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Search results

  1. J

    Why do we repair watches?

    Out of curiosity for the question are you asking us personally why would we repair our watches or is it more of a Why does anybody get their watch Repaired? Oh and then there's the problem of definition of what a repair is? For instance swapping a movement is still a repair.
  2. J

    How do I know if mainspring is usable ???

    Typically when mainsprings are bad they just don't have any long-term power capability. In other words you wind the watch up tight the watch will run for a while and then just run out of capacity and the watch will stop. When you're mainspring starts to look more like a large hairspring then...
  3. J

    Restoration Watchmaster Ultrasonic cleaner?

    That is something very bad for cleaning if you look at all cleaning fluids In watch repair they tell you to use them at room temperature. Is this a vacuum tube machine?
  4. J

    Elgin Balance Swap for 16s Grade 291

    I usually always clean everything in the ultrasonic. But any time you're working on vintage you always want to check that the shellac is still intact especially with the roller jewel. Over time it has a habit of or over time other people of done things and then the roller jewel will be loose. So...
  5. J

    Can a watch mainspring be reset?

    I wonder if the type of steel used would have any impact on your heat treating? In other words the watch companies didn't just use a straight steal a lot of them had specialized metals and would that change the heat treating process? Although now that I read the fine details of your message...
  6. J

    This old watch…

    If you look carefully at the image he attached the escapement it's in English lever. Then yes visually it looks like a three-quarter plate English watch. Also as everyone else noted we all agree it's probably the mainspring it's broken. One of the interesting problems and watch repair is...
  7. J

    Illinois Bunn Special 161 Elinvar service question

    If this was modern watch repair balance complete no problem. Balance complete for this watch I don't suppose you have a time machine? Or basically balance complete is not practical or even obtainable. Hairspring they were available separately typically in a timely oven over coil hairspring...
  8. J

    Sourcing an Elgin 861-C balance staff?

    I found an image which gives sizes of things. I'm assuming that oil groove isn't really a requirement even if it's a separate staff?
  9. J

    Flat vs Breguet hair spring

    Just the clarification of things typically flat hairsprings are not available separately. Flat hairsprings are vibrated to the balance wheel that They came on. Over coil hairsprings on the other hand were available for the most part for the balance wheels. That's because they were premade...
  10. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    Yes I'm already aware of that and yes it presents a challenge unless you have the proper circuit. I have a circuit board with an op amp goes into a filter which gets rid of everything below thousand cycles then goes into the USB sound device I have and that plugs into the computer. Plus for the...
  11. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    One of the problems with bad signals or bad setups is people trying to help people that are posting look what my watches doing and it really isn't becomes a problem. A lot of times people are using apps with the intradermal capacitive microphone and that doesn't always work the best. So...
  12. J

    Mechanical WW Which oils and grease to use for watch services?

    What I find interesting with Moebius Is they still List quite a bit of natural oil is an entire section in the oil section for natural oils. I can't see that they would sell it because of the price. Then to open a can of worms there are some indications that natural oils are actually supposed to...
  13. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    I was thinking about something today and that is we forgot to mention something. Computer microphone inputs aren't always the best quality and were never designed to do what were doing. Some of them will work just perfect others will not. Sometimes if you might have a line input and I think your...
  14. J

    Mechanical WW Which oils and grease to use for watch services?

    The problem is it's a question with too many variables and too many unknown factors. Like for instance if your watch is a non-sealed mechanical watch versus a water resistant watch it is sealed up nice and tight the life of the lubricant is going to be different. So in a dust resistant case with...
  15. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    Thank you that explains what I was hearing. I was listening with my headphones and definitely didn't sound right. I'm a bit confused here? I have the earlier versions that microphone and they work really well. I'm not using the same amplifier though I'm using something different. But I read the...
  16. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    Yes your audio file sounds interesting but not in a good way of interesting. If you're doing audio processing you can basically filter everything off below 1000hz which is what the timing machines will typically do anyway.
  17. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    Can we see a picture of what it shows? + Curious about how you're connecting the watch to your set up a picture that might be helpful also
  18. J

    Elgin grades 286 balance wheel infomation and replace

    The problem with a watch like this is its old. You'll notice at the link below it tells you when it was made which was about 117 years ago. That means nobody as manufacturing parts for this watch. The most you can hope for is to find another watch the steel balance wheel out of bots usually on...
  19. J

    Need Off the Shelf Beat Amplifier Watches or Clocks

    You already have a key part of what you need which is a pickup and the pickup for that should be pretty decent. At least the earlier style of them were very good so I'm assuming the current style which looks different is the same thing. Then I see you fixed your noise problem and yes I was...
  20. J

    992B Question

    I'm attaching the technical guide for the Hamilton 992B. Also have an image of the mainspring as far as I know there's only one End for the spring. But they're different thicknesses for the steel spring and for the DYNAVAR. Then the only way you going to tell with the mainspring is doing is...

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