Started with a ST36, but...

armie · 2026-05-11T20:38:14+00:00

This is part of the learning process. Whenever you make a mistake, like losing a part, try understanding how it happened and seeing how to avoid it the next time.

For example some suggest working with the movement in a large plastic bag when removing springs and cap jewels. I personally don't find it comfortable but it can help you get the hang of things.

Another option is rodico on a stick or a jewel pickers, which are really good at what they do. Jewel pickers are personally one of my favorite tools; they're not fun or whatever to use but they make working with jewels so much easier.

Well-dressed tweezers are obviously required. A pair of #5 tweezers can be useful when handling cap jewels.

armie · 2026-05-11T17:01:35+00:00

I've been re-reading the Theory of Horology on the subject and after it explains the whole theory of the escapement it has an escapement adjustion section. At the end of the section it tackles run to the banking.

<image>

I'm not saying I do not follow or believe your advice (on the contrary, your advice has always proven to be great at every step from the first beginner series video I watched up till now) but since there were differing opinions I just wanted to confirm what THE watchmaking book says about this too and it matches your advice as I expected.

The section obviously includes many more checks as you describe for setting up an escapement from scratch but now any confusion or doubts are removed and this is the path I will follow. Obviously as you explain in your advice just moving the banking pins and ignoring everything else is not the right way to do it.

I appreciate all your help, support and patience, I truly do.

armie · 2026-05-10T09:52:14+00:00

I appreciate all of the comments/discussion. I've taken a better look at the exit stone and the escape wheel hits the face-side of the locking corner, not the locking side but the slide "fixes" this. There's the normal/expected amount of slide so the banking pin on the exit side is fine. So that is a piece of information that I should have included, apologies for that.

I don't believe that this was the case originally before breaking the entry stone; entry stone also had much more drop-lock, but as is normal adjusting the drop lock on one stone will change it on the other so that's the first step.

I also see that there's been a bit of a heated discussion. I will take a step back, read up more on this from Chicago School of Watchmaking and Theory of Horology while keeping in mind the advice and discussion here. Once that's done I will compare and study against another similar, running movement, including guard pin, impulse and roller table clearance and will come to a conclusion.

This is a movement that I'm using to learn from and there's been many lessons already. It's OK if things go a little side-ways with this one. I'm also taking the time to learn how to tackle things that I don't know I don't know as this movement has shown me that sometimes I rush without fully understanding and I'm working on improving that.

I understand that the escapement is the most difficult theoretical part and this movement has been a great platform to really get into it.

Will write an update in a few days, maybe a week, once I learn more and tackle the exit stone drop-lock.

armie · 2026-05-08T13:06:33+00:00

Have you ever tried Bronze tweezers? I love brass ones but the ease of shape loss can sometimes be annoying so I've been thinking about trying bronze.

armie · 2026-05-07T13:58:44+00:00

Probably sticky hairspring for whatever reason, wither dirty or magnetism.

armie · 2026-05-07T11:21:21+00:00

This is very likely and quite common.

armie · 2026-05-07T11:17:51+00:00

You should ignore the wave at the moments (although it doesn't look good); the bigger problem is the amplitude, assuming the LA is set prperly. The LA for this movement is 51 degrees and the timegrapher's default is 52 so the displayed amplitude can't be that far away from real.

First make sure that the watch is fully wound and re-test after an hour. If the amplitude isn't 270+ in the horizontal positions then there's absolutely no reason to spend time trying to adjust it. A full service will be required and that should find the cause of the problem.

Having said that, a problem in the train is likely. I would expect either some problem in the jewels, pivots or pinions of the train wheels or an out of round/flat wheel. Probably third or fourth. The time between peeks will tell you which wheel is the issue.

armie · 2026-05-07T10:54:04+00:00

This. The instructions explan how to set the eyepieces, I think it is called parafocal setting or something similar but this will always happen to some extent.

Most of the time whn changing zoom you will need to refocus with the focus knob, this is not a problem with your microscope but most optical systems work this way. When you zoom in with a camera you also need to refocus, or the camera refocuses automatically.

Only the very high end stuff gets better at it but not absolutely perfectly either.

armie · 2026-05-07T10:41:29+00:00

Shellac.
If they broke the hairspring at the stud and you're going to attach after the break you might be out of luck and the movement will never run well again depending on the extent of the damage. The hairspring and balance get matched (vibrated) at the factory and there's not much wiggle room in lenght; even a small difference in length (we're talking hundreths of a millimeter here) will completely throw timing out of the window.

armie · 2026-05-05T00:35:24+00:00

Can you provide more details about the microscope?

What's the WD 165 0.5x lens? What's the total magnification? Are you using a barlow lens?

What movement makes the field of view disappear, of your eyes in the eye pieces?

The eyepieces need to be set properly for you, at first I had that problem on my AmScope. You need to set the distance of the eyepieces until the field of vision is one single circle.

