"Poising"

[Andy Dervan]

Hello;

I recently had a Waltham pocket watch cleaned and "poised". I looked up "Poising" in clock/watch dictionary, and I interpreted as
the equivalent of putting a "clock in beat". Is that correct?

Andy

[Andy Dervan]

Hello;

I recently had a Waltham pocket watch cleaned and "poised". I looked up "Poising" in clock/watch dictionary, and I interpreted as
the equivalent of putting a "clock in beat". Is that correct?

Andy

[Julian Smith]

Hello,
Poising is like balancing your tires .The hairspring is removed from the balance wheel,The wheel is put on jeweled jaws of a poising tool by the pivots of the staff.If a spot is heavy, the wheel turns until the heavy spot is on the bottom.Weight is added or removed from the wheel as needed on the appropiate side until the wheel will stop and stay in any position. This is called static ballancing.Another method is dynamic ballancing and is more complicated.
Talk to a good watchmaker and they can explain further.
J Smith

[Ray Fanchamps]

http://www.clocknut.com/nawcc/Poising.jpg
Dynamic poising is simply doing the job very quickly :wink:
Some balances will have specific screws to be changed for poising, other screws, the meantime screws are left alone and are used only for timing. Balances with screws can have small washers added or material removed from the screws to bring it to poise.
Screwless balances leave only the option of stock removal from the balance underneath the rim.
Poising is one of those interesting problems where you have to question why you now have a need to add or subtract material from the balance. What has changed?
Clocks tend to be static and balances that are in a horizontal plane do not suffer poising issues. balances that are vertical may suffer but because it is static the error is constant and goes ignored.
As watches move around the value of the error changes and cannot be compensated for though I believe some tabulate positional errors for a "best guess" compensation.

Putting a balance "in beat" is a hairspring based enterprise whereby one seeks to have equidistant balance wheel travel left and right of "center". "Center" being an imaginary line passing though the center of the balance and the center of arc of operation of the pallet fork. The "At rest " position of the roller pin should be in the center of the pallet fork when the pallets are equidistant to the escape wheel. Some use the banking pins but since they move I find "eyeballing" and listening works for me. Some new platforms today have a means to change the beat incorporated with the regulator arm.
"Beat" should not be an issue in most repairs.

Ray Fanchamps


[This message has been edited by Ray Fanchamps (edited 02-20-2001).]