A little bit of work on the Sherpa Graph Id . . .

Joe_A

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Enicaristi
Sherpa
I'm getting either a little braver . . . or a bit more foolish in my old age. :)

Over time, I have been collecting a few watchmaker tools with an eye toward doing some basic work around the periphery of horology and having little to do with what a watchmaker can do. Believe me when I say, I am no threat to any watchmaker. ;)

One of my early acquisitions was an inexpensive Weishi timegraper. Once one gets the hang of using the timegrapher, one can assess the overall health of a mechanical watch with an eye toward deciding when the watch may need a full service . . . and if the watch is essentially healthy, one can adjust the watch oneself . . . a thing that is satisfying to do.

Not long ago I cracked a crystal on one of my Gallet watches and rather than to send it off to the watchmaker, I decided to change it myself. I'll post that story in the appropriate place as I have done recently over at the Gallet Facebook page.

So what did I do with my precious Id Graph?

When I first acquired it, I determined to send it out for service and it came back running strong and true, but a day or two after I got it back, I noticed this:

ESG-1d-brass shard.jpg

At first a sense of horror came over me with the possibility that the dial may have received a small but visible scratch.

On closer inspection, it appeared to be a shard of some sort, possibly metallic.

Tapping the watch caused the little piece of whatever-it-was to fall to the bottom of the watch:

Loose-brass-shard-1.jpg

Now my concern was this . . .

What if the little piece of detritus were to lodge under the small seconds hand while I was wearing the watch? The result might be one of those rings one sees on vintage watches that may have been caused by either the hand being installed against the subdial or debris getting under a hand.

The watchmaker was willing to take the watch apart when I felt ready to return it to his location, or else I could have sent it by courier service forth and back. Instead I wore the watch nervously, with a thought that I'd bring it out at some point while visiting that part of Pennsylvania as we do from time to time.

Fast forward to the recent past . . . and having successfully swapped out a crystal on one of my Multichron 12H watches, I felt it was time to search for the shard myself.

I was a little too unsettled to rememeber to take as many photos as I would have liked, but I do have couple to share . . .

I have a case opening tool that RGM made for me when I had the watch serviced and shortly after receipt, I fitted a handle to it:

EPSA-ESG-Case-Tool-RGM.jpg RGM-EPSA-Tool-with-JPA-Handle-2.jpg

Getting the watch open is no longer a challenge.

Figuring out how to remove the movement was not daunting either:

Movement-081620-1M.jpg

One needs to pull out the stem and loosen the retention screw and then the stem pulls out easily. There are two screws which act to hold the movement in place and then one removes the spacer ring:

Movement-081620-2.jpg

I did not photograph the nerve-wracking part where I lifted out the movement and safely set it in one of those watch parts "cheese case" storage boxes.

Time to inspect:

Case-081620-2.jpg

I did find a piece of debris in the watch and a possible source of the metal shard. I also found a microscopic fiber. Here are some closeups:

Case-081620-5.jpg


Case-081620-4.jpg

One can see that, when the holes were drilled in the case to thread for the pushers, an edge was penetrated in such a way that thin metal bits were left hanging. I made sure that nothing could easily break off before blowing out the case and reassembling the watch.

Oddly enough, both the Gallet MC 12H and the Graph were well adjusted before removing and reinstalling the movements and after reassembly, purely by coincidence, both were running about 35 seconds fast. Readjustment is by now an easy process.

Here we are, returned to glory as of this morning:

ESG-1d-081820-1.jpg

I no longer need worry about a stray bit of something causing damage.

ESG-1d-081820-4.jpg
 
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