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Your Watch Repair Troubleshooting Guide Watch Repair Home Watch Mechanism Theory Welcome Motive Power Motion Works Escapement Lever Escapement Balance Wheel Balance Assembly Watch Repair Trouble Shooting Introduction Mainspring Problems Over Wound Watch Positional Error Barrel Problems Catching Mainspring	Trouble Shooting Introduction: Following is a list of some common causes for a watch to perform poorly and some remedies to help get it back into acceptable running order. It is normal for an ailing watch to be inflicted with more than one of these problems at the same time so a thorough examination is necessary before an accurate evaluation of its condition can be made. Many of the symptoms mentioned here can and often do result from a dirty and or dry movement. It is for this reason that it can be difficult to determine all that is wrong with a watch until it has first been cleaned and oiled. Of course there are some obvious problems that can be diagnosed prior to cleaning such as a broken balance staff, mainspring or hole jewel but many other problems can be much more subtle and evasive. By cleaning the watch first you will have lifted a veil that often hides the real cause of a watches problems. When starting out in watch repair one can sometimes make life a lot easier by cleaning a watch right from the start. Although there may be many reasons a watch may not be performing as it should it is usually not difficult to pin down the problem. Following are some simple techniques one can utilize to help zero in on a problem. Diagnosing a watch can be simplified by addressing the movement in parts or sections rather than as a whole. A movement can be compartmentalized by sectioning it into separate assemblies and sub-assemblies. When approached in this manner individual assemblies can be tested for any abnormalities. We accomplish this by isolating each assembly from the remainder of the movement. By doing this we can now diagnose just one assembly at a time without complicating things with interference from any other part of the watch. Viewing a movement in this manner is much easier than it appears. A watch actually is comprised of a group of assemblies working synergistically beginning with the winding mechanism which is used to input power into the movement ending with the escapement which of course allows the power to �escape� from the movement in predetermined intervals. All other assemblies such as the motor or mainspring assembly, the motion works, wheel train, and the pallet, which is actually part of the escapement mechanism but will sometimes be dealt with separately, dwell somewhere between these two. There can be others also such as calendar mechanisms, automatic winding, etc. but these can be looked at as sub-assemblies or modules that are actually attached and interlinked with the basic watch movement. We will isolate certain assemblies in some of the following trouble shooting examples. So let�s get started with some common trouble shooting techniques, beginning with... Mainspring Problems   E-Mail: Lance Young E-Mail: How Watches Work Copyright 2006-2019	Read the Latest Watch Collecting Article by Bob Tascione Learn Watch Repair at Home Resources