Jewel oiling

[Term]

Here's a rookie question for you. Do you need to oil the pivots on a jeweled movement or do the dry jewels do the job themselves.

[Vic Kuring]

You need to oil the pivots whether it is a jeweled watch or a bushed one. Some people oil the pallet fork pivot jewels and some don't.

Oil very, very sparingly.

[Term]

How do you get underneath the jewel to oil them?

[Vic Kuring]

If your talking about jewels that are capped by another jewel - the cap jewel is removed and then a minute drop of oil is usually placed on the inside of the cap jewel and then that jewel is reinstalled.

On regular train jewels just a touch of the oil pin to the pivot and the jewel simultaneously is usually all it takes.

The dial comes off to oil jewels located underneath the dial. Usually the movement would be broken down, throughly cleaned and then re-assembled and oiled. I would not recommend oiling a watch without properly cleaning it first.

[RON in PA]

Proper lubrication requires taking the watch apart, cleaning the parts in proper solutions, cleaning (pegging) the jewel holes and then lubing using lubes made especially for watches. After all this the watch has to be reassembled. Use the search function and look for threads on the subject. You need study and training to do this properly.