doug sinclair
06-30-2001, 03:43 PM
Group,
In 50 + years of servicing watches, I had never encountered a problem such as the one I came upon today. I thought you might be interested in the problem and how I solved it.
Upon re-asembly of a 16-size, 23-jewel Illinois Sangamo Special after cleaning it, I noticed something that had eluded me when I quoted on the job. The center wheel was dragging on the mainspring barrel. With the power down, I noticed that the barrel wobbled badly on the arbor. I found that the jewelled bearing in the mainspring barrel had worked loose and had operated that way for so long that it had worn the boss in the floor of the barrel that serves as its setting, very badly, allowing the jewel to loosen badly. The jewel was on the arbor which puzzled me until I discovered it is a two-piece barrel arbor. Separating the halves of the arbor resulted in being able to remove the jewel.
How to solve the problem? I took a clock hole closing punch of suitable size and placed it over the boss in the floor of the barrel and gave it a couple taps. The boss was now too small to accept the jewel. I chucked the barrel up in a step-chuck in my lathe, and after several judicious cut and fit operations, I got the boss inside the barrel to a size that permitted me to re-insert the jewel without breaking it (whew). Upon re-assembly, the barrel had no wobble, and with the watch together again, the train now operates beautifully with the center wheel running nicely clear of the barrel, and the watch restored to good running condition. Thanks for letting me share the experience.
Doug S.
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In 50 + years of servicing watches, I had never encountered a problem such as the one I came upon today. I thought you might be interested in the problem and how I solved it.
Upon re-asembly of a 16-size, 23-jewel Illinois Sangamo Special after cleaning it, I noticed something that had eluded me when I quoted on the job. The center wheel was dragging on the mainspring barrel. With the power down, I noticed that the barrel wobbled badly on the arbor. I found that the jewelled bearing in the mainspring barrel had worked loose and had operated that way for so long that it had worn the boss in the floor of the barrel that serves as its setting, very badly, allowing the jewel to loosen badly. The jewel was on the arbor which puzzled me until I discovered it is a two-piece barrel arbor. Separating the halves of the arbor resulted in being able to remove the jewel.
How to solve the problem? I took a clock hole closing punch of suitable size and placed it over the boss in the floor of the barrel and gave it a couple taps. The boss was now too small to accept the jewel. I chucked the barrel up in a step-chuck in my lathe, and after several judicious cut and fit operations, I got the boss inside the barrel to a size that permitted me to re-insert the jewel without breaking it (whew). Upon re-assembly, the barrel had no wobble, and with the watch together again, the train now operates beautifully with the center wheel running nicely clear of the barrel, and the watch restored to good running condition. Thanks for letting me share the experience.
Doug S.
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