Job Number 170002

Although this watch is in pretty good condition, there were a couple red flags. One was a piece of folded up tissue paper under the balance cock, placed to raise the balance cock up and increase the end-shake of the balance. This is something similar to the usual making of divots in the place under the piece, using a graver, but less permanent obviously.

The second red flag was a drop of glue on the top and side of the balance cock. It was not holding anything, just sitting there on the top edge and part of the side. It must have been left there accidentally from doing something else (which I did not find).

I went ahead and fully assembled it. And it ran just fine, dial side down. It stops dial side up because there is too much end-shake (strange considering that fold of tissue paper I removed) in the balance wheel, and it slips down with gravity and touches the underside of the balance cock in that orientation.

The problem is extensive wear to the upper balance pivot. It's not broken, but it's worn down to the point where it is short and will have to be replaced. This can happen either because the jewels have a crack or chip and they cut away at the steel pivot with each motion, or when I watch is not cleaned, dirt in there can also grind away. Or perhaps other reasons... Hard to say what happened here. The jewel is fine (at this time anyway), and only the upper pivot is badly worn, not both upper and lower.

When I was cutting the hub off in the lathe, to remove the old staff, there occurred a thankfully rare mini-disaster. I guess I pressed the cutter at a bad angle and the staff in the chuck side broke. Bad. That meant I had to reverse the balance and chuck up the side I had been working on, then cut away the rivet instead. This takes a lot longer as it has to be done with extreme precision to avoid damaging the arms of the balance wheel. Turned out OK though, and the new staff is a great fit... This photo shows riveting the new staff.

View the whole album for this project here.

This is one of those watches that the timing machine won't read correctly because of sounds the hairspring makes. The escapement is good, no extra clanking there (which would be bad), but the hairspring rings, which is usually good if anything, so long as it's not doing it because it's touching something. I went ahead and put the hands on and cased it for time tests over several days. It turned out fine.

This watch is an Elgin grade 180, 18 size, 17 jewels, made about 1904.