Pallet jewel replacement

 Resulted in ~40 degrees amplitude. Original jewels are non-corundum (see exit stone) and the entry stone was badly worn. 0.27mm jewels. Might need to replace the exit stone too, we will see.

 

 

How to make a watch stem the traditional way - a beginner's guide (work in progress)

Preface

Traditional watchmaking information is unfortunately hard to come by on the internet and is mostly available either through old books that are expensive or hard to find, full time, extremely expensive formal education or is passed down from master to apprentice.

Unfortunately these sources are either not available, out of reach or do not really tackle the subject from a hobbyist beginner point of view. As a hobbyist you don't have someone next to you who can tell guide you and maybe show you the right way. Sometimes videos help but these are really too few and far between. Internet forums help but you need to know what to ask. Hobbyists also don't have tool knowledge or know where to get tools, or which tools to get.

All of the above make watchmaking extremely frustrating for a hobbyist trying to learn the ropes on their own for a few hours a week.

This guide will try to help with that. I am a beginner with some experience but there was a lot of effort, money spent and frustration along the way. Too much frustration.

 

How to make a watch stem the traditional way - a beginner's guide

This will be the guide I wish I had. Step by step with a bill of materials, where to get them, etc and with no assumptions of previous knowledge. I will try to explain the issues I had. These are not advetisments and I am not sponsered in any way but if anyone who's mentioned wants to sponsor me I will happily have a conversation (please, Schaublin/Levin/Boley).

 

Required tools and materials

 

1. A lathe. There are several options for the hobbyist at home.
1. A watchmaker's lathe.
1. Options for purchasing new are very limited. As far as I am aware the choices are:
1. CZ50. Made by Michael Chung. https://www.lathes.co.uk/chung/ Reports indicate that they are very well made, accurate and come with a whole host of accessories. It seems that the quality of chucks and collets is lower than the lathe itself which probably indicates that these are made by other Chinese manufactures. The lathe itself seems to be superb.
2. Vector lathes. https://www.lathes.co.uk/vector/ It seems that these are made in China and finished in Europe (deburred, etc, who knows). Very limited information about these.
3. Leinen WW83. https://boley.de/en/shop/4584.leinen-ww-83/2102.lathe These are the same as old Leinens but...modern. Full compliment of accessories is available, made new. I'm told that quality is not what it used to be https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/36951-just-found-out-that-boley-still-sell-new-leinen-ww83-lathes/ and prices are about EUR 8000 for the lathe and EUR 12000 for the complete accessory set. Not including tax.
4. Horia https://www.lathes.co.uk/steiner/ https://horia.ch/en/categorie-produit/tours-dhorlogers-en/ I do not know anything about these but if they are the same quality of the Horia jewelling tool they will be absolutely superb. All accessories are available new.
5. Schaublin/Levin. I'm not even going into these. They're hilarously prices even for professionals. But you probably get what you pay for.
2.  Old/second hand. There are many such lathes. Anything from an American or European manufacturer would be good to start but an 8mm, WW pattern Boley/Leinen/Lorch seems to be the best choice. A lathe with as many accessories as possible is ideal since they can be hard to come by and expensive. I have not purchased one but would love to. A 40+ year-old lathe a beginner with no experience, costing multiple thousands of euros with no guarantees, and not being able to inspect/use it in person is scary to me. But this is generally the best way to get a watchmaker's lathe at an approachable price. This is a deep rabbit hole; read and ask before making a choice.
2. A small, benchtop engine lathe. These are small lathes generally targeted towards the model engineering market. The specs will not reach watchamaker's lathe specs when it comes to precision and runout. They are made for different types of operations but these are within financial reach of the hobbyist. They also have a guarantee of matching the specs and buying them sight unseen is just like buying any other new tool from a reputable seller. Plus they can be used for non-watchmaking purposes.
1. Sherline. https://www.sherline.com/product-category/lathes/ These lathes are quite precise, small and versatile due to the huge amount of available accessories which include watchmaking collets, a TRest and all of the accessories one would expect for an in-production engine lathe. This is the lathe I own and went with this choice because they are new and the accessories can turn it into a basic watchmaker's lathe that one can use to learn the ropes. My thinking was that me having no experience or knowledge of lathes and the inability to inspect/use an old lathe before purchasing it it would be safest to get the one that's new, with new accessories. I have my gripes with it but the machine is capable. It is not built to old watchmaker's lathe quality and precision standards but it doesn't claim it is. Will I be able to make staffs on it? Time will tell, but in the meantime I actually have a lathe that I can use and learn on. Can also be used to make small tools and parts that a watchmaker's lathe just isn't designed for.
2. Proxxon. Similar to Sherline but European. As far as I know there are no watchmaking accessories for them.

