Pallet Fork Repair.

September 2010

Over a year has passed since i last fiddled with this watch, here once again the subject, a Waltham model 1984. It's an 8-jewel mongrel. The barrel bridge does not go with the rest of the movement, so it has a jeweled upper 3'rd wheel piviot over what would otherwise be a 7 jewel movement:

The problem where I left is that the pallet fork look like this:

One pallet stone missing the other sheared. One of the things I had done in the intervening year was to aquire a pallet warmer, and to add my own electric heating element to it.

The other thing that I did was to purachase an assortment of pallet stones. I should have taken pictures of this proces, but the the stones were a "mixed bag". So in order to make the process reasonable I set about sorting them. Placing them one at a time in my micrometer, and measuring the thickness. Then with some trial and error was able to get new stone set in to the old fork:

Re-assembling the movement to check the depth of stones (and taking it apart to adjust) I now have this:

The watch now runs, but only barely. There are still problems, probably with the pivots in the going train.

To be continue...