Building Bernard Tekippe’s Precision Regulator

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Given the limited choice that Chris has, I refer to my answer above.

[gerry maddenParticipant @gerrymadden53711]

Thanks for the information Gerry. Can I ask what you mean when you say to watch the corner radius? You also mention, “Secondly the shaft must be accurately square with the outer rings. Therefore machine the two housing together” 

 

Hi Chris, re corner radius I mean this feature shown in the snip below. The corner radii on small bearings can be very small. Typically on a bearing with a 3mm bore size, it may be in the order of 0.1mm.

The radius on your shaft (between the abutment face and cylindrical seat) MUST be smaller than the one on the bearing. If it’s not, then when you press/tap the bearing up against the abutment it will simply sit cock-eyed. This will not be detectable without some good metrology but the bearing’s friction/smoothness will definitely be compromised.

If you can’t be confident of getting the required small radius, a small undercut will be acceptable provided it doesn’t eat in too much to the cylindrical seating area or the abutment face. Oversized radii are an easy mistake to make. Industry frequently gets it wrong!

Regarding housing alignment, this is what I’m referring to.

Obviously the permissable lateral displacement depends on how far the housing are apart and can be calculated by simple geometry.

In practical terms, Im not sure how you might achieve it because I haven’t yet studied the clock design! 🙂 I will try to do that shortly and come back you.

Finally, I keep seeing people suggesting running the bearings dry. You really don’t want to do this, especially if the bearings have pressed metal cages. These will wear and make steel dust in not a great deal of clock lifetime. If you are able to completely eradicate the initial grease charge, (which I tend to doubt :)) then relubricate the bearing with a tiny quantity of very low viscosity, long-life oil. Excess can be easily drained out if required by lying the bearing flat on some dust-free paper for a while. Oil will never give create the same kind of friction levels as grease, but will stop wear and oxidation in the following years.

