My 2nd attempt at making a balance staff

[nevenbekriev]

Repairing the ratchet wheel is possible, but it will look ugly no mater how  many painstaking applied. Making new one is the solution here. Of course, the best solution is to leave as it is. But the main thing to know here is how this teeth break so to avoid breaking them here and in other movements in the future. When winding, never release the crown to turn back until the click locking suddenly by the spring force. Move fingers to rotate forward and back without releasing the crown

[caseback]

55 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

Repairing the ratchet wheel is possible, but it will look ugly no mater how  many painstaking applied. Making new one is the solution here. Of course, the best solution is to leave as it is. But the main thing to know here is how this teeth break so to avoid breaking them here and in other movements in the future. When winding, never release the crown to turn back until the click locking suddenly by the spring force. Move fingers to rotate forward and back without releasing the crown

No idea how/why it broke. This watch was a bit of a mess and I will check everything. Maybe the fact that the mainspring is broken has got something to do with it. 

But: making a new wheel... mm, interesting option... That would probably mean that I would have to source new tools (a cutter with the proper tooth profile?) 

[praezis]

1 hour ago, caseback said:

But: making a new wheel... mm, interesting option... That would probably mean that I would have to source new tools (a cutter with the proper tooth profile?) 

There are other options today. You can have it laser cut nearly ready to use.

Frank

[caseback]

5 hours ago, praezis said:

There are other options today. You can have it laser cut nearly ready to use.

Frank

Ah yes, but I'm afraid a lasercutter wouldn't fit my bench or my budget .  Also the monetary value of the piece doesn't justify having someone with a lasercutter doing it for me. I guess it would indeed be an option for a more valuable piece though.

[nevenbekriev]

Actually, making such wheel is possible with simple fly cutter milling attachment for cross-slide support lathe and if interesting, I can show how to make the attachment and the cutter. But, really, the watch is not expensive, such movements are easy to source for donors. And, the movement will work fine with this one tooth broken. But, if it is question of principles, then yes, go ahead, I am ready to support.

[caseback]

46 minutes ago, nevenbekriev said:

Actually, making such wheel is possible with simple fly cutter milling attachment for cross-slide support lathe and if interesting, I can show how to make the attachment and the cutter. But, really, the watch is not expensive, such movements are easy to source for donors. And, the movement will work fine with this one tooth broken. But, if it is question of principles, then yes, go ahead, I am ready to support.

Yes please!

For me It's a matter of learning new skills. After 55 years of tinkering with all kinds of mechanical things, I have found that when my learning curve turns horizontal, I loose interest in the subject at hand and move on to another hobby/activity/work. 

I do have a cross slide for my lathe.

[praezis]

4 hours ago, caseback said:

Also the monetary value of the piece doesn't justify having someone with a lasercutter doing it for me.

My fine laser cutter‘s charge would not exceed the value of your watch.

But you can repair the tooth only, I did it sometimes before I had such wheels laser cut. Well made it looks not at all ugly as Nev said and you don‘t need milling gear.

Cut a slot in the wheel, wide and long as the missing tooth. There are thin separating wheels, use your lathe and a table in the hand rest post. Silver solder a piece of steel into the slot, replacing the tooth. Grind / finish to a tooth shape.

Frank

 

[caseback]

51 minutes ago, praezis said:

My fine laser cutter‘s charge would not exceed the value of your watch.

 

Thnx Frank. I'll keep that in mind for future projects!

[SwissSeiko]

Yes I agree with Nev, making a fly cutter is simple for this tooth profile, and you already demonstrated that you can make a balance staff, and a simple fly cutter can be turned in a similar way. Too many youtubers take the geometry and precision a bit too far. At this scale, you can make a cutter without taking any measurements, just using the wheel teeth as a reference. 

 

If you don't have an index plate for your lathe, Here is a link to a website to print some off, and you can make your own. Just input your tooth counts needed and the diameter of the index plate you'll make, then it prints it in actual size and you can drill the holes, make the indexing pin, and get to cutting.

[nevenbekriev]

Some important things. Making brass gears with fly cutter is a piece of cake. You can make the cutter of HSS, even of tool steel, and it will cut many wheels without significant wear. The cutter itself is easy to form, as the hardened steel is easy ground by dremel tool with small carborund disks (dental separators). The cutter needs high speed (RPM) and doesn't overheat. But, cutting gears of steel is another thing. Only special steels can cut steel, even soft steel. Hardened tool steel cutter, even HSS one, will not cut  more than the half of this wheel before getting complitelly dull. And sharpening of fly cutters is possible only in limited cases of cutter design, and sharpening in the middle of cutting process is not wanted as the teeth may get not equal in different parts of the wheel. Lo RPM and lubrication needed in order to avoid overheating and damage of the cutter.

