RWG Technical Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Since we have a number of visitors to our site, I though this may be of interest to those with a technical interest and background. It is a re-post of an article from a while back (my apologies to the RWG members who have already seen it). I sincerely hope all the RG folks are enjoying their visit to our forum and find this post of interest. Great to have you here. I always like to challenge myself and learn new things. When it comes to watchmaking, I study and try and learn something new all the time. I thought it would be an interesting project to re-engine my Fiddy with an old pocket watch movement. The reasons I wanted to do this upgrade include: 1. Installing a higher grade 21 jewel adjusted to 5 position movement, not only for astetics, but for time keeping accuracy 2. See if I had the skills to modify the hour and cannon gears to accept my Fiddy hands 3. See if I could modify the case to accept a pocket watch movement 4. See if I could modify the stem to fit my Fiddy crown So let me walk you down the path I took to get this modification accomplished. As with any modification, you have to follow a certain set of steps, but since we are dealing with a number of unknowns, you don't know if step A is going to work until you try it, and then you don't know if step B is going to work, and so on...any way along the road I could reach a road block and the whole project is dead in the water... So knowing all of that, I start with what I think is the show stopper, modifying the existing hour and cannon pin to accept my Fiddy hands, without hands the watch isn't much good... Modifying the ETA H3 Hour wheel and H3 Cannon pinion. My plan is to remove the ETA hour wheel tube from an ETA hour wheel, and install this tube over the pocket watch hour wheel. I chuck the wheel in the lathe and cut the tube off with a graver... Close up of the ETA wheel in place. The tube has been cut off... I change collets and place the cut off hour wheel in the collet so that I can true up the cut off end. Here is my new tube next to the hour wheel for the pocket watch movement. Test fitting and measuring shows that I have to enlarge the new tube I cut off and reduce the diameter of the pocket watch hour wheel slightly, so that I can mate the two tubes together. I put the new tube into the collet, and run a reamer through it to enlarge the hole. I also slightly cut down the outside of the pocket watch hour wheel tube. Test fitting shows that I have removed enough material and the new tube slips over the pocket watch hour wheel, step one is a success...only a dozen more steps to go Cannon pin modification Next up, I need to cut the top off of a H3 ETA Cannon pin, so that I can install it onto my pocket watch cannon pin. Step 1, cut off the top of the ETA cannon pin. After it's cut off, I true it up in the lathe as I did with the hour tube. Here is the new modified Hour wheel installed on pocket watch movement. You can see the reason I need a new cannon pinion to accept my Fiddy hands, the existing one is much too small and too short... The new ETA Cannon pinion tip is removed from the lathe so you can see what I am working with... Measurements show me that I need to cut out the center of the Cannon pin tip so that it will fit over the pocket watch cannon pinion. The hole I need to cut into the bottom of the new cannon pinion tip measures out at 0.90mm... Now that I have the new Cannon pin modified, I test fit it onto the pocket watch movement. Success! perfect fit, so I epoxy the cannon pinion tip in place. Fitting the movement into the case. I didn't document these steps with photo's. The movement was slightly too large to fit into the Fiddy case. I machined the inside of the case and enlarged it enough to fit the movement. Once this was done, I test fitted the movement and as I hoped would happen, everything lined up perfectly, the stem hole lines up exactly with the case tube. Only problem is that my pocket watch stem is much too big... Modifying the stem to fit my Fiddy crown... Next challenge. Fitting my 1.20mm crown onto a pocket watch stem that measures a whopping 1.55mm... Since the stem is hardened metal, I use a carboloy graver to turn it down to 1.20mm. Tempered metal will ruin my 1.20mm die, so I anneal the stem by heating it up with my butane torch. Annealing removes the temper and allows me to run my die over the stem and create new threads... Big test, will the crown fit...yes, one more step out of the way... I then installed the movement into the case, test fitted and trimmed the stem, and then discovered that the caseback was a bit too tight when screwed down. I removed the caseback crystal, and machined the inner diameter of the caseback so that it would thread down without touching the new movement. Hour and minute hands fit perfectly, what didn't fit was the seconds hand. I had to remove and replace the seconds hand tube with a longer one that measured 0.17mm to fit onto my pocket watch movement. Once that was done, all the hands were installed and tested for alignment. I lumed the dial and hands to match the Genuine Fiddy. This was done with pure Super Luminova C3 which is the same colour used on the Genuine PAM's (I have confirmed the colour against a genuine Fiddy and other genuine PAM dials I have had in the shop for repair and relume - ALL PAM's are lumed in pure C3, not a C3/C1 mix as some claim). So what did I end up with... Overall view And the real reason for the mods...who can resist something so beautiful... The movement was fully serviced before installation. The top pivot on the balance wheel staff was bent, I managed to straighten it out so it's almost perfect, but there is a slight wobble to the pivot (visible through the top cap jewel). This is causing a positional error of 4 seconds per day, so I will replace the balance staff with a new one and correct that issue. Conclusion... Reps have flaws, no matter how many mods we do to them. With that in mind, and given the history of the "Fiddy", and my love of old pocket watch movements - not only for their timekeeping accuracy - but the fit, finish, and beauty, I thought it "Fitting to Fit my Fiddy" with something that I would enjoy looking at for a long time. Knowing I have a 60+ year old movement on my wrist, with 21 Jewels and a Breguet overcoil hairspring, adjusted to temperature and 5 positions and that keeps time to within 30 seconds per week, is something I am proud to wear. As well, I got to use and have fun practicing some of my watchmaiking skills. Hope you like the results, and thanks for reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbigandwonderful Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Thanks