Ranfft Watches, Oil Desasters

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Informations: Oil Disasters

Oil is Good

If mssing oil would be advantageous, somebody would have noticed it within the recent centuries. Lubricants, mostly oil, sometimes grease, have mainly three porposes:

1) Reduction of wear.
2) Reduction of friction loss.
3) Protection of bearing surfaces.

More Oil isn't Better

To do this job, the smallest applicable quantity is sufficient. Only the gap of a bearing must be filled, thus just visible is enough. Excessive oil over the bearing gap just collects dust and other contaminations which damage the bearing.
The most important exceptions are pallets and bearings with cap jewel. On the pallets the oil has a big surface to evaporatie, and a certain quantity is needed for long term lubricating. And between cap jewel and hole jewel a stock of oil can be stored for a long maintenance periode, without danger for contamination.

Much More is a Disaster

A little too much oil will evaporate or creep away. But there are possibilities to destroy a watch with lubricants, and this page should sensitize watch enthousiasts for this problem.
Read it or leave your watches further to destructors who will kill them within reasonably short time.

Index

Adding Some Oil

Oil Disaster

To Overview

Adding Some Oil

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Magnify images by clicking them

Fig.1 shows an Omga 30.10RA PC made in 1944. Not mint but regarding its age in decent condition.
     The watch ran well, but occasionally stopped, and the bumper was loudly rattling. The visible bumper bearing A looked fine, but actually the bumper weight touched the movement and could be lifted some 2mm (!).
     After removing the automatic bridge and the bumper, the disaster was visible: Black mud of old lubricants, dirt, and metal shavings at B in Fig.2. Imagine that diamond, the hardest material, is usually grinded with a mud of oil and diamond powder. So why shouldn't this go with steel? It is in comparison soft as butter.
     A closer look shows more troubles: At C is visible that the winding wheels aren't engaged sufficiently. This means friction loss, a first reason for inefficient self winding, and thus stopping. Obviously the barrel bearing is worn.

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

After removing the mud, it was visible, that the jewel was broken (Fig.3). A typical watch destructor job: The broken jewel was continuously refilled with oil or grease to minimize its noise.

Many people believe to do a favor to a watch when adding some oil (without cleaning it), and even some skilled watchmakers do it on request of customers, although they know it better.

Fig.4 shows impressively what happens: Although the intact bearing was bone dry, the according pivot A of the bumper looks as new. But the pivot B from the muddy bearing looks more like a mushroom (click the image to magnify). On the left it is more worn by the edges of the broken jewel, but on the right the grinding mud alone was also quite efficient.

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Already Fig.2 indicated a worn barrel bearing, and Fig.5 confirms it: At A the ratchet wheel milled a track into the plate, another reason for friction loss, and re-oiling to enhance the winding power made it even worse.

Who now still doesn't believe in the grinding efficiency of re-oiling, should have a closer look to the minute arbor. The grinding mud found also its way into the minute-wheel bearing B in Fg.5, just under the bumper bearing. Fig. 6 shows the arbor. Its front pivot A, bone dry since decades, still looks as new, while the re-oiled back pivot B is seriously damaged - without any help of a broken jewel, because there is none.

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Perfective Maintenance
Fine, how Omega cares for improvements of parts, even for such an old movement. The bumper jewel was likely broken by a hard shock. No nightmare, since a jewel is easily replaced. But it is nice that the replacement bumper carrier is milled thinner at A in Fig 7. This makes it more elastical, reducing the impact of shocks to the bearing jewels

Pivot Maintenance
It is useless to make the bearing hole narrower to fit the worn pivot in Fig. 6 , because its "head" would not pass the hole. So the pivot must be shaped cylindrical again, and of course polished, as shown in Fig.8. Here the diameter had to be reduced from original 0.40mm to 0.37mm before the deepest groove disappeared.

Figures (cf. Service Prices)

EUR 54.00 Standard service automatic
EUR 12.00 Replacement bumper jewel
EUR 10.00 Refurbishing minute wheel pivot and bearing
EUR 10.00 Refurbishing barrel pivot and bearing
EUR 36.00 Bumper weight carrier Omega 330-1403

EUR 122.00 total (in 2011)

The standard service would have been necessary sooner or later anyway, so it can't be completely calculated as consequence of re-oiling, but the major part well, because the repair would have been senseless without cleaning the watch.

Bone dry is better than a mud of old oil, new oil, dirt, and dirt.
Never leave a watch to a "re-oiler" - neither tinker nor professional!

Oil Disaster

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Vergößern der Bilder durch Anklicken möglich

Fig. 3

Not as worse as on a sensitive coast, but still possible in small scale: Too much Oil on the wrong place.

First a rule: A watch which runs not or badly with a minimum of oil will not perfom better with more oil. Obvious for a watchmaker, even for the worst. But there are poeple who sell even their incompetence for money. And their approach is as follows:

Watch runs sticky and often stops. The solution: Oil will fix it. Of course nothing becomes better, so more oil is applied, and few steps lead to the last rites: On drop more - watch dead.

Here the exit of a Junghans 651.02 (ETA 2472): Without selfwinding assembly Fig.1 shows oil spills covering the whole movement - difficult to photograph, but as the oil is greenish (olive oil?) and has collected lots of lints, it is noticable. This mix will stop a watch already when coming between a wheel and the plate, and the more if it reaches the hairspring. Even more oil was found between movement and dial, one half on the movement (Fig.2), the other under the dial (Fig.3). And as pretty add-on some glue at the periphery, visible in Fig.2, which held the movement in place due to lost suspension clamps, .

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

And it would have been so simple

Fig.4 shows the reason for the poor performance: The hairspring was seriously distorted - likely by the master oiler, and a such treated watch doesn't run, neither with nor without oil. A watchmaker would have furbisched the hairspring, to make it look like in Fig.5 again. And indeed this alone made the watch run again - despite the oil flooding.

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Ready

Disassembling, removing glue, some cosmetic angainst the ugly scratches on the dial side, washing, assembling, lubricating, adjusting - ready.
Fig.6 and 7 still don't show a really mint movement, but it looks substantially better than before anyway, and it runs again nearly as smoothly and accurately as a brand new.

Figures (cf. Service Prices)

EUR 54.00 standard service automatic
EUR 9.00 additionally for date
EUR 10.00 hairspring repair
EUR 10.00 two movement holders with screw

EUR 83.00 total (in 2011)

Without help of the tinker the job would have costed hardly more than EUR 15.00 (EUR 3.00 for the work, EUR 12.00 for know-how), at least if a service would have been not yet necessary.

Simple Rule:
Without tinkers watchmakers would be poorer.

...the alternative - free of charge!

Dr. Roland Ranfft
Im Eichfeld 8
41844 Wegberg-Wildenrath
Germany

phone +49 (0)2432 491604
fax +49 (0)2432 491605
email: info@ranfft.de

Last update: 09-03-11