So, any old non-working watch we should send to you?
(:
Sneezles61

Only if you risk it coming back as small pieces in a plastic bag..... Or the missus commandeering  it.

Just finished repairing and servicing another little Tissot at the weekend and was testing it for a few hours on the timegrapher. Missus, hearing the timegrapher ticking away stuck her head around the door..

 "Watchyergot on there"?

Sigh! "Another little Tissot like your white one but about 20 years older design".

"Ooh lets have a look.  Wow that's running well"....... Can I have it"?

" Spose.  What colour strap do you want"?

"Powder blue".



Soddin knew it.  There goes my idea of putting a new strap on it and puttng it on ebay for £50 to fund another watch project.  The missus is a complete Tissot fan.  I think she wants a watch for every outfit.

Little tissot on timegrapher.  Impressive readings.  It just cannot get any better than that for a 50 year old watch.  That pic was to be for my ebay ad.


And she gets her way yet again.  Still, she cannot complain when I splash out on another project now.
​​​​​

 

Back to the original thread and the devil watch.

Well the plot thickened even further, but it is finally running as of this morning. If you can call it running.

I was so close to giving up on it. I think the old lady that owned it did not want it running again and cursed it. Every step was a nightmare.

The mislocking on further investigation was caused by the "new, old stock" pallet fork for the the Tissot 744 / ETA 2551. Suspiciously, it did not arrive in ETA packaging, but in a small ziplock bag. Fair enough, parts are often packaged at the factory in twos, threes or fives and the seller sells them seperately.

After hours of peering through the loupe and microscope, prodding this, removing and refitting that, I came across the culprit. It was the wrong pallet fork.

I removed the new and compared it with the old. The old one had entrance and exit ramps and the new one did not. Notice the rear of the forks, old one on the the left flares out to guide the impulse jewel in. The new fork "trident" is straight. My fault, I should have compared them earlier.

Genuine ETA 2550 fork in genuine ETA packaging flew in from the Netherlands.

Old fork on left, new but wrongly supplied fork on right.

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So fork fitted, fitted, balance fitted and attempted to put a wind in the watch again. The balance is working fine now, however it needed more power to run.

A couple of turns and it was obvious the brand new mainspring in the brand new barrel was either broken or slipping. Stripped down the watch to its component parts yet again to investigate. Split the barrel and the mainspring had been fitted wrongly. For some reason the arbour end was bent double on itself and the arbour was catching it and then slipping. It should have wrapped round the arbour so that as the spring came under tension it grips the arbour tighter.

Spring straightened and fitted correctly then had second thoughts, it was bent double and very likely to break prematurely, so a new mainspring was ordered and fitted. Watch rebuilt yet again. God I hate that train bridge with a passion. Takes ages to get everything lined up, but now the watch winds, I have power to the escapement and the pallet fork is working correctly.

Time to fit the balance... Where did I put it? Drat I left it dangling for over a week on my balance tack and the spring had taken on a conical set. I could have screamed. Time to remove the spring from the balance cock and attempt to straighten it up. My bad. The balance tack is good for a few hours, not weeks.

Now I know the movement was a donor with rejected parts refitted, the regulator pin was badly mashed, but I got it undone, tried my best to "realign"" the spring and refitted it. You cannot see the thing with a naked eye side on and its total diameter is about 6mm. I did my best, refitted the balance and the watch started up.

A new balance wheel and spring is £14 but I am done spending on it. I have £100 in a watch probably worth £40 or £50 as fully overhauled.

Cased it all up and stuck it on the timegrapher. At least it is running. I need to let it run for a week or so to let it settle down, the lube to distribute itself properly and the hairspring to shake itself out.

The trouble with timegraphers is you know too much. Before I bought it I was happy with a watch that just kept good time. Beat errors and amplitudes were just words. You can have really poor amplitudes and beat errors with a watch that is accurate on average to less than a minute a day. Excellent timekeeping and very reliable, but not "healthy".

So grand total of this ebay special "non runner".

Mainspring barrel assembly from Slovenia.

Mainspring from the UK.

Third wheel from the Netherlands.

Pallet fork #1 from the UK.

Pallet fork #2 from the Netherlands.

Date ring from the UK

Date jumper and spring from the Netherlands.

Rate is not as displayed, it is all over the place, amplitude sucks, beat error sucks but to my surprise it turns out that the Tissot744 is a relatively high beat movement.

I expect it to settle down a little over the week, then I can do some adjustments. Waste of time trying at the moment.

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I'm not really clear on one point...  how do you feel about that train bridge? 

I was referring to “give them to you”.
Sneezles61

Id be interested , and since this forum is picture heavy, couldnt you host images offsite on imgur? thats how I used to do it anyways. havent been here in quite some time.

"couldnt you host images offsite on imgur?"

Some of us use that third party facility. If you copy and paste the Imgur BB code, then the picture actually shows on the site.