Waltham Wrist Watch Project - Fontomatic 65, FHF 65-4

[AdamT]

Picked up a lot of watches from eBay at the beginning of last year and finally got around to looking at this unique movement. During disassembly found the stamp for FHF 65-4 and began my search down the rabbit hole for this movement. I did not find much info and realized I wanted to revive this interesting movement. I found a small list of parts that were missing or broken. Missing winding pinion, Casing clamp and screw, and 3 screws to assemble the osculating mass. The pivot on the third wheel was broken, the hairspring and the regulating pin were bent.

I think there is still room to improve the shape but for now it is good enough and I wanted to rebuild the movement to see the current status of the movement and adjust it if needed. I did a check of the rest of the gears and they rotated smoothly so I am hopeful that it is salvageable. I have the third wheel and winding pinion ordered.

I compared my movement to a couple of videos online and noted that my oscillating mass was missing its bearing balls and so I took some measurements and created a 3D model to see what size was required. From my model it shows that a standard 0.5mm bearing ball would fit. One concern I have is that I cannot tell if there should be a spacer in between the bearing balls to make sure they are equally spaced. Before I order the bearing balls I want to make sure the movement runs well.

I found this movement online and see the bearing balls equally spaced but cannot tell if there is a spacer.

The dial has great patina but the text is fading and should read "Waltham / 17 Jewels" up top and "Self Winding / Incabloc".  Is reprinting the text ever an option?

But the watch is missing hands so I was looking around and see what was original to the watch. I came across and ad from 1960 and an example. The case back has a 1962 engraving, so the timelines match up.  I'm currently looking for a set but not much luck on eBay. I am also hesitant due to the chance of radium hands. I like the red arrow but I also like the look of advertisement with just the tip of the seconds hand painted red.

I have a couple pictures of the dial side of the movement but its not as unique as the back.

Thanks!

[rjenkinsgb]

Interesting movement!

From a quick bit of research, some versions apparently had jewels as the bearing balls for the rotor, so such as a 30+ or even 60+ jewel movement !!

 

There is a site here that has the parts documents images, if they help? 

Select the image thumbnail then right click & save image in the large window - they are full pages, very clear.

https://www.joseph-watches.com/all-products/fontainmelon-fhf-65-individual-parts-1950s/

 

[AdamT]

I used those pictures to determine which parts were missing and to cross-check some eBay listings that were in Italian.

[AndyGSi]

Parts are available through cousins.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/filter/fhf-movement-parts

Edit

Have you see this of the Rotor parts and showing them as 0.5mm bearing?

https://omegaforums.net/threads/on-my-bench-waltham-automatic-problem-child.148695/

Edited July 23, 2024 by AndyGSi

[AdamT]

Thanks, that's a great resource. I didn't realize Cousins had such a detailed list of parts available. I will absolutely use that in the future.

Unfortunately, of the parts I am still missing they are not on the list. My plan was to get an assortment of casing clamps and screws to round out the parts needed. If I ever get the tools and time I would try and finish them to match.

Have you had luck with 1 casing clamp being enough to secure the movement? There are provisions for 2 casing clamps, so I want to populate them both.

21 minutes ago, AndyGSi said:

Parts are available through cousins.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/filter/fhf-movement-parts

Edit

Have you see this of the Rotor parts and showing them as 0.5mm bearing?

https://omegaforums.net/threads/on-my-bench-waltham-automatic-problem-child.148695/

Great photo!

So my suspicions were right there is a spacer. Seems like my model was the right size and landed at the same 0.5mm bearing balls. Not having the spacer will cause an issue with the bearing balls bunching up. Hmm, I will have to think how I will space them. Not sure I will be able to find one of those spacers.

 

Also interesting that the third wheel pivots from that post was also broken. I wonder if there is something in the design that makes the third wheel more likely to break?

Edited July 23, 2024 by AdamT

[AndyGSi]

Cousins do a lot of things including case clamps.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/case-clamps-graded

There's also places like this that have a lot of parts for your movement.

https://www.spareparts-watches.com/product/3484956/fhf-65-4

Edit

You could also contact these.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=FF_65-4

Edited July 23, 2024 by AndyGSi

[AdamT]

Yeah, I am looking to pick up those clamps from cousins. Spareparts-watches came up in my search but no luck with the parts. Also couldn't find the parts in the Jules Borel shop.

I reached out to the person to who repaired the other watch from the Omega website, to see if they still had the donor watch.

 

[AndyGSi]

What parts do you want as I thought they both had winding pinions and thrid wheels?

