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Large scale Tourbillon

1

1018Machine

Active Member
I posted this a few years ago on another forum but thought some here might get a kick out of seeing it too!

I became fascinated with watch movements a few years ago, especially escapements and of course the grail of them a Tourbillon! So a few years ago I decide to attempt to make one only a bit larger scale to make it a bit easier and since I already make fishing reels I thought it might be novel to design one inside the backplate of the reel. Knowing nothing about the inner working of a watch I set out on a long journey to understand how it all worked. No one would help me in the watchmaking industry. They all said "take a watchmaking course" but I only wanted to make one specific component (escapement) so a lot of YT and images later I had a design.

Understanding the difference between Involute gears and cycloidal gear was the first challenge. The size and pitch of the cutters was such that you couldn't just buy them off the shelf so I had to make my own. You've probably watched a few YT vids from "Clickspring" well so did I! He's a wealth of knowledge for all this sort of stuff. I borrowed his ideas for making the cutters once I figured out my PA and pitch. This alone was very challenging, making tools to make tools.

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The pallet fork, pallets and escape wheel were next and proved to be real challenge. You know the saying "you don't know what you don't know"! Well that was me here. I never had a clue about things like "lift angle" or "beat error" until I finished this project LOL.

I opted to make my pallet stones from 4140 since I couldn't find anyone to grind them from ruby material large enough, also due to not knowing the correct lift angle I needed until I had the components assembled to test.

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Once assembled I'd say the hardest part was trying to understand why it wouldn't run! Sure it would start up but stop after a few beats. Circling back to the beginning were no one was willing to share the information I needed to understand the working of the movement I had to systematically go through every motion to figure out why it would not sustain movement. It was at the time I got to the pallet fork I could see the lift angle was incorrect. An escape wheel has a very important relationship with the pallet and it's forks. They work together to aid in the perpetual motion of the balance wheel by giving a gentle lift to the impulse jewel under the wheel as it passes the yoke of the pallet fork. Once I figured that out and honed the faces of the pallet stones it started to work properly.

Some have asked "but does it keep time?" No! it could though but it merely for amusement sake. Here's a video of it running.

Thanks for looking!

 
Boy, that's all waaaay above my pay grade! I specialize in giant farm equipment with parts so big you need a gantry crane or an engine hoist to move them. I don't think I could even see those parts!

VERY NICE WORK!

Thanks for sharing!
 
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