Need some direction if the pallet pivots should or should not be oiled during COA. A watchmaker I know says absolutely do not oil. I checked through Cris Abell's most helpful 16 point watch service check list and unless I missed it, he is moot on the point. He did of course recommend oiling the train wheel pivots but not mentioned the pallet pivots. Guess I could do the middle-of-the-road method by oiling the pallet pivots on those watches I clean on Mon, Wed, and Fri and not oiling those I clean on Tues, Thurs and Sat. Seriously, I would like your advice of doing the best, professional job on those watches I clean,oil and adjust.
Thanks in advance for you input and rationale.
R/S bj wmson

On large watches I oil the pallet pivots, and also very lightly apply a "touch" of oil to the ends of the pallet stones.

We are talking a pin oiler.

I was taught to never, ever oil the jewels for the pallet.

I follow that rule with two exceptions:

1. On a capped jewel (usually 21j watch) I put a small amount of 9010 (the oil I use for the balance) on the end of the pallet fork pivots.

2. It can often be helpful on 7j watches because all you have with the pallet fork is metal on metal, just like all the wheels behind it in the train.

It's kind of a bizarro world where the best of watches and the worst of watches (jeweled watches) are my exceptions. Still, I know that oiling a pivot in capped jewel does better with a bit of oil, and unlike past oils the Moebius synthetic oils (or similar types) aren't going to coagulate in any of our lifetimes (though it might accumulate a lot of dirt/dust). The cap will keep it from getting dust about as well as the balance. About 7j watches, I don't believe the rule was meant to apply to those watches.

Of course, the original warning not to oil those particular jewels/pivots was from an era when the oil coagulated in at best about 5 or 6 years, usually sooner. If that pivot is oiled the watch is going to stop or not keep time as soon as the oil starts to become thick. So they didn't oil it because watches could go longer in between servicing.

I was always told, as a general rule of thumb, anywhere there is friction is where you apply oil. I believe "how much" is the real question. Certainly anywhere around the escapement David would have the right idea with the needle tip oiler.

John, how long have you been oiling watches using that theory? Just wondering.

OOOOOOOHHH! THIS IS FRANK KUSUMOTO.

I deleted the post above mine which was John's post. It said something like: "I've fixed a lot of watches with good results but I don't think I'm an expert." I inadvertently clicked the wrong button and edited his post. I am so, so sorry John. :-( The rest below is what I wrote.


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John, if you've been doing it for many years with good results then that's about as expert as you need to be as far as I'm concerned. Personally I work 99% on PW's that are 10s, 12s, 16s and 18s. The other 1% is when is when someone I know asks me to change a battery.

The rest is not directed at you. Timezone hasn't had their yearly "How do you oil a Watch" debate so I'm just practicing. I'm sure some of what I'll write will be applicable to how/what/where to oil pocket watches. I don't know, we'll see. :-D

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I used to work quite a bit on 992's, 992B's, Bunn Specials, Vanguards and a lot of other "Rail Road" watches. And those watches are almost universally easy to fix and take up little time in timing and adjusting them. Good watches are easy to work on, right? There's rarely anything you need to know that's special except the different barrels.

But now, and for the last 5 years I've only (pretty much) worked on South Bends. If a friend comes to me with his grandfather's Hamilton Time King sure I'll fix it. Ir they bring me a Hampden I'll refer them to Chris or Sammie, I won't touch Hampdens.

I examined about 1000 South Bends for a collector I knew, telling him which would be profitable to fix and which were likely to be problem; and I've worked on about 1500 of them myself, and only a few hundred of those of that 1000 that I looked at for Dr. Frye, and I would say I know South Bends pretty well now. Of the top of my head:

1. I don't think most people know that South Bend re-engineered the majority of their watches at two points in the companies 28 years and there's many parts, usually the parts of the first iteration of the watch that were weak or problematic and do not work on the same grade of watches made after the changeover occurred.

2. One of my friends who is a genius watchmaker (probably because he was my student once) insists that the cannon pinion should always be given just a slight brush with a fine oiler. That may be true for most PW's, but don't oil the canon pinion on a 12s SB unless it's very tight. Unless, of course, you're a big fan of pointless chores and love the ping that brittle steel makes when it snaps.

3. On some of the 18S South Bend's you better grease the **** out mainspring. Why? Because it's big, just slightly. Nobody except South Bend ever made the right size for it. If you can find one of those then more power to you. If I'm cleaning or fixing a watch with the correct size there, then I clean the spring and put it back in even though it's completely set. I find that preferable to doing unspeakable things to the barrel and especially the barrel cover.

4. If the stem is rough in the middle on a 16S watch then sand it slightly and never use PML, use D-5 or Synth-750. That lever can stop, or bind, even on a clean watch just because you put the cam on a different way than it was originally.

5. There's a Waltham spring that works just fine in the 16s Model 1 (yes, of course I didn't figure it on my own, Dr. Frye told me). I was skeptical before trying it but he assured me that he'd use the Waltham springs for over 40 years and he hadn't had a problem. Working for 40 years sounded good to me, especially since you can't get Model 1 springs in stainless steel (well, you can, they are not the right size). The NOS springs from Marco, Rezista, Nu-temper, Security, etc. were usually rusty and almost as set as the one I was taking out. So thanks to Waltham I said goodbye to blue steel and hello to stainless, yes. And here's a protip: In this case something like Synth-1300 will work better for greasing the spring and barrel.

6. And yep, there's many places on all the varieties of South Bends that are probably better off un-oiled and a few places where you should put on a large amount, with reason.

7. Between Chris Abell, David Abbe, Sammie Smith, John Duval, myself and any other person who's fixed enough watches to form their own opinion, there will be differences of opinion. Personally, I think only barbarians use anything but a oil pen. There, I said it. :-D

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And I'm not just whistling Dixie out of you know where. I've done many tests and experiments regarding oiling. I used 9515/2, the stuff that's a grease until it moves, then it goes back to being a solid, which I used to oil everything on a Unitas 6498. That was almost 7 years ago and I still wear the watch and it still looks almost the same on the Witchi. And that's an oil that's designed specifically for the escape/pallet jewels and only that. Well just empirical evidence that a watch can be oiled with one oiler using one oil and work.

There's only a couple of things that you must, absolutely, be certain of:

1. The correct amount, and application, of oil on the endstones for the balance.

2. A light, even, balanced, uniform oiling of the escape wheel and pallet stones.

3. If you oil the endstones in a capped pallet bridge you, again, better make sure it's a very equal amount. If you're just brushing a microscopic sheen of oil on the side of the pivot you're not really doing anything. The friction is where the endstone and the point of the pivot meet. If you oil it, that's where it could potentially do some good. For instance; I've heard oil in the balance reduces wear on the capstone. I haven't heard anything about reducing wear/friction between the staff and the hole jewel on a balance. I have heard that if do have oil on the side of the staff and balance it can **** the oil down from the endstone and that's a bad thing. Perhaps in a balance just the sides of the staff should be oiled where it brushes on the hole jewels and just not oil the place where the endstone and the pivot meet. Hrmmmm... /sarcasm

Reductio ad absurdem mixed with sarcasm is never pretty, so I apologize. Hehe, that how the fights at Timezone usually end up until the mods start closing and deleting threads and reading the riot act. Anyways, my point stands.

Addendum: I used some 7j watches in an actually test, each un-oiled and oiled. The oiled version was much better. It especially helped the amplitude.