Setting stem

28 January 2011
After hours of measuring and planning I finally sett the movement in the drill. The plan is to copy the setting mechanism and mount it on the front side, this can sound quite straight forward, but this requires a lot of measuring, and thinking several steps ahead. I will be making one change, removing one of the intermediate wheels.
I used two end mills to cut the flat bottom hole that will house the sliding pinion, and in the bottom drilled a 0.5mm hole for the tip of the setting stem.

This is a simple mockup of what it is supposed to look like, from the intermediate wheel and out, the bridge will be milled down. I will need to make the intermediate wheel twice as high, the second intermediate wheel will be mounted on top of the first.

Setting lever

28 January 2011
The problem was that the setting lever still allowed the winding stem to move in and out, and I wrote earlier that it needed an additional screw to hold it still. This is how I've solved it.
I started with taking away the ring on the setting lever screw, this turns it into a guide pin. I wanted to keep the screw head, otherwise there would be a hole on the frontside and that wouldn't look nice. The picture shows an original screw and my "guide pin screw".



I removed the pin for the setting lever spring then drilled a hole (1.1mm) in the setting lever after de-hardening it.

This is how my new setting lever looks now.

I drilled a hole in the main plate and threaded for M1.

I can now loosen the setting lever from the new backside.

Case

25 January 2011
A friend in my class happened to have a case that was perfect for the movement, and I mean perfect! No ring or screws required, the backside presses the movement in place. It originally comes from a quartz watch, which is good, because it has a metal backside. I've been looking for cases to order, but almost all have glass backsides, and this watch won't have a very nice backside to show. The case needs some modifications, the original hole for the setting stem needs to be filled. I will drill new holes for two new stems, one for winding at two o'clock, and one for setting at four o'clock.

Centre wheel

21 January 2011
The centre wheel needs to be modified, the axis must come out on the movement side. This time I was lucky, the axis can be turned around, the pinion will still work with the barrel. I only have to move the wheel to the other side of the pinion.

I removed the wheel, set the pinion in the lathe where I could shape the pinon so I could mount the wheel on the opposite side.

This is the result after pressing back the wheel on the opposite side of the pinion.

The jewel on the old dial side had to be changed to fit the pivot. The movement has no longer anything sticking out on this side.

This is a close up of the new jewel on the movement side. I needed a jewel with a 1mm hole, the hole in the barrel bridge was 2.2mm. I used a jewel that was 3mm, this creates room for the cannon pinion. The jewel could only be 0.45mm high, to allow for adjustments, but I could only find a jewel that was 0.85mm high. To my surprise it was possible to file the jewel on a diamond file, and quite easily got the jewel down to 0.45mm, then pressed it in place.

As the video shows, the movement is runnig backwards with both second hand and centre axis on the movement side. Next step will be minute and hour wheels.

Winding

21 January 2011
Now the winding problem. Bellow is a picture of the sliding pinion to the left, and the winding pinion to the right. Because of the Breguet teeth the watch can't wind, they are working in the wrong direction. There are a few alternatives to solving this problem, e.g. reshaping the teeth (not much material to work with on the winding pinion) or finding a set of pinions that work in the other direction.
There is also another problem, setting the hands. Because of the hands being on the movement side, the original setting mechanism can't be used. With this in mind, I don't have to worry about the sliding pinon not being able to slide, so my solution will be to solder the two together. There is however one disadvantage with this, there won't be any reverse action on the crown. This is a luxury I can live without, and this project is also a matter of working with what I have, and rebuilding the watch with its original parts as much as possible.


I used the lathe to take away a little on the edges on the Breguet teeth, this is to create a "ditch" for the filler metal.

A picture to show the pinions after the turning, and the space where I will solder. It is very important that the metal won't creep into the pinions and disturb the function.

This is the result of the silver soldering, it needs polishing, but function before finish for now. In the green circle you can see the end of the setting leaver screw, which is screwed in from the movement side. If the movement is to go into a case, this needs to be rebuilt so it can be screwed from this side, otherwise it will be impossible to lock the winding stem in place. At the moment the winding stem can be moved in and out as it normally would, two screws will be required through the setting leaver to prevent this.

Winding the movement works fine now.

Second wheel

21 January 2011
The watch is now running backwards, I am pleased with reaching one of my goals, however there is a lot more to do before reaching the next goal, i.e. showing time on the movement side.

I will start with the second wheel, the 6497 has a sub second opposite the winding stem. The pivot that the second hand normally is pressed on to, must come out on the movement side, I was hoping that I could perhaps just turn the whole axis around, move the wheel and change the jewels. This was not the case, this would move the pinion to much, instead I had to change the pivot on the movement side. The original pivot is 0.25mm in diameter, I want to increase this as much as possible because of that the second hand is going to be pressed on. However the axis is only 0.5mm thick, and I have to drill a hole in it, a 0.4mm hole would be possible but this would leave very little material in the "walls" (only 0.05mm) and would most likely crack when I press in the new pivot. So I settled for a 0.3mm pinion. It is important that the pivot is very strong, to avoid breaking it, or pulling it out when the second hand is removed.

