# Help Needed With Pocket Watch Rebuild



## Rolo1 (Feb 23, 2013)

Hi guys,

I've just started collecting pocket watches and bought a container that contained a swiss single second chronograph at an auction that was in pieces. Feeling brave I parted with my Â£25 and took the container home. For the past couple of days I've been cleaning the parts and case and have put it back together the best I can with the help of some photos.

My problem is I have 1 part remaining that I can't find the correct place to fit (this always happens when I build flat pack furniture too lol) from what I can see on different pictures I think the part is called the clicker or maybe a setting wheel / cog. It has a square hole in the middle of it which means it will only fit in a couple of places but for some reason I just can't get it fitted right and when I wind the watch the tension just releases when I let go of the key slowly instead of storing the tension.

I've enclosed some pictures in the hope that someone would be nice enough to draw on the picture the correct place to fit the part.

Many thanks in advance

Lee

The watch rear

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/5593/imagecsm.jpg

The front










The part


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## tixntox (Jul 17, 2009)

There must be more photos ............................... or more parts?


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## Rolo1 (Feb 23, 2013)

Apart from what's in the pictures mate I've got the plate that holds it together, the dial, the hands, 1 screw that I think holds the movement in the case, and the case itself.


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## Shiner (Mar 2, 2011)

I'm not into Swiss pocket watches, but I think that piece is called a set up ratchet that is fitted to the spring arbour that protrudes through the top plate. There should also be a ratchet paw that hold the ratchet so that as the spring is wound the ratchet turns and the paw stops the spring from unwinding. I can see a pale outline of a wheel under that retaining plate over the barrel arbour, the plate doesn't seem to be retaining anything , so I'm guessing that the wheel belongs under that plate and is there a screw hole under the plate that would retain the ratchet paw? If so then you are missing the paw. You should also have a circular disc that fits into the top of the spring barrel to cover the spring. Hope this helps, but I could be wrong as I don't collect Swiss watches.


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## Rolo1 (Feb 23, 2013)

Thanks shiner it would seem you are right about the ratchet paw missing. That'll teach me for jumping in lol but thanks for your help.

Is it the north west of the uk you are from? If so what part? I work in winsford, Cheshire


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## davycrocket (Mar 19, 2013)

Hi Rolo1

Shiner is right about the ratchet wheel that you have still to fit .

That plate you can see with the screw round about the 4/5 oclock position in the photo of the froont under the dial will retain the ratchet wheel on a square that protrudes through the front plate. Have you had that narrow plate off?

The ratchet PAWL (dogs and cats have paws , ratchets have PAWLs with an L ) with its spring might be behind there . might be behind there .

As New members , you and I both, we are not allowed to comunicate directly to discover Telephone or Email info .

A great pity as I could have given you a couple of movements to play with including some working ones so you can see them functioning before you take them apart . I live in stockton Heath ,your side of Warrington . We will have to fathom a way to comunicate and meet up so that I can hand them over . Perhaps you could get the administrator to give you my Email or tel No .

You could get him to refer to this posting as my permision to give you my contact info .

Rgds

Davycrocket


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## Shiner (Mar 2, 2011)

Dogs and cats have paws, and so do pocket watches.


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## davycrocket (Mar 19, 2013)

Hi Shiner

Where on Earth did you find that diagram with the word spelt without the L not once but TWICE

Tell you what, show me one more place with it spelt without the L and I'll agree it's it's another way to spell the little beast .

And I will look as well . And anybody else out there willing to search .?

And no cheating making dodgy diagrams !!!

In the meantime ...........................

http://www.technolog...cams/ratch1.htm.

Rgds

Davycrocket


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## Shiner (Mar 2, 2011)

Here's another from an entirely different source. Two more and I'll have enough for a dog or maybe a cat.


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## Shiner (Mar 2, 2011)

The 1st picture is from the book 'The Pocket Watch' Restoration, Maintainance and Repair , by Christopher Barrow. He uses the word a number of other times in the text. The second one is from John Wilding's book 'How to make Galileo's Escapement.


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## Shiner (Mar 2, 2011)

And for good measure, a third example.


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## davycrocket (Mar 19, 2013)

Hello Shiner

Well done, you seem to have 'delivered the goods' with the three examples of the word PAW rather than PAWL.

I came across a couple too , in Patents registered by a Chinese company , so disregarded .

Having never before come across that spelling, I contacted the head of The Head of Horology at a College where

I lectured in the subject, and his take on it was that he, having not come across the word either in his whole lifetime

of Engineering, Watchmaking and Lecturing in the subject, considered it was no more than propagation of a spelling

mistake, probably started accidentally by a typesetter at a Printers.

Because a number of people have copied and used the word does not make it a word .

It does not appear in any of my dictionaries.

How about now trying to come up with it 'defined' as the part we know that works in conjunction with a ratchet wheel .

In Watches and clocks of course it is more commonly known as a 'click' .

Rgds

Davycrocket (F.B.H.I.)


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## davycrocket (Mar 19, 2013)

Hi Shiner

I note that you are in 'The north West'

I am in Stockton Heath (Near Warrington) If you were close could show you my collection .

No Hard feelings about the discussion about the Paw versus the Pawl I hope . !

Rgds

Davycrocket


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## Shiner (Mar 2, 2011)

No hard feelings about Paw and Pawl.

I'm fully aware of what a pawl is. I've opened and closed more than my fair share of canal lock gates! But I shall continue to use 'paw'. If it's good enough for Christopher Barrow (BHS) and John Wilding (FBHI).......... and that rogue printer of course, then it's good enough for me. I think I start calling our cat's feet pawls.

Shiner

(VD&S)


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## Rolo1 (Feb 23, 2013)

Thanks for all the help guys and the pictures. I have now bought the pocketwatch restoration book and its great.

Thanks for the offer Davycrocket, I am in or around Warrington pretty often if you fancy meeting up for a coffee sometime?

Let me know if your up for it mate and ill find a way of getting a message to you

Lee


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## ValvesRule (May 20, 2009)

Can I make a pedantic point?

Rolo1's Wheel is technically not a Set-Up Ratchet.

What is it, I don't know the proper name for; I have been calling it the Motor Ratchet. It's the one which clicks when you wind it up, forcing it to unwind by driving the Watch.

The Set-up ratchet is a component of a FusÃ©e, which you only use when you are putting the Watch back together after a service to permanently wind it up a little. Figure 43 (p.77) illustrates this.

A FusÃ©e has its Motor Ratchet inside the cone.

To "pawl" and "paw", I add "click". My preference is for the first of these, though it seems the last is most commonly used in Horology.


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