[AdamT]

Oh sorry, I already have the winding pinion and third wheel on order. I think the only thing would be parts of the oscillating mass. I am missing the spacer for the bearing balls.

[AndyGSi]

So is it just the middle piece from the photo I posted above that you're missing that spaces the bearings?

I may be able to get my hands on a Sandoz 333 and see if it can be copied.

[rjenkinsgb]

1 hour ago, AdamT said:

I am missing the spacer for the bearing balls.

As long as they are well lubricated, you should be OK just almost filling the race circumference. Leave a small gap, say a millimetre or two, then space the rest out a bit.

Once they distribute themselves in use, they should set their own spacing. A lot of simple bearings such as in bicycles are built like that.

 

[AndyGSi]

45 minutes ago, rjenkinsgb said:

As long as they are well lubricated, you should be OK just almost filling the race circumference. Leave a small gap, say a millimetre or two, then space the rest out a bit.

Once they distribute themselves in use, they should set their own spacing. A lot of simple bearings such as in bicycles are built like that.

 

The problem here is the channel they sit in is wider than the bearing so they would just float about.

Also the spacer allows the screw to be tightened down but still leave space for the bearings to rotate.

You may get away with the spacer as a simple disc without all the notches for the bearings to sit in.

[AdamT]

4 hours ago, rjenkinsgb said:

As long as they are well lubricated, you should be OK just almost filling the race circumference. Leave a small gap, say a millimetre or two, then space the rest out a bit.

Once they distribute themselves in use, they should set their own spacing. A lot of simple bearings such as in bicycles are built like that.

 

Cannot hurt to try.

4 hours ago, AndyGSi said:

The problem here is the channel they sit in is wider than the bearing so they would just float about.

Also the spacer allows the screw to be tightened down but still leave space for the bearings to rotate.

You may get away with the spacer as a simple disc without all the notches for the bearings to sit in.

I am not sure if the spacer is used to set the height of races. It all depends on the thickness of the spacer, there is a .20mm gap between the 2 plates of the races. I have bearing balls on order so I can test it out in a week or 2.

[nevenbekriev]

The spacer is not needed if all the space is filled with balls. Of course, You will need more balls. 

[rjenkinsgb]

9 hours ago, AndyGSi said:

Also the spacer allows the screw to be tightened down but still leave space for the bearings to rotate.

The cage in a (properly designed) ballrace is never designed to touch anything other than balls, and does not apply any force to those - if it did, you would be running on direct friction, making the ball system pointless?

(Remember that the balls move around their groove at half the rate of the inner race rotation; anything fixed to either race would lock the bearing).

This is an extract I found, apparently from the original patent; the inner race is split in to two "layers", so the first has to go in place, then the balls added, then the second inner race part holds everything together. That does not show a cage, though it looks like just twelve balls in this diagram? Other movements I've found may have 40, or 72.

 

 

[AndyGSi]

This has 72 bearings and if you look at the exploded photo above and part
copied below there's a spacer with notches to position each on these bearing.

 

[AdamT]

8 hours ago, rjenkinsgb said:

The cage in a (properly designed) ballrace is never designed to touch anything other than balls, and does not apply any force to those - if it did, you would be running on direct friction, making the ball system pointless?

(Remember that the balls move around their groove at half the rate of the inner race rotation; anything fixed to either race would lock the bearing).

This is an extract I found, apparently from the original patent; the inner race is split in to two "layers", so the first has to go in place, then the balls added, then the second inner race part holds everything together. That does not show a cage, though it looks like just twelve balls in this diagram? Other movements I've found may have 40, or 72.

 

 

Wow, that patent is impressive. Where did you look to find that?

My races look a little different from the patent. That looks like there is no space between the bearing balls and the bottom of  race where as mine has space and could accommodate a spacer.  There is a shoulder that has a thickness of .20mm.

 

7 hours ago, AndyGSi said:

This has 72 bearings and if you look at the exploded photo above and part
copied below there's a spacer with notches to position each on these bearing.

 

As long as every bearing ball is touching the races they should not slip in the races. My guess that if there is only 12 it is unlikely that the balls would touch each other and only once you increase up to 72 does the spacer be required to keep it efficient.

I have made contact with the watchmaker from the Omega forum and he said he still has the spare so I should be able to purchase the spacer and I can do some testing and see how the mass preforms with and with out the spacer with various amounts of ball bearings. I have only ordered 50 bearing balls so it may fall slightly short of the 72 number.

I think in variations of this movement, they used ruby bearings balls. That would quite the cost but would be very beautiful to watch.