I "de-hardened" the axis, set it up in a lathe and removed the old pivot. Drilled the 0.3mm hole, then turned the new pivot out of blue-steel, pressed it in place and shaped it to the right dimensions. After this, I shortened the old second hand pivot.

Top left: Original second wheel
Bottom left: Drilling for the new pivot
Top right: Drilled
Bottom right: New Pivot


For the last finish I used a Pivofix, and finally hand polished the pivot before hardening it. The wheel seen in the top right picture was on the axis when I de-hardened it, this needed to be replaced because of it getting soft during the heat treatment.

The jewel needed to be changed to one with a larger hole, and adjusted.

Pleased with the results!


Testing the video function. You can see the escape wheel turning the "wrong" way, a second hand is test mounted on the pivot.

Pallet fork

20 January 2011
Next in line is the pallet fork. It needs to be turned over to work with the flipped escape wheel, this is done in several steps.

I will start with the axis, this is pressed in, and made so that it easily can be adjusted, so I simply adjusted the whole axis through the fork, I will later have to finely adjust the height.

Original pallet fork

Pressing the axis

Step two is to move the safety pin to the other side. This was also a matter of pressing it out and mounting it on the opposite side. In the bottom left picture one can compare the size of the safety pin with the tip of a Ballograf ballpoint pen.

The thickenss of the entry horns are not constant, they are higher on the original downside, I assume this is to create a safety distance to the jewelled shock absorber. When I turn the pallet fork over, the horns are low, and there is a risk that the impulse pin will miss the horns, plus the risk that the horns will hit the jewelled shock absorber, I hope I can adjust this by slightly bending the horns up and being carefull with not adjusting the pallet fork too low. There is also the alternative of adjusting the impulse pin.


Last step on the pallet fork is to move the pallets, they are now sticking up with the shellac on the top, these need to be cleaned, adjusted flush to the top and new shellac applied under the pallet fork. This is done in the hardcore traditional way, a homemade clamping tool for adjusting pallet jewels, and a lamp, I don't like the electrical heating plates so much. After adjusting for a while, the pallet fork is now ready for testing.

While puting away the lamp I managed somehow to lose the pallet fork, it is quite large, for a watchmaker anyway. After an half hour of panic searching, I found it under a sheet of paper on my bench, a good lesson in how important it is to keep youre bench clear, but one can wonder where the pallet fork would have ended up if the sheet of paper hadn't been there.


The pallet fork is now mounted, heights are adjusted and the watch runs backwards, with very good results in the Witschi.

Next steps are to make the secondhand pivot and the centre axis to come out through the movement side, and make the watch wind properly with the winding stem.

Escape wheel

20 January 2011
The mainspring is now delivering it's power in the opposite direction, the next thing that needs modified is the escape wheel. I simply hammered out the axis, turned the wheel and then hammered it back again. The wheel sits true, firmly and does not rotate on the axis.

Original

Modified

Click spring

19 January 2011
The next problem is the clickspring, the click itself can be turned over and it will work just as good, but in the opposite direction. The click spring, however, needs to be bent in the opposite way. This can only be done by heating it up first to a orange glow and then slowly cooling it down. This makes it very soft, without this treatment it would just brake when bent. I tried. After bending the spring the way I need it, it needs hardening and then blued to regain its original strength.

Click spring

Left: original click, right: my new click with the modified spring.

If you follow the winding mechanism backwards, you will soon realize that the watch is now impossible to wind because of the Breguet teeth on the sliding pinion and the winding pinion, these are working in the wrong direction, they are slipping instead of gripping into each other. But I will get to that problem later. For now I can wind the watch by just putting my finger on the ratchet wheel and turning counter clockwise.

Mainspring

19 January 2011
The fist problem is of course the mainspring, it needs to deliver its power "backwards", so the barrel drum needs a new outer edge for the mainspring to hold on to. The drum is made out of brass and can easily be carved to the right shape.
The picture shows an original drum and my modified one, I see now that my drum is not as smooth on the bottom, so I will probably change the drum, but for now it works just fine.

The barrel arbor needs a reversed hook, to be able grip on to the mainspring in the opposite direction. This was done with a small file, and simply shaping a new hook on the backside of the original one.

The idea

The idea first came when we had our lessons on the escapement, I wondered if one could modify the movement and make the watch run backwards.
I have made a few see-threw backsides and while making one I thought that it would be kind of cool if the nice side of the movement was facing up and becoming the actual dial, and I liked the challenge.
These two ideas together should result in: the movement side up, and the watch then running the right way.