ultrasound. (Still not super-clean, but I guess that is not the issue)

I attach some pictures and really hope someone will have an idea!
 

Edited January 6, 2024 by fmarton
Forgot to mention it is cleaned and de-magnetized

[watchweasol]

Hi   I think the best way of tackling this problem is to remove the balance spring from the balance wheel, (after marking the stud position) an laying it on a sheet of white paper and checking its flatness, then manipulate to achieve the flat profile before re fitting.

[RichardHarris123]

It looks flat on the first photo.  

[fmarton]

Yes, it is flat, I have checked that in the first place.

1 hour ago, watchweasol said:

Hi   I think the best way of tackling this problem is to remove the balance spring from the balance wheel, (after marking the stud position) an laying it on a sheet of white paper and checking its flatness, then manipulate to achieve the flat profile before re fitting.

Oh yes, you are right, I haven't detached the hairspring from the staff, so even if the hairspring looks great, there can be misalignment at its center collar. I'm doing it right away!
Thank you!

Erm...yeah.... the spring itself looks great, but the center collar seems misaligned.
Horizontally it is out of center (as far as I can judge when its under the pressure of its own)

Vertically it is tilted to a side badly.

Not sure I can adjust it without damaging the hairspring, but I will give it a try...

Or...is it just hanging to a side because of its own weight?

I'm confused

[watchweasol]

Hi. As you can see it’s distorted at the collet once back into the flat, job done refit spring to original mark fit balance to the cock and re check. Then fit .

[fmarton]

No...I mean its not own weight, if I turned it upside down, it is really tilted upwards

2 minutes ago, watchweasol said:

Hi. As you can see it’s distorted at the collet once back into the flat, job done refit spring to original mark fit balance to the cock and re check. Then fit .

I will try, many thanks!

Edited January 6, 2024 by fmarton

[nickelsilver]

It's out of flat at the collet. To correct that you really need to put it on the balance and true it in calipers, hairspring truing calipers preferably but you can do it in regular balance truing calipers. You can also slide it onto a smoothing broach and true it at the collet by eye, this will get it close. All adjustment should be on the first 90 degrees coming out of the collet- though you might find you have to coax it a little 180 degrees from the pinning point.

 

It also seems to be out of flat at the stud, you can correct this with the spring off the balance, spring installed on the cock (cock upside down), and make the corrections. But you will inevitably have to make final adjustments installed with the balance, so except for severe cases, it's easier to do the stud adjustments in the watch with balance.

Edited January 6, 2024 by nickelsilver

[VWatchie]

6 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

hairspring truing calipers

Never heard about that and a quick Google search made me none the wiser 

[Neverenoughwatches]

22 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

Never heard about that and a quick Google search made me none the wiser 

As far as i know testing for true like a wheel would be tested in calipers . As the collet is held fixed square to the balance, hairsprings bent at the point of exiting the collet would show out of true at the caliper register arm same as a bent wheel would be. Tweeks at the collet are made until the hairspring runs true. You could also do it by eye using a depth gauge or even make up a temporary reference point across the runners. In a similar manner when the stud is fitted to the cock tweeks are made for out of flat correction. As we know the hairspring is held at two fixed points disregarding the regulating pins. The pins should be checked also and the main body of the coils for damage. But from either of these 2 points or a combination of both out of flat and out of round ( concentric ) can happen. Collet bends and twists seem to be less common than stud bends and twists. 

Edited January 6, 2024 by Neverenoughwatches

[fmarton]

Wow, thank you very much, all of you, you are great helpers!

My skills and toolset are very limited, as I am really a beginner, but after working hard on it for like 4-5 hours, I could reform the hairspring finally to look somewhat better. It is very far from ideal shape, and this was my really very first time manipulating hairspring so I'm proud that I haven't completely destroyed it.

I really don't want to make a watch of +/- 5 sec a day out of this one, as it was bought as damaged/for parts, I only wanted to try out how far I can go servicing it, to be able to run at all.

After agitating the hairspring about 50 times, and put together the balance like 10 times, installed it like another 10-15 times, but finally, it started working!

I only gave a very few winds via the rotor bearing, and it looks like the amplitude is very low, so I can check it with timegrapher to see the horrofying numbers later, but for now, it was a long day with a lot of ups and downs, and a final result I dare to say success.

Thank you all for your kind help and wish you all a nice relaxing weekend!
 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

7 minutes ago, fmarton said:

Wow, thank you very much, all of you, you are great helpers!

My skills and toolset are very limited, as I am really a beginner, but after working hard on it for like 4-5 hours, I could reform the hairspring finally to look somewhat better. It is very far from ideal shape, and this was my really very first time manipulating hairspring so I'm proud that I haven't completely destroyed it.

I really don't want to make a watch of +/- 5 sec a day out of this one, as it was bought as damaged/for parts, I only wanted to try out how far I can go servicing it, to be able to run at all.

After agitating the hairspring about 50 times, and put together the balance like 10 times, installed it like another 10-15 times, but finally, it started working!

