· By Buffy
Anatomy 8: Putting It Together
A full watch teardown in service order — what comes apart first, what gets cleaned, what gets oiled, and how the subsystems reunite.
Part 8 of 8 in the Anatomy series.
Theory is finished; now the bench. This is a movement teardown in the order a watchmaker actually works — because order is the difference between a service and an incident.
The service order, annotated
- Case out. Hands off (with protector film), dial off (dial feet screws), movement out of the case. Note the keyless works state before touching anything.
- Let down the power. Hold the click open and let the mainspring down in a controlled way. Working on a wound movement is how screwdrivers become projectiles.
- Motion works and calendar (if any): cannon pinion, minute wheel, hour wheel, then calendar plates and their springs — photograph springs before removal; they photograph their own revenge later.
- Balance out first among the train. The balance assembly is the most fragile part; removing it early removes the risk. It goes straight into a labeled basket, hairspring up.
- Pallet fork and bridge, then the escape wheel. The escapement stones and pivots are inspected for chips and wear under magnification.
- Train wheels and bridges down to the barrel. Check endshake and sideshake at each wheel as it comes out.
- Barrel: open, inspect the mainspring (set? rust? cracked bridle?), clean, re-grease the barrel wall with braking grease, reassemble with correct lubrication.
Cleaning and lubrication
Baskets into an ultrasonic cleaning cycle (clean, rinse, rinse, dry), then selective oiling: light oil on fast, light pivots (escape, pallet), heavier oil on slow, loaded ones (center, barrel arbor), epilame on the impulse surfaces where oil must not creep. A well-oiled watch runs for years; a badly-oiled one runs fast, then stops.
Reassembly and the four tests
Reverse the order; fit the balance last so it never bears load. Then:
- Amplitude and rate on a timegrapher — see Amplitude for what healthy looks like.
- Positions — dial up, dial down, crown down, crown left… the spread should be single-digit seconds, per positions and rate.
- Functions — winding feel, setting feel, hand alignment at 12:00, date changeover if any.
- Case tests — gaskets, water resistance pressure test, and a 24-hour rest before final rate check.
Where to go next
You now know the whole machine. The deep dives await: the geometry of drop, lock, and lift, the philosophy of the co-axial, the science of isochronism, or the timeline that produced every idea above.