Three days ago I finally got my Veritas, going to sit near a certain Riverside known to some members of this forum (thanks again, Dave !). When arrived was stuck, but really cold, so I let it couple of days in ambient temperature and it started almost by itsef. The question is that the balance is not true, having the periferal ring going up and down say 3 or 4 thousands of an inch in a revolution, I just observed it, I do not have any instrument to actually measure. My question is if, in your experience, this could have been brought about by transport, since the seller advertised it as "serviced" . I have some doubts but better ask to more knowledgeable persons. In Italy we have a saying, probably by mr. Andreotti, a very senior (90 years old) politician, and a very smart person : "when you have bad suspicions about somebody, you commit a sin ... but most likely you're right". Incidentally it's a 239 of 1900, 21j, adj 5 pos
Thanks a lot

quote:

thousands

not exactly ... hundreds, of course ... sorry

Mario, there should be no noticeable "wobble" of the balance wheel . . EVER! You have a couple choices;
1. Return it to the seller for a "re-service" or a refund, and buy one from one of us.
2. Fix it.
3. Keep it as-is and let the darn thing "eat" at you soul.

My worry is that if the BEAST who claims to have "serviced" it left the Balance wheel that messy, what else did they mess up even worse!

Hi, David. Thanks for your comments.
My basic attitude is that a seller must bear his responsibility, and thus that he has to check the mess he himself did, but lso that a buyer has not to hold him responsible for "acts of God", so I wanted to be double sure that the situation was like I suspected.
If the guy was in Italy, I would have plainly sent the poor thing back for service. Being outside EEC I have to pay again customs and TVA, making a temporary export document will cost a lot of money and effort, so I will call for a refund (the payment has been via PayPAL ...) and have the watch serviced here. Of course I do hope that the problem is just in the way the watch has been reassembled by a ... watchmaker, but I am afraid that I will be looking for hole jewels for Veritas pretty soon.
In any case, the guy has to check his own mess.
Have a nice day, David

Mario, You could check the "trueness" of the Balance wheel (Very carefully) in a Parallel Caliper. There are three conditions I have seen;

1. Sometimes the "runout" that you see is only distortion of the arms (correctly) due to their being warmer or colder than about 26C.

2. It is also possible that the "arms" are slightly "twisted". This looks "very bad", but can be easily repaired by an experienced watchmaker.

3. The BIG problem would be if the arms are not "square" to the axis of the rotating staff, making the whole wheel "wobble. That usually comes from very sloppy "re-staffing", a bent pivot, or damage due to rough handling.

By checking with the Parallel, you can see any of these conditions and then make a decision about how "angry" you might be with the seller.

Hi, David.
Point 1 is out of the picture, since the watch has been kept at 20 °C for more than 24 hours before checking the situation, it was really cold when I have taken it out of the box.
One thing is clear : have you ever seen a serviced watch with a dirty hairspring ?
In any case, I used a good loupe and examined in a closer way the balance wheel are : I is a really nice piece of engineering, Veritas is worth the price you pay for !
Have a nice day
Mario

Mario, If it has a dirty balance spring it should be cleaned and then you can fix whatever anything wrong with the wheel too.

You had mentioned that there was a few thousandths of an inch (0.05 mm) "up-down" (we would refer to that as 'axial" runout) and did that show to be true when you looked at it with the loupe? We certainly agree about the quality of Veritas.
btw, you might note the wheel I pictured is an uncut invar "conversion" solid wheel for an Elgin. The Balance springs were dyed blue color because the Watchmakers did not think the white steel was any good.

Dave, I mentioned the dirty spring as a proof of the job that hasn't been done ... and the guy simply kept silent. In any case today I received a new toy, an USB microscope/camera and I'm trying to get some decent pictures: it do is amazing the quantity and quality of work involved in a good movement. One point, I simply made a mistake of an order of magnitude in the "wobbling", it's about 1 mm, 4/100 and not 4/1000 of an inch, but NASA too made some confusion with measurements at least once ...
Very intersting your comments on blued springs, gives something of the "taste" of the old times