I only gave a very few winds via the rotor bearing, and it looks like the amplitude is very low, so I can check it with timegrapher to see the horrofying numbers later, but for now, it was a long day with a lot of ups and downs, and a final result I dare to say success.

Thank you all for your kind help and wish you all a nice relaxing weekend!
 

 

Well done it looks much better. The low amplitude could be due to many different things. Breaking the movement down and testing individual function groups is a great way of narrowing down where the problem is. Similar symptoms can be experienced with issues in any individual function group or a combination of them and also at the junction of change between them. Sherlock holmes built the picture of a mystery piece by piece by applying and eliminating ones that fitted and made sense and ones that didn't in logical and elementary way. 

[watchweasol]

Hi. Well done  for a first time indeed very good. Watch repair teaches you several things. Patience,  dexterity and observance.  And you have achieved that.    

[fmarton]

Thank you very much!
To be continued...

[nevenbekriev]

Very well for the first time!

It is important to understand what You did wrong and how to avoid it later, and what are the principles of hairspring adjustment.

@ Nickelsilver gave You the best advices, but I will try to explain a little bit more.

There are two hairspring adjustments – one about the collet and one about the stud.

The collet, as You learned, has to be in the middle of the spring and in the plain of the spring. As You don’t supposed to have balance calipers or smoothing broaches, then a regular sewing needle that is with proper diam. for the collet can be used. By turning the needle, one can see if the hairspring is ‘in plane’ and ‘centered’. To see the ‘flat’, hold the needle horizontally, as the mass of the stud will change spring position other vice. To see the ‘centering’, hold the needle vertically. Imagine that the spring is a vinyl record.  When a vinyl record is well centered on the platter, the arm moves gradually from periphery to the center. When not centered, it moves in-out with every revolution too. The same is with the hairspring – observe the internal coils when rotating the needle – they must move not in-out, but only in or only out.

The stud must hold the hairspring in the plain of the bridge/balance and in a manner that the collet will stay exactly above the jewel of the bridge, when the stud is in the carrier (hairspring is out of the balance). The outer coil must be exact arch that goes thru pins of regulator and moving of the regulator must not change the position of the spring, the spring must be not pressed to some of the pins.

Now, I must say that all needed could be done in the beginning without taking the hairspring from the balance and even with the stud in place in the carrier. Just some skills and experience are needed to know where and how to manipulate the spring that must be gathered…

One must know that even bent out of flat, not concentric and so on hairspring, no mater, still may work with perfect amplitude, the only condition is no coil not to touch or rub anywhere. What we say here about the ‘flat’ and ‘concentric’ only is  that the above condition is this way easier fulfilled… and looks better!

And, the hairspring position adjustment has certain impact on the position errors and isochronism, but this is for another topic…

[Nucejoe]

4 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

hairspring position adjustment has certain impact on the position errors and isochronism, but this is for another topic…

A much needed topic , actually lesson on the subject.

Rgds

 

[fmarton]

On 1/8/2024 at 9:15 AM, nevenbekriev said:

Very well for the first time!

It is important to understand what You did wrong and how to avoid it later, and what are the principles of hairspring adjustment.

@ Nickelsilver gave You the best advices, but I will try to explain a little bit more.

There are two hairspring adjustments – one about the collet and one about the stud.

The collet, as You learned, has to be in the middle of the spring and in the plain of the spring. As You don’t supposed to have balance calipers or smoothing broaches, then a regular sewing needle that is with proper diam. for the collet can be used. By turning the needle, one can see if the hairspring is ‘in plane’ and ‘centered’. To see the ‘flat’, hold the needle horizontally, as the mass of the stud will change spring position other vice. To see the ‘centering’, hold the needle vertically. Imagine that the spring is a vinyl record.  When a vinyl record is well centered on the platter, the arm moves gradually from periphery to the center. When not centered, it moves in-out with every revolution too. The same is with the hairspring – observe the internal coils when rotating the needle – they must move not in-out, but only in or only out.

The stud must hold the hairspring in the plain of the bridge/balance and in a manner that the collet will stay exactly above the jewel of the bridge, when the stud is in the carrier (hairspring is out of the balance). The outer coil must be exact arch that goes thru pins of regulator and moving of the regulator must not change the position of the spring, the spring must be not pressed to some of the pins.

Now, I must say that all needed could be done in the beginning without taking the hairspring from the balance and even with the stud in place in the carrier. Just some skills and experience are needed to know where and how to manipulate the spring that must be gathered…

One must know that even bent out of flat, not concentric and so on hairspring, no mater, still may work with perfect amplitude, the only condition is no coil not to touch or rub anywhere. What we say here about the ‘flat’ and ‘concentric’ only is  that the above condition is this way easier fulfilled… and looks better!

And, the hairspring position adjustment has certain impact on the position errors and isochronism, but this is for another topic…

Wow, can't thank you enough for this truely useful and detailed description!!!
I will print this text to be at hand for next hairspring service.
Thank you very much!
Wish you a nice weekend,
Marton