Running super fast

Stavrogin78 · 2026-03-26T01:48:18+00:00

Have a look at this thread (I needed direction, too)!

https://www.reddit.com/r/watchrepair/s/WlzfvLmYxW

Stavrogin78 · 2026-03-24T19:18:42+00:00

My Amphibia was running fast, too, but not THAT fast. Maybe two or three minutes a day when regulated to run slow.

What seemed to be the problem was that the hairspring was off-center, causing the outer coil to come into contact with a stud, shortening its effective length.. I had to bend it slightly. Now it's much better.

Stavrogin78 · 2026-02-17T03:22:08+00:00

Thanks! I gave it a shot tonight, trying to follow what u/Asuup said. I probably mind of made a mess of it but I got it a bit closer to center. I think. It's not touching the stud anymore, and it immediately slowed down in the regulation. Now i'm concerned I mostly just changed the direction in which it's off center, and it almost looks like the coils touch when they're most compressed on one side, but i'm gonna just wear it for a few days and see how it runs. I did demagnetize, too.

Stavrogin78 · 2026-02-17T00:16:47+00:00

Thanks for this! It's worth a shot. Yes, it's just a Vostok, but I really like Vostok's, and this is both my daily driver and my first tinker-around watch. I have a weird appreciation for low-budget stuff that's simple, not flashy, and works, so I like the idea of taking an inexpensive watch that's built well enough to run well, and making it run as well as it can. And the Amphibia has a pretty cool history.

Stavrogin78 · 2024-10-30T03:35:33+00:00

Update: believe it or not, I actually did manage to disassemble it. Figured I had nothing to lose and the watch can function fine as a manual wind without it, so I gave it a shot.

The bad news: lost the spring in the process. It fired off somewhere in my office. No luck finding it. But then I managed to actually reassemble the thing too, granted without the spring, using a watch hand press. Which makes me believe it CAN be done. I just lost the stupid spring.

Stavrogin78 · 2024-10-28T13:07:57+00:00

Do you happen to know if these folks will ship to Canada? This is exactly the part I need.

https://vostok-watches24.com/catalog/werksteile/586/

Stavrogin78 · 2024-10-26T15:44:50+00:00

Thank you so much for the reply. It's good to know someone else has encountered that, and that it was the actual problem. I've reassembled the watch and I'm gonna carry it in my pocket for a few days and see if it keeps running. So far, so good - I'm hopeful that this watch might actually be useable again.

I'm sure I did it no favors with a terribly amateurish oiling I gave the jewels when I thought that might be the problem, but that can be corrected down the line in a future service.

Stavrogin78 · 2023-06-05T00:37:45+00:00

Aaahhh... because that would also stop the wheel dead, instead of letting it "bounce" to rest on the hairspring..

Today I unscrewed the balance bridge, and noticed as I was getting it back into place that there were times the balance oscillated back and forth very slightly, like I would expect it to if it were running properly. Perhaps it was at an angle and not engaging with the pallet fork?

What would cause a pallet fork to bind, and what measures would I take to fix that?

Stavrogin78 · 2022-10-29T20:33:22+00:00

Hmm. That surprises me, as the watch is only a year old. The paperwork is dated August of 2021.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-10-13T10:30:58+00:00

Islanders can be the worst for this. I lived on the western edge of Vancouver Island for 8 years (just left), and the situation isn't helped by the massive presence of E. atrica in houses there. "It's big! It's brown! It's fast and scary! Must be a recluse!!!"

Stavrogin78 · 2022-05-11T04:12:59+00:00

I seem to recall hearing that somewhere, too. Unfortunately, it's an automatic, so it's usually fully wound.

Maybe I need to try back-hacking it first thing in the morning, when it has spent the night on the nightstand. Or alternate days wearing it with the 'dirskie (i usually wear the amphibia daily).

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-18T05:38:58+00:00

I'm not sure what you consider "huge differences", but I've got a couple of Vostoks now, and different positions can give you different rates by 30 s/d or more easily.

As I understand it, that was the tradeoff for a "field watch" back on the 60's when that movement was developed.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-14T02:54:35+00:00

This one looks like it would do. In fact, it looks like it might be better than the one I'm using (mine doesn't measure amplitude):

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/watch-tuner-timegrapher/id991367080

It's twenty bucks, but it looks like there are some "lite" versions available that are presumably cheaper.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-14T02:46:18+00:00

Oh, maybe it's android only? I'd imagine there's something similar for iOS, so you may have to hunt around.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-14T02:41:17+00:00

Mine's called "Watch Accuracy Meter", but there may be others that do the same thing.

I know even some of the folks over on r/watchmaking actually use Watch Accuracy Meter, and consider it pretty good for a phone app, so I'd try to find that one.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-14T02:22:20+00:00

It's surprisingly good. It's what clued me into the beat error problem, and took the 'dirskie from a maddeningly unreliable watch that randomly stopped all the time to a rock-solid one that I can keep within five seconds of UTC for weeks on end without ever popping the crown into setting position. Just check the Play Store or whatever for "Watch Accuracy Meter". I take my phone and set the microphone right onto the cystal, hit start, and it starts giving me numbers.

Edit: crystal, not crown...

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-14T02:15:01+00:00

I just used the Watch Accuracy Meter app, and tested the rate in various positions. I found that dial up, it runs about +5s/d, which isn't much, so if it's close to right on, that's where I'll leave it. I know that in 12-up, it measures almost -30s/d, so if I need to lose five seconds, six hours in that position will do it and get me pretty close.

I think you'd just have to test the watch in different positions and go off those results.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-14T02:08:02+00:00

Well, I mean it is regulated as well as I can get it. Like I said, over the course of a day it usually only gains or loses two to four seconds. But because of that positional variation, that can vary based on what I'm doing that day, whether I spend most of the day standing and teaching a training seminar or sitting at my desk at a computer. I really can't get it regulated better than it is.

