Here is a double barrel timepiece with a wonderful engine turned dial that came in with problems that would certainly get past most trained Watchmakers. In fact I think the customer who owns this $60,000 – $80,000 piece had it serviced outside of the company, as there are some hack marks inside the movement (and the screw heads) due to bad screwdriver sharpening and misuse.
Are you a Watchmaker and have wondered why I have so many screwdrivers. I actually have more ! I sharpen sets of screwdrivers per brand that I service to fit the slots of the heads of the particular brand, per set. In this fashion I get a perfect fit and can execute removal and insertion without damage to the screws. At this level of Watchmaking most timepieces have a see through back for the customer to view the mechanics and we as Watchmakers must make sure the watch leaves the bench as it came in.
This watch was running erratic in many areas of digital diagnostics. One of the problems was an out of round escape wheel. I wanted to post this to show that even newer watches can have this problem that is most notable in vintage era pieces. After the problem was fixed I did some pallet stone adjusting. I have a special pallet micrometer warmer tool that helps facilitate with this. I’ll show a picture of one at a later date perhaps. Adjusting the lock and slide is a tedious job indeed and this movement requires a very high amplitude at half winds of the twin barrels to run properly.
What I find with multiple complication movements (such as this one) is the functions of perpetual calendar gearing complications (and having other functions such as retrogrades along with these) facilitates a need for a constant high amplitude and a medium to light lock to make sure at low levels of wind down on the main spring all functions can still operate correctly.If the lock and slide is not adjusted correctly the watch will surely run fine but it will not obtain the proper running length of residual power it was designed to obtain. I think this movement was about 110 hours of rundown or so. My technicals are not in front of me at the moment so please forgive the rounding off of end life.
Great movement !
