Job Number 180066

Here's a grade 317 Elgin, 18 size, 15 jewels, made about 1910. 

Oddly, this watch was missing the little pusher pin that goes inside the winding arbor. It's not a hard part to replace, but it is a strange part to be missing.

On closer examination, I noticed a lot of wear marks on the vibrating arm that the post pushes (into winding mode). The vibrating arm likely wasn't as in the way as normal and the post may have simply pushed out and fallen away at some point.

Since the watch did not run (broken roller jewel) and was fully would already, one would not have noticed that it didn't go into winding mode properly. Just a guess...

Here's the balance assembly with the broken roller jewel, sometimes called a roller pin. I was slowed down a little cleaning this in preparation for shellacing a new jewel. It turns out a prior reparer had used glue to fix the roller jewel. Unexpected... Some acetone took it right off though.

There's also a lot of weight on this balance. Someone really wanted to slow it down. I've seen worse.

1) A lot of weight on the balance.
2) Regulator all the way to slow.

Sure enough, on the machine the watch still ran fast by 2-3 minutes per 24 hours. You can see in this animation though that the balance was pretty out of true. The beat is way off too, although you can't really see that, I could sure hear it.

Improving the balance and beat also improved the rate significantly. I didn't take any weight off, but the regulator is now 3/4s way over to the fast side. We'll see how it does. The hairspring is good, no damage, but the age of the steel is likely a significant factor in the rate.

This is one of those watches with a lot of wear and tear all throughout. It should work pretty well but I won't be looking for great accuracy. It's very best days are behind it.