On other hand, if cutter is made of tungsten carbide, it cuts easy soft steel and even possible to cut hardened and annealed to blue. Cutting such ratchet wheel of soft steel is easy and high RPM are used, even with no need of lubrication.

The main problem here is forming the carbide cutter. Only diamond grinding tools work here, so such small diamond disks needed and some practice to learn how to form the cutter. Once the cutter is formed, then the wheel cutting is easy. Will try to show how I form the cutters

I will show the design of the milling attachments I use on my lathe. The construction is simple and easy to reproduce, it is based on using a double row ball bearing from the head block of a computer hard drive. I must search for some old pictures and make some new ones, so give me  a little time. There are some videos in my Youtube channel that may help to understand the way the attachment works, will give the links to them.

[caseback]

6 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

Some important things. Making brass gears with fly cutter is a piece of cake. You can make the cutter of HSS, even of tool steel, and it will cut many wheels without significant wear. The cutter itself is easy to form, as the hardened steel is easy ground by dremel tool with small carborund disks (dental separators). The cutter needs high speed (RPM) and doesn't overheat. But, cutting gears of steel is another thing. Only special steels can cut steel, even soft steel. Hardened tool steel cutter, even HSS one, will not cut  more than the half of this wheel before getting complitelly dull. And sharpening of fly cutters is possible only in limited cases of cutter design, and sharpening in the middle of cutting process is not wanted as the teeth may get not equal in different parts of the wheel. Lo RPM and lubrication needed in order to avoid overheating and damage of the cutter.

On other hand, if cutter is made of tungsten carbide, it cuts easy soft steel and even possible to cut hardened and annealed to blue. Cutting such ratchet wheel of soft steel is easy and high RPM are used, even with no need of lubrication.

The main problem here is forming the carbide cutter. Only diamond grinding tools work here, so such small diamond disks needed and some practice to learn how to form the cutter. Once the cutter is formed, then the wheel cutting is easy. Will try to show how I form the cutters

I will show the design of the milling attachments I use on my lathe. The construction is simple and easy to reproduce, it is based on using a double row ball bearing from the head block of a computer hard drive. I must search for some old pictures and make some new ones, so give me  a little time. There are some videos in my Youtube channel that may help to understand the way the attachment works, will give the links to them.

Thank you Nev. I'm looking forward to starting this project. I really appreciate this.

[SwissSeiko]

18 hours ago, nevenbekriev said:

I will show the design of the milling attachments I use on my lathe. The construction is simple and easy to reproduce, it is based on using a double row ball bearing from the head block of a computer hard drive. I must search for some old pictures and make some new ones, so give me  a little time. There are some videos in my Youtube channel that may help to understand the way the attachment works, will give the links to them.

I checked out your youtube. You're very resourceful! I might have to steal the idea you have on your homemade lathe having the length indicator on the back side. That would make turning balance staffs much easier. I also want to make a pin vice holder to have the reference staff near the chuck so I have a constant reference.

[nevenbekriev]

OK, here are some old  photos of the first design of my milling attachment. Ver. 1.0.

[nevenbekriev]

The base is double row ball bearing from the head block of hard disk drive.

It is experiment that I made to see what will happen, but the result was surprisingly good and actually this pictures are taken after 10 years of use. Here for example some pictures from a french clock barrel cutting.

 

[caseback]

Thank you for this. Very engenious. Is the toolbit is held in place by the two threaded pieces? Is this with a carbide tool? 

I have checked the ratchet wheel I would like to make. It has 60 teeth and my lathe headstock has 60 devisions as well. Do you think my small watchmakers lathe (8mm Lorch) is sturdy enough to take the impact? I wouldn't want to damage the bearing surfaces.

Another option would be that I would use a completely different setup, using my (large) milling machine and a devision head. I have never tried making something this small on that machine though. It's an old machine and I'm not sure the runout is ok for this type of work.

Do you have any advice on shaping the tungsten carbide toolbit? Diamond dremel disks, files and patience?

Would I be able to use the gravers you recommended for turning operations (you can see them in the picture of my lathe I posted yesterday), or are these too brittle?

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, nevenbekriev said:

The base is double row ball bearing from the head block of hard disk drive.

It is experiment that I made to see what will happen, but the result was surprisingly good and actually this pictures are taken after 10 years of use. Here for example some pictures from a french clock barrel cutting.

 

Wow Nev, i  looks like it just shouldn't work , i tried to understand what the brass plate and die was for under the base of the cutter....just packing lol.  How are you indexing the chuck please ?

Fascinates me how you just bolt bits and pieces of anything together....and manufacture.  If we ever reach armaggedon, I'm coming to Bulgaria to find you

[nevenbekriev]

19 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Wow Nev, i  looks like it just shouldn't work , i tried to understand what the brass plate and die was for under the base of the cutter....just packing lol.  How are you indexing the chuck please ?