 

 

Elgin 303 - 7j 1924 12s pocket watch update: it lives!

 I had been dreading this movement for so long because it needed rebushing of BOTH escape wheel pivot holes. Started back in August 2025 https://kukkunaws.blogspot.com/2025/08/elgin-303-7j-1924-12s-pocket-watch-on.html and mostly just closed up holes with the staking set.

 

Well I finally built up the courage to tackle it after practicing a lot on tiny women's movements and accepted the fact that if things went sideways it wouldn't be the end of the world (even if I'd probably get depressed about it for a long time). This is a 7j movement that didn't even use bushings - it was not meant to work properly for more than a single lifetime (probably much less).


After hours and hours of work the watch now runs. Both escape wheel pivot holes had become two holes in one with the pivot mostly sitting in the second hole which was pointing 180 degrees opposite of the stem, i.e directly downwards. Makes sense for this to happen given that's the orientation pocket watches were meant to run.



The Seitz master tool saved the day, again. Such an essential bit of kit for these long-forgotten movements and a pity that they have not been manufactured in probably 70 years. Restoration work going forward will become more difficult as these tools fail, get lost or forgotten.

The same procedure as documented here was followed https://kukkunaws.blogspot.com/2025/08/bushing-egg-shaped-hole-without-lathe.html. A pre-made Bergeon bushing was used but the hole was too small (0.14mm but needed 0.22mm). A cutting broach was used to bring the hole up to size and then a smoothing broach to round the hole.

The bushed escape wheel top pivot hole (bridge side).

Beats all of my expectations considering that this is a 7 jewel 101 year-old movement that still needs all of the pivots burnished, both balance pivots need to be rounded rounded, only went through initial IPA cleaning (not the pallet fork or balance, obviously) and the balance cap jewels need replacing because they have been ground down by the staff. Right now, to me, I'm the absolute best hobbyist watchmaker that ever lived.

Bushing an egg-shaped hole without a lathe

 This wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had. My 1-jewel Swiss movement had an egg-shaped hole for the barrel arbour in the bridge and it couldn't be fixed properly with a staking set. Here we can see the result after hammertime - one axis was fine but the other was too wide. 

The accepted way to fix this issue is to use a lathe to increase the diameter of the hole so that it becomes perfectly round and centered then use the same lathe to make a bushing, use a depthing tool to center the hole and add a hole to the bushing.

But what if you don't have a lathe, you have too much time on your hands and are stubborn?

Bergeon supply some brass bushes in different sizes so it is possible to take take one of these and with quite a lot of work use it for the hole.

A bushing with the right outside diameter needs to be chosen, has to be quite larger than the barrel arbor. In this case 2.3mm was chosen.

 

 

The width of the hole measured so that the bushing can be ground down to the appropriate height. 

0.5mm needed to be removed. Sounds like very little but when considering that the amount to be removed needs to be exact and has to be done by hand this was quite a laborious process. Not difficult but time consuming.

Polishing frog was perfect for this. Some superglue, 1000 grit sandpaper and some elbow grease. No photos of the actual grinding but imagine there's one. 

 

Took quite a few grinding and measuing loops but got there eventually. Just a tiny fraction of a mm oversize, so good enough.

 

 

 The hole in the bridge now needed to be reamed out while making sure it is centered but luckily the Seitz master tool has exactly the right tool for the job.

 

 

 

This tool is meant for centering the jewel but the Chicago School of Watchmaking book explains how to use the tool in exactly this situation. The book suggests a pump center from the bottom and not 30155 but the latter works just fine for this purpose.

 

 

                                                                                     

The movement held in place, centered by the lower centering pin and reamed. Unfortunately the distance between the plates was not enough for the reamers to work properly but once the hole was rounded the last reamer could be used on it's own. The hole was centered and rounded and the reamers are self-centering so the final pass can be done, very carefully, without the centering set.

 

The bushing's hole then needed to be reamed to size. No photos, but this the Seitz setting holder, and reamed as above until the desired width was achieved.

 

Everything had to be deburred.

 

 

 

And then it was just a matter of pressing the bushing in place. The first photo shows the a flat anvil in the Horia tool but this wasn't used as it was too large, allowing the plate to flex. A proper sized anvil (250) was used instead. Bushing was placed on top of the hole from the bottom and pump pusher larger than the bushing used. My Horia set doesn't have a large enough size but the Seitz pushers can be used in the Horia tool. Just add some light oil to ensure good fit due to the age of the pushers (my Seitz set is from 1938) and tolerance differences.

