How to adjust
the accuracy of a mechanical watch
2009-Sep-23
The accuracy of a mechanical watch is affected by the environment,
and we can overcome the effect by properly adjust the balance
wheel and balance spring of a mechanical watch.
For most poor men watches, such as the Seiko 5, or even some
low price C.O.S.C. Watches, the Balance Wheel is nonadjustable,
the only thing we can adjust is the Effective Length
of the balance spring.
Before, showing you the
common mechanical watch movement, I would like to show
you this:
This is a Swiss Made Hand-winding Mechanical Watch
Movement, you can see the word "unadjusted"
on the movement.
Actually,
if you would like to adjust the accuracy of this
movement, you have to pull- out the pin which locks
which holding the balance spring in place. Unfortunately,
the pin of this old movement was lost before I purchased
it for HK$ 30.
The PIN is look like the one in a mechanical
clock but much smaller.
.
Red ellipse - Pin on a mechanical
clock
This photo shows the balance wheel with the balance
spring.
On the right hand side, it is the plate over
the balance wheel.
You can see there is a hole on the metal cube,
this hole is for the Pin mentioned above and the
diameter of it is about 0.02 mm.
This is my first time making a small part, the
Pin; therefore, it only last for about 3 minutes,
just enough for me to record a movie.
Although the movement can operate, it is not
stable. You can see, through the photo, the distance
between each circle of the balance spring is not
even, this is one of the problem.
Moreover, the plane of the balance spring is
not level ( not shown ).
All these problems make the movement unstable
and unreliable.
