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.