And, that's it. The hole is now bushed and the barrel arbor has much less side-shake.

Will I do this again? Probably not because it is way too much work to do manually and it is too easy to screw things up. But a great learning experience to do at least once.

Depthing tool

 Depthing tools are used to make sure that the distance between pivot holes is correct and is useful when either making a movement or when working on unjewelled pivot holes, or barrel arbor holes.

These tools were manufactured in large quantities during the late 19th and early 20th century but not anymore because our modern technology allows us to calculate every detail of a watch movement. Still an invaluable tool when working on old movements with unjewelled holes or when manually making a movement scratch.

Operation is pretty straight forward. Both wheels are inserted in the runners and made to mesh at the correct height.

 Here we can see the result of a third wheel and a center seconds pinion being too close to eachother - the teeth are stuck.

 

 

Screw at the bottom is then adjusted and the wheels turned until the meshing of the teeth and pinion are just right. This is based on feel and experience, both of which I lack but it is possible to get the hang of it and get decent results in a short time.

 

 

 

 

Once the correct distance is found the movement can either be marked or the pivot holes checked. The tool needs to be completely perpendicular to the plate for this measurement to be correct.

 

 Here we can see that the holes are too close together; the left hole's center is ever so slightly to the left of the pointed tip of the tool's runner. This caused the wheels to bind and happened because the holes were not broached before being closed with a staking set.

It was possible to move the right hole by gently broaching one side causing it to become a little eggshaped and then broaching and finally closing with the staking set. A time-consuming and difficult operation because everything needs to be just right and a few hundreds of a millimeter make a huge difference. This is also something that cannot be done very often as a lot of material is lost during deburring so it will decrease the time before the hole needs to be bushed, probably by quite a lot.

Elgin 303 - 7j 1924 12s pocket watch on it's last legs

 

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/elgin/26664950

Previous watchmarkers' marks, not really significant but always nice to see. Quite a few of them around the case so the original owner probably took good care of it. At some point, probably after the original owner died the watch was used for a long time without any servicing causing the pivot holes to become so egg-shaped that the escape wheel would not turn unless helped.

 

This 101 year-old pocket watch hasn't been serviced in a very, very long time. The case, however, is in immaculate condition which in this case is like getting the movement for free.

 

Wear to the plating causd by out of round pivot holes. 

 

 

At some point one of the barrel bridge's screw was either lost or broken. A watchmaker made a replacement that doesn't fit quite right, was slotted very poorly and wasn't finished and it seems that the material used was quite poor. No lathe at the moment so it will stay as is as buying replacement screws is too expensive. The other option is a donor movement but it isn't worth sacrificing a whole watch for one single screw.

 

Even if this is a 7j watch it is still well made, just a cost cutting measure to allow everyone to own a well built watch that would last but compromises on timekeeping ability in order to reach a certain price point. The movement is still decorated to a good standard, so much better than the Swiss in the 1970s who would only decorate the very high end movements. Evem the balance well and the bottom of the mainplate are decorated, something that only watchmakers would ever see. They really took pride in their work and it shows.

Here we see the results of an ever escalating patent arms race. Not much has changed in the logic of watches in the past two hundred years, and Americans, as Americans do, came up with a large variety of setting and winding mechanisms in order to patent and market the watch.

Also visible is part of the lever setting mechanism indicating that this model is based on a railroad grade design. The lever doesn't go out of the movement so it cannot be used but it must have been cheaper to produce an extra part instead of re-tooling the whole manufacturing and assembly lines.

Escape wheel pivot holes all shot, need to be bushed. Never did this repair and it can go sideways really quickly.

 

 

Fourth weel is almost as bad, needs a bushing too.

 

Barrel, second and third wheels weren't as bad and the staking set fixed them.

 Fixing the center wheel holes. Both needed it. 

 Badly worn barrel hole. Clearly someone added stupid amounts of oil just to be able to say that the watch works. A common tactic used by unscrupulous watchmakers and sellers.

 

 

Progress was slow but steady and the result is quite excellent. 

Center wheel was next. Compare the before and after; run so much better after fixing the hole. Still need to ream the edges of the hole and to burnish the pivots so there's still some extra friction at this point. Both top and bottom holes needed help.

 

 

 

Blueing screws using heat

 First polish, then heat just enough.

 

First attempt; not great.

 

 

Second attempt was much better