Fascinates me how you just bolt bits and pieces of anything together....and manufacture.  If we ever reach armaggedon, I'm coming to Bulgaria to find you

Hi Rich,

The brass plate is for regulating the height of the cutter, like shimming. The die is to keep the big washer horizontal. Indexing is ... see this video, the index is shown in the end.

 

Here is REV 2.0. The design is similar, but the height can be adjusted by shifting up/down when the small screw is loosen. There is a big double bearing that lets the whole brass plate rotate when this is needed in order the cutter to be able to follow templates.

 

 

 

20 hours ago, caseback said:

Thank you for this. Very engenious. Is the toolbit is held in place by the two threaded pieces? Is this with a carbide tool? 

I have checked the ratchet wheel I would like to make. It has 60 teeth and my lathe headstock has 60 devisions as well. Do you think my small watchmakers lathe (8mm Lorch) is sturdy enough to take the impact? I wouldn't want to damage the bearing surfaces.

Another option would be that I would use a completely different setup, using my (large) milling machine and a devision head. I have never tried making something this small on that machine though. It's an old machine and I'm not sure the runout is ok for this type of work.

Do you have any advice on shaping the tungsten carbide toolbit? Diamond dremel disks, files and patience?

Would I be able to use the gravers you recommended for turning operations (you can see them in the picture of my lathe I posted yesterday), or are these too brittle?

The tool bit is held by tightening the long steel screw, just like in chandelier terminal. This particular bit is not carbide, but yes, a carbide one will look just the same. And yes, I shape them with diamond disks, diamond files and patience. But the gravers that we use for lathe cutters are to big, this is the only problem with them. There are carbide Chinese drill bits with tail 3.17mm, the tail is not carbide. The small sizes carbide tips has something like tail, which is 1.2mm in diam. and about 2mm length. I make the carbide cutters for small wheel modules out of them. Will show pictures...

Actually, when cutting small gears like the ratchet wheel You need, there is no impact on the lathe bearings. The revolutions of the cutter are big and the shavings are very fine. I can't say nothing about the milling machine, but no problem to use the lathe as a device for small gears cutting.

[caseback]

1 hour ago, nevenbekriev said:

There are carbide Chinese drill bits with tail 3.17mm, the tail is not carbide. The small sizes carbide tips has something like tail, which is 1.2mm in diam. and about 2mm length. I make the carbide cutters for small wheel modules out of them. Will show pictures..

Yes please!

With your Rev 2.0, is the toolbit held in place in a simular way (long steel screw that's not showing in the pictures) or is it tapered?

Great that I will be able to use my little lathe. I'll start putting something together as soon as possible and keep you posted.

[nevenbekriev]

42 minutes ago, caseback said:

With your Rev 2.0, is the toolbit held in place in a simular way (long steel screw that's not showing in the pictures) or is it tapered?

The tool bit is held the same way - with long screw

[caseback]

I haven't found the time to work on the ratchet wheel yet, but I couldn't resist the temptation of assembling the movement to see if it would actually run.... and it DOES!! . 

 

[caseback]

On 10/18/2024 at 7:19 PM, nevenbekriev said:

There are carbide Chinese drill bits with tail 3.17mm, the tail is not carbide. The small sizes carbide tips has something like tail, which is 1.2mm in diam. and about 2mm length. I make the carbide cutters for small wheel modules out of them.

Hi Nev, do you mean these?

 

[nevenbekriev]

Yes, the 0.1mm bit on the picture has 1,2mm carbide tail. 0.6 and 0.7 too have suitable tails for making cutters out of them. Of course, one should use broken bits that are good for this purpose only. The 3.17mm tail can be turned in the lathe to 2mm or whatever the milling attachment is made to take. Sometimes it is soft enough, sometimes needs annealing. It is of some kind special, not usual tool steel.

Another source for carbide material suitable are carbide drill bits with 1.5mm tail, they are made entirely of carbide.

[caseback]

15 hours ago, caseback said:

I haven't found the time to work on the ratchet wheel yet, but I couldn't resist the temptation of assembling the movement to see if it would actually run.... and it DOES!! . 

 

It's been running a good 12 hours now and I've given it a wind and put it on the timegrapher.

DU: +16 sec, 282 deg, 2.4 ms

DD: +14 sec, 268 deg, 2.8 ms

CU: +5 sec, 236 deg, 3,6 ms

So it needs some more work..

[praezis]

Which lift angle do you use? 52 is too much here.

[caseback]

26 minutes ago, praezis said:

Which lift angle do you use? 52 is too much here.

52. I don't have any data on this movement, but I figured that I could use the readings I got at 52 deg to see if there were any odd readings/differences. But to be honest, I'm already glad I got it running the way it does with my self-made parts actually . Do you know what the lift angle is?