Here the revision of an American Elgin savonette pocket watch. According to an engraving (not visible here) it was bought in 1914.
The movement was high-quality in its time and is exceptionally nicely decorated. But as a drawback it does not work continuously...clearly time for a teardown...
Crystal and hands removed:
Some beautiful details here: Curved bridges, engravings on the balance cock, the polished wheels, screwed jewel bearings (called "chatons") and a screw balance with a Breguet overcoil and long regulator arm.
The empty case before cleaning.
Ratchet wheel removed:
The crown wheel taken out.
Even the dial underside looks beautifully marble-like.
The bottom plate disassembly in process...
Time to take the escapement off:
The nice arrangement under the wheel bridge:
Old resinated grease in the upper right, mainspring barrel right below.
And here the opened mainspring barrel with the blue tempered mainspring:
All the movement parts right before cleaning:
The cleaned movement, case and crystal:
Reassembly showed that the main reason why the movement always stopped after some seconds was that the bearing of the mainspring barrel had eroded over time (maybe the pocket watch had run some time without a service or with a combination of improper cleaning and re-oiling afterwards -> the mix of oil and remaining metal dust can make a great grinding paste...). This allowed the barrel to wobble around and come into contact with the balance wheel occasionally. As spare parts were not an option in this case, I used my staking tool and some (directed) brute force to bring the bearing back to its original size and form. Obviously, this worked quite well (ignore the well-visible beat error - I did not want to run the risk of destroying the overcoil :-):
The finished movement:
And a final dial shot of this very fine pocket watch:
greetings noq2
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