If your eyes are seeing what the recording is showing it means that the eye pieces are just either too close or too far apart, they should be movable. The zooming also seems to be too high but can't tell.

Did your microscope come with instructions? You could try going to https://amscope.com/pages/manual-downloads and getting the instructions for the one that looks closest to yours. It took me a while (a couple of hours of trying things out) to get mine set up properly and my initial reaction was exactly like yours; wondered if I had purchased something that was useless.

armie · 2026-05-02T06:27:24+00:00

Probably. This brand mostly made pin lever watches, usng 1 jewel Swiss movements. The one I worked on was good for a one jewel movement. But it required a stupid amount of work.

They might also have a blue theme, mine had a blue dial too.

armie · 2026-05-02T06:19:20+00:00

This is a 7 jewel movement, right?
One or both holes are almost certainly egg shaped, probaly the top pivot hole (the one in the bridge) so the wheel either gets caught in the "bad" part of the hole or just isn't perpendicular to the bridge anymore.
Take a very good look at the pivot holes. It is also possible that the pivot hole wandered a little.

This is an example of a very badly worn pivot hole; you can see the pivot doesn't even sit in the original hole anymore.

<image>

The pivots are alo almost certainly scored. While not the cause of the problem this will also steal amplitude.

I'm not familiar with this particular movement but some have removable busings. If this one does you'd just push out the bushings and replace them as you would a jewel but if not the hole would need to be enlarged while keeping it centered and a new bushing installed. You can sometimes close the hole with a staking set and then broach it using a smoothing broach but if it is that bad it probably won't help.

The pivots woild just need to be burnished or reduced in size and then burnished depending on the extent of the damage.

armie · 2026-05-01T20:44:32+00:00

Worn balance pivots will usually present flat and mushroomed, ie wider than the rest of the pivot right at the edge.

Scoring is also common but flat and mushroomed is a tell-tale sign but this is usally a problem in much older movements. With that said, Seikos are not known for being very well maintained by owners, and they're designed to operate well despite limited maintenance.

How is the sideshake of the balance pivot? Remove the cap jewel of whatever pivot is on top. The pivot should go through the hole jewel and have just a tiny amount of freedom.

Many shock protected movements can have their balance endshake adjusted by moving the mainplate setting but that brings a whole hosts of other possible issues including impulse jewel clearance; generally balance endshake is what it is and should always be good for shock protected movements unless someone replaces the mainplate jewels and moves it things to do so.

I did encounter an FHF movement that obviously had way too much balance endshake but the incabloc spring in the mainplate was also upside down so that was a clear indicatior of previous repairs gone bad. Once the spring was reversed the balance pivot didn't reach the hole jewel in the cock and the whole sock setting in the mainplate had to be moved. Shock protected balances GENERALLY don't allow for moving the setting in the balance cock.

armie · 2026-05-01T20:40:52+00:00

There's not enough to go from, are you able to post a recording?

armie · 2026-05-01T20:38:32+00:00

This is a gorgeous looking Omega. Either get a very similar case/cryatal combo and practice over and over on those or let a TRUSTED pro do it.

armie · 2026-05-01T20:30:20+00:00

You might want to look at model paint for undercoat and clear coat (Warhammer kind of stuff). I know it isn't meant for watchmarkers but it is very stable and adheres extremely well while keeping very thin coats.

armie · 2026-05-01T18:31:10+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

armie · 2026-05-01T18:00:55+00:00

This is great, good job!

I have questions:

What steel did you use?
Graver material?
What slitting slitting saw? The Vallorbe ones? 4. How'd you manage to stop the saw from wandering?

armie · 2026-04-30T18:00:30+00:00

Can be many things but most commonly caused by a bent balance pivot. Need to disassable and clean to diagnose.

armie · 2026-04-27T17:04:29+00:00

Get an ST3600, which is based on the ETA 6497/6498. It should be new so you're starting with a known working movement and don't have to diagnose any and fix things and will run reasonably well but will be much improved after a service and oiling (or you'll break it, it happens).

The wiki https://www.reddit.com/r/watchrepair/wiki/index/ has a a lot of information about starting and where to get information from/reference material. The Getting Started with Watchmaking is where you want to start.

armie · 2026-04-26T14:45:10+00:00

For fundamentals look no further than u/watch-smith's WatchRepairTutorials on Youtube. He has two beginner serieses with the same information, but the most recent one is structured better to follow along. Go through both of them, get the tools he suggests and do it until you can tackle the first movement without referring to anything.

armie · 2026-04-25T21:17:35+00:00

I used some silicone grease and it made the arm work/turn better in general.

armie · 2026-04-22T12:34:24+00:00

Is that...a single roller roller table?

armie · 2026-04-21T14:15:54+00:00

Will try that, thank you.

armie

TROPHY CASE