*Practical* acceptable amplitude expectations for a vintage watch

[JohnR725]

7 hours ago, mbwatch said:

I will have to find time to watch all of this. 5min in and I am floored by the automated milling and the "ten plates at once damaskeening rig"

My personal favorites is at four minutes and 54 seconds. The machine with how many parts? All before CNC on the other hand if they Needed to change the tooling to a new watch plate how long would that take?

Then if you like the movie there is a book different watch company  few years before but still it talks about the tools or some of them

https://archive.org/details/evolutionofautom00mars_0

 

[caseback]

2 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Thanks for the tip! Is it an idea or have you tried it?

I always use a large size reamer to clean the edges after reducing the hole size.

[mbwatch]

5 hours ago, VWatchie said:

19 hours ago, caseback said:

A large size Seitz reamer is perfect for removing burrs.

Thanks for the tip! Is it an idea or have you tried it?

I honestly read this as a cruel joke, use a large reamer to undo all the work you just did reducing the hole to refit the barrel arbor. Now I get it - reamer only on the very outer edge, but I have a deburring tool for that anyway.

3 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

My personal favorites is at four minutes and 54 seconds. The machine with how many parts? All before CNC on the other hand if they Needed to change the tooling to a new watch plate how long would that take?

I can't believe they had an in-house astronomer and in-house observatory at the Elgin factory to determine the reference time from a known star.

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, mbwatch said:

I can't believe they had an in-house astronomer and in-house observatory at the Elgin factory to determine the reference time from a known star.

first thing I found was Wikipedia but Wikipedia isn't always right people make silly assumptions and they don't actually know things I found a video much better. It does confirm something that I long ago suspected Elgin was a very very big company when it was at its peak.

 

[VWatchie]

6 hours ago, mbwatch said:

Now I get it - reamer only on the very outer edge, but I have a deburring tool for that anyway.

I don't have a deburring tool and have been considering getting one or a few but never got around to it. Anything you can recommend?

[mbwatch]

37 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

Anything you can recommend?

No, I just have one that came with my Marshall jeweling set. A little spherical thing with ridges, about 2.5mm. It's only just big enough for most barrel holes; not as big as the largest 2.99mm Seitz reamer.

[Staceyanom]

As you said, some older Swiss movements just aren't meant to hit those high marks, and Seikos seem to be more relaxed in that sense. I’ve found that with a good service and proper cleaning, even the lower amplitude watches can keep great time, though!

[Staceyanom]

On 11/22/2024 at 8:59 AM, Staceyanom said:

As you said, some older Swiss movements just aren't meant to hit those high marks, and Seikos seem to be more relaxed in that sense. I’ve found that with a good service and proper cleaning, even the lower amplitude watches can keep great time, though!

I’ve been tinkering with vintage watches for a bit now, and I totally agree with the idea that amplitude is interesting, but ultimately, it’s all about timekeeping. I had a Replica rolex gmt master ii super clone once that had great numbers on the testing machine, but when I wore it, the accuracy wasn’t as great as I hoped—so sometimes those high amplitude readings can be misleading.

[mikepilk]

And sometimes you get too much amplitude. Years ago I started on pocket watches, and putting modern mainsprings in 100yo watches sometimes resulted in rebanking. 

I'm currently working on a 1957 ladies Tudor (ETA) 1137. Being a small, old movement I took time to make sure all the pivots/jewels were perfect, and fitted a new mainspring. It fired up at 320° before I'd oiled the pallets. After a day it was 340-350° and re-banking. Some HP1300 on the pallet pivots wasn't enough to stop it. Very strange. I measured the spring and it is correct size.

Fortunately I hadn't thrown the old mainspring away, and refitted that. It's not run in, but just started about 280-290°.

The "correct" new mainspring GR3200  1.30x0.080x200 

The original measured about 1.34x0.072x210. So a lot weaker. Which is why I changed it - the shape was fine but the thickness was a lot different.

Edited November 29, 2024 by mikepilk

[mbwatch]

On 7/2/2024 at 2:52 AM, VWatchie said:

EveFlex is good for cleaning but I wouldn't use anything coarser than the "extra fine grit, sof

Just to return to this old thread and say not too long after this I took up the practice of giving all train and balance pivots a 5sec twist in the finest EVEflex light green by hand. That has made an enormous difference; I can skip it because I don't want to risk removing a balance complete to reach the upper pivot and invariably I am unhappy with the result so I go back to take it apart and actually clean the balance pivots with EVEflex and every time it results in a huge amplitude gain. (huge because I'm usually working on filthy old watches)

I still am not too hurt if I don't reach 270, but seeing a movement rise from a very weak 210 at full wind up to 250 after cleaner balance pivots is pretty satisfactory. But most importantly, it eliminates loads of problems with uneven dial up or down performance. Worth the few dollars.