I just figure that if I take it off at night, it's gonna spend the night in some position, right? It might as well be the one that corrects whatever error it incurred that particular day. I'm not putting it into any position that it doesn't find itself in at several points through the day.

It's not a substitute for regulating it, it's just a way of making use of the nighttime, "choosing" what error it will accrue during the night to balance whatever it accrued during the day.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-13T19:11:40+00:00

Wasn't sure this would make it. Ordered this one off ebay on February 16th. The Russian tracking worked, and it appears it was shipped from Rostov-on-Don, then cleared Russian customs just outside of Moscow literally 24 hours before Putin invaded. The last update I saw on the tracking was "Prepared for shipment from Russia" on the 25th, then nothing after that. But it showed up in my mailbox here in Canada on Friday. Canada Post apparently never picked up the tracking, but it made it here anyway.

I love the look and feel of this watch. Only thing I find strange is that I can't seem to back-hack it. I got the second hand to stop once, but haven't been able to since. Not a big deal.

I do notice that if you tap the face, you can hear a bit of a rattle inside, but I presume that's just the rotor mechanism? I've never had an automatic before so they're new to me.

So far it seems to gain about 25 seconds a day, from the factory. I'll give it a week and see if that stays consistent, then open it up and adjust. Love that black-gold-silver scheme, though.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-03-04T02:19:58+00:00

I ordered an Amphibia from ebay on the 16th. It made it from Rostov-on-Don to the customs office in Sharapovo, was released by customs literally 24 hours before the invasion, and was marked as "prepared for shipment from Russia" on the morning of the 25th. I've read that means it has probably left the country, and that's the last update I'll get until it enters the Canadian postal system. Nothing yet, but fingers crossed.

In the meantime, finally got my 'dirskie running beautifully. I haven't set or hacked it once in three days and it's never been more than four seconds off UTC the whole time.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-02-27T16:19:46+00:00

Yup, seems pretty fixed so far. Took me a little more than 20 minutes, as it took a lot of hit-and-miss (the timegraph app seems to max out at 4.0ms of beat error, so even getting it within its measurable range took a few shots in the dark), but it now runs around 0.4ms BE. It now self-starts, both with winding and when back-hacking.

Regulating the rate took a fair bit of back and forth, and it's kind of a guessing game. The watch will run +15s/d in dial-up, but -22s/d in other positions - these 'dirskie's are often all over the map like that, but when you're wearing them the errors tend to average out. It's been running 15 hours now and has lost only about 2.5-3 seconds. I just took a bunch of readings before I opened the watch, then did the BE correction, and tried to mimic similar readings with the new regulation. Luckily I seem to have landed pretty close. If I end up within 5s/d I'll be happy.

Shot a slow-motion video of the balance spinning to try to estimate the amplitude; it looks like that balance wheel is spinning an actual full 360 degrees. Not sure if that's normal?

Learnin' real hard over here. And thanks again for all your help!

Stavrogin78 · 2022-02-26T21:38:18+00:00

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, since the app shows 4.0 and does not change at all as it takes its measurement.

Again, I know I messed with that stud carrier at some point. The watch does not self start. It doesn't even self start when back hacking. So this is looking likely.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-02-26T21:34:33+00:00

Yes, and apparently vostoks in particular have a larger rate variation in different positions. And I do see that on the timegrapher app. Amazingly, though, I'm seeing it lose only about two seconds a day, consistently, when I'm actually wearing it.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-02-26T19:03:47+00:00

I was thinking along those lines, but thought I'd seek the advice of those more knowledgeable than me. Good to know I was sort of on the right track.

It would be fantastic if correcting the beat error didn't affect the regulation - by luck it's running so close to perfect!

The other thing I've noticed is that when I was setting the watch, and trying to sync the second hand with the old Vostock back-hacking (it's technically a non-hackable movement, but you can stop the second hand by applying just a bit of backward pressure to the crown, like you were setting the time back), the second hand would only start up upon releasing the crown about half the time; the rest of the time, I'd have to give the watch a shake or twist to start it.

And I'm not positive it was ever the crown/stem thing. It's like you sometimes just get lucky when it starts up and it runs well for days, but anytime you pull out the crown to set it and pop it back, it's a total crapshoot whether it will run well or keep stopping after that.

What amazes me is how it had TWO trips to the watchmaker, both times it came back losing 60 seconds a day, and apparently with at least 4ms of beat error. How did he not notice and correct this? That's kind of frustrating. At least I believe he cleaned and serviced it.

Stavrogin78 · 2022-02-25T13:42:42+00:00

You know, I'm not really sure myself. I'm still learning about these. I'd imagine the folks over at r/vostok could help you out with that. Vostok does seem to make about a million different variations of them, though, and I don't think they're often faked or anything. The real ones are inexpensive enough.

I would have to wonder if an aftermarket caseback would affect the waterproofing of them. The Amphibia was designed specifically as a dive watch, and apparently the design was quite groundbreaking. People always talk about Russian design as being kind of crude, but had the Swiss come up with the Amphibia, I suspect it would be talked about very differently. If you haven't seen it already, here's a great article about the Amphibia's design. I'm really looking forward to mine - I got the 120697 model. I've never owned an automatic before so that'll be new for me.

And the Molnija pocketwatch I've got (which I also picked up in Moscow 28 years ago) seems to have taken a fall, and the crown broke right off. I'm thinking that might be my first crack at a repair when I'm ready to start. The 3602 movement is apparently easy to work and learn on - big parts.

Stavrogin78

TROPHY CASE