for sharing. This is very interesting with a great result. The pleasure derived from watches with beautiful vintage movements can only be fully understood when they are worn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam_diverz Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 that is nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverspeed Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 Amazing skills...that cannon pinion looks great I can imagine that you wear that beautiful piece proudly...wow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jawo Posted July 4, 2009 Report Share Posted July 4, 2009 You never seize to amaze me. Bravo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezod Posted July 5, 2009 Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 Thanks Z for reposting your article. You've got some awesome machining toys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earlgrey-erfurt Posted July 5, 2009 Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 Thanks for reading it again true beauty in one watch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ChiMan Posted July 5, 2009 Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 Wow...what a cool tut! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kollektor Posted July 5, 2009 Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 Brilliant -- I always learn so much every time you post. Looks astounding. Interesting bit about the pure C3 -- I didn't know that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samurai Posted July 5, 2009 Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 That's some amazing s.hit......excellent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWG Technical Posted July 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2009 Interesting bit about the pure C3 -- I didn't know that. I suspected it was always C3 but once I had the genuine dials in house, I placed some C3 on the genuine dial lume, and it was an exact match, this confirmed what I suspected. The problem is all in the photography, the camera exposes for an "overall" brightness, and because the dials are black, the lume ends up being over-exposed and looks white. If you correctly expose the lume, you will always see the correct colour. In person it never looks white, it looks pure C3 Yellow/Green. If your reference is to use pictures, then of course you will make the mistake of thinking the genuine is something lighter than C3, and this is where the old wives tale of C1/C3 mix started...and it's never going to go away like the rest of the myths of watches... Pure C3, think about it, why would you dilute the brightest lume and C3 is the best and brightest. You can test the colour change with any digitial camera and your PAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elisiX Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 Very cool Rob. Thanks for posting that for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rnewbie Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 Wonderful stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitton Mar Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) RG visitor here: Are you trying to give us an inferiority complex? Great Post, thanks for re-posting. Great pics as well. Q - How long have you been modding? Coz this seems a lot beyond what I would attempt. EVER Edited July 6, 2009 by Mitton Mar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slay Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 Read it a while ago, was amazed, read it again today, still amazed. Great work, seriously! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWG Technical Posted July 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 RG visitor here: Are you trying to give us an inferiority complex? Great Post, thanks for re-posting. Great pics as well. Ha ha, not at all...just trying to share my area of interest and show things that most members don't get to see or witness. Glad you like it and thanks for the feedback. If you liked this one, you may enjoy this one here...it's technical as well: Replacing a balance staff Q - How long have you been modding? Coz this seems a lot beyond what I would attempt. EVER I have been around watches for over 30 years, family history going back to 1935 in watch repair, it's my hobby to keep my idle hands away from the devil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrantR Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 very nice post, once again you amaze us all... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OmegaPOFL Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 WOW.... is that your daily wearer!? after all that work... looks beautiful zig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shundi Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 Z, Amazing! Like Slay, I read it before and I'm equally impressed reading it again! Something I noticed: Does the balance wheel not have shock protection?? I don't see a KIF or Incabloc-type spring over the jewel...does this affect wearing the watch, actual shock resistance, etc? I ask because I'm looking at picking up a beautiful old Waltham watch with the same type of jeweling... I'd love to know your thoughts on this...thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWG Technical Posted July 7, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 No shock protection at all on these older movements, which is why the balance staff's break off so often or get bent. I wear this watch all the time, wearing it now in fact...it's within 30 second a WEEK accuracy and as long as I don't drop it, it's going to be fine. Get the Waltham, you'll not regret it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shundi Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 No shock protection at all on these older movements, which is why the balance staff's break off so often or get bent. I wear this watch all the time, wearing it now in fact...it's within 30 second a WEEK accuracy and as long as I don't drop it, it's going to be fine. Get the Waltham, you'll not regret it. Ah interesting...and no way to sort of "retrofit" shock protection I'd imagine...else you'd probably have done it! 30 seconds a week...man...they don't make 'em like they used to My whole family is originally from Waltham, MA... I'm looking out my window at work and can just barely see the top of the Waltham Watch Factory I'll post pictures when I find the perfect one.... As always, thanks for your informative response! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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