Reply With QuoteWow!
Good for you. Always fancied myself as an engineer....and watches really float my boat. Think I may well join you in 'fettling' as a retirement hobby.
Cheers
Pete
First of all apologies to those who notice a similar post on another forum - it took a while and I'm interested in feedback from various sources.
Having got the watch bug and being a fairly practical person I decided I'd get something old-ish and have a go at regulating it.
This seemed to fit the bill and arrived from eBay just after Xmas.
I used WatchTracker on my phone and after a couple of days got a pretty smooth pattern of +21s a day. So with a couple of hours free I downloaded Hairspring to my phone, nicked my daughter's headphone mic and opened the watch up.
The iPhone mic/Hairspring/DVD box cover combo had the watch running at +13 at this point.
So... heart in mouth I used a cocktail stick to move the lever to slow things down.
This went badly. From being completely stuck it suddenly swung round to the point where Hairspring was showing -400s a day. Oops.
I managed to get it back to -9 (which seemed sensible given the difference between the real world performance and Hairspring's reading), put the back on again and started timing it.
Oh dear. The rate swung all over the shop for the next couple of days - from -20s to +12. I was convinced I'd ruined it and put it out of beat but, figuring I had nothing to lose, I opened it again and managed to get it to +5 which felt like a sensible compromise.
This time, thankfully, the watch settled to a consistent but not great +26. So off I went again - setting it to +0 on Hairspring on the assumption that small increments upset things less than wild swings.
This gave me a smooth +15 over the next 36 hours so I went for a final tweak to get it down to -10 on Hairspring.
This has now given me a consistent real-world rate of +4.9 which I think is about where I should quit!
So what have I learned? Well...
-WatchTracker is very helpful.
-Hairspring is also great (and cheap compared to a real timing machine) although there's still plenty of trial and error involved - probably due to the cheap mic and the rather ramshackle blu-tac based positional work.
-Watches that haven't been regulated (at least for a long time) might a) be a bit sticky when it comes to making adjustments and b) might not respond well to big changes - little and often seems to be the way.
Anyway, I now have a £20 Seiko running at +5s and have learned something along the way.
Any comments/suggestions for what I should read, watch or try next would be most welcome.
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Wow!
Good for you. Always fancied myself as an engineer....and watches really float my boat. Think I may well join you in 'fettling' as a retirement hobby.
Cheers
Pete
Well done for having a go. I bought a Weishi No 1000 multifunction Timegrapher for £116 from ebay because I play with watches, mod them etc.
It's been so useful. A friend at work wanted me to recommend them a tool watch, so I sourced him a new SKX009. He's had it 3 months and it's been running about 3 or 4 minutes minutes slow per week. I told him that I would regulate it for him when the movement had settled down, so I put it on my timegrapher on Friday and checked it in different positions. I then regulated it while on the timegrapher so I could see the adjustments I made in real time, as I was making them.
The beat error was slightly out, so I got that right first then kept making small adjustments, eventually getting at about 3sec fast per day dial side up. Then if it's running a bit fast, he can lay the watch crown down overnight which will slow it down a bit. Hopefully, he can now regulate the watch himself this way.
i.e. speed it up a little overnight by leaving it dial up and slow it down overnight by leaving it crown down.
Thanks for that - I did wonder about getting a machine but, although they're cheap compared to most watches, I thought that was a bit much to begin with.Originally Posted by jason.humphrey.180
What confused/surprised me was that the variation between the reading on Hairspring and the real world performance of the watch in the same position. I wonder whether this is because Hairspring isn't that accurate or because the watch is also out of beat and/or in need of servicing.
Do timegraphers come up in SC? Maybe when I get access I could get one on there - or at least know I could sell one again if I buy it new.
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The timer should be accurate to the watch, if it isn't then you need to calibrate it to get it to match up.
out of interest, how did you correct the beat error
I didn't - and I'm not sure it has one. Hairspring only does vph measurement so I can't tell. However, since that first adjustment gains and losses have been far smoother - and power reserve seems pretty healthy.
My hypothesis is that the first adjustment - which was inadvertently huge - was a big shock and the watch needed some time to settle afterwards.
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That makes sense on one level but, conversely, I find it hard to imagine how a computer clock could be that wrong.
There's no facility to calibrate Hairspring. Do 'proper' timegraphers have this? And if so what do you calibrate it against?
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You calibrate the timegrapher against the watch movement 'Lift Angle'. Each caliber has a 'Lift Angle' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xgcck692js 7S26/4R36/6r15 have a lift angle of 53 degrees
Not sure where this photo originally came from, but to correct the beat error you move the spring stud slightly, where it says "Do not touch the spring stud". I would only attempt this when on the timegrapher.
Thanks for that. There's another app that has beat error, lift angle and amplitude so I might get that and try some more.
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Quick update on my adventures...
I downloaded Timegrapher from the app store and it immediately became apparent that Hairspring – while OK – was a bit of a false economy.
Timegrapher allows you to set lift angle, measures beat error and seems to be far more sensitive/stable in terms of getting a good reading.
Anyway, it allowed me to correct what seemed to be a fairly minor beat error (0.7ms) down to 0.1/0.2 depending on position and then continue tweaking until the watch was averaging -0.6 spd over the course of a week.
Happy with the final result, I put the watch on a ten quid Amazon alligator deployant strap and sent it off to my father in law as a surprise gift. I'm not sure he'll fully appreciate the horological faffing and COSC accuracy but he was certainly very happy to get a free, rather smart looking mechanical watch out of the blue!
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Last edited by jamesianbriggs; 1st February 2017 at 22:52.
That's a great result. Out of interest how did you know what to set the lift angle to? The apps I've seen tend to default to 52 degrees.
A previous helpful reply on this thread. I'm not sure if 52 to 53 makes a huge difference but it's good to know that you're eliminating as many sources of error as possible.
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One degree of lift angle equates to roughly 5 degrees amplitude. If the timegrapher defaults to 52 degs and the lift angle is actually 49, the amplitude will be overestimated by 10-15degrees. Rate and beat error readings will be unaffected.
Paul
Thanks for the helpful replies.
Thanks Paul. I have so many questions I'd like to ask (how beat error affects accuracy being the most obvious) but maybe you could recommend a few books/sites where I could pick this stuff up? There's so much out there and as a complete noob it's hard to know where to start.
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