How do YOU install the train bridge on a Full Plate Pocket Watch movement?

**bchaps** · 09-09-2006, 03:15 AM

I'm working on an old Elgin Pocket Watch Grade 184. The Balance wheel is positioned above the train bridge while the roller end of the staff is recessed in a "well" under the bridge. My difficulty is getting the horn end of the pallet fork into the "well" while attempting to assemble the train bridge. I'm sure there is a technique to do this, but I haven't discovered it yet.

Your comments are always appreciated.

Bill

**bchaps** · 09-09-2006, 03:15 AM

I'm working on an old Elgin Pocket Watch Grade 184. The Balance wheel is positioned above the train bridge while the roller end of the staff is recessed in a "well" under the bridge. My difficulty is getting the horn end of the pallet fork into the "well" while attempting to assemble the train bridge. I'm sure there is a technique to do this, but I haven't discovered it yet.

Your comments are always appreciated.

Bill

**doug sinclair** · 09-09-2006, 03:51 AM

Bill,

Here's how I do it. This is from a BULLETIN article I did on a Hamilton 927 a couple years ago.

assembly

1/ Assemble as shown.
2/ Line up the recess in the pillar plate over the bridge as shown.
3/ Lower the pillar plate, watching for the centre wheel arbor to appear in its bearing.
4/ Now, make certain that the pillars on the pillar plate are aligned with the holes in the bridge correctly.
5/ Continue to lower the pillar plate, observing the orientation of the pillars to the holes in the bridge.
6/ Now watch for the fourth wheel pivot to appear at its bearing, line up, and lower pillar plate further.
7/ Now, keeping the plates together, you can pick the movement up and aligne everything else.

By the way, the watch movement type is called "full plate", and the recess for the bottom of the balance staff is called a "potence"> We really gotta get you into the NAWCC where you'l see operations like this easily followed in the BULLETIN!

**bchaps** · 09-09-2006, 04:17 AM

Wow! Just assemble on the bridge...simple. Unless, of course, one doesn't think of it! Although I have a complete collection of Bulletins since 1988, knowing how to search the online index for a topic such as this is key.

By the way, I am a card carrying, dues paying member of NAWCC ... for about six years now, along with Chapters #1 and ####. The bulk of my client work is clocks, so watch repair is still a challenge to me. But, I greatly appreciate your help when I find myself in a corner.

Doug, Thanks again!
Bill

**doug sinclair** · 09-09-2006, 04:45 AM

Bill,

You might want to update your personal profile with the information that you are NAWCC. It doesn't say, so I assumed you weren't. Anyway, the complete article I mentioned on the re-staffing, tear-down, recondition, and re-assembly of the full plate Hamilton 927 is in the BULLETIN issue 352, and 353,October and December of 2004. Perhaps your earlier interest primarily in clocks meant you weren't reading watch articles back then? Anyway, I cover this topic at length in those two articles.

By the way, the article also discusses the right way to dismantle a full plate watch without the danger of snapping a pallet arbor pivot! MOST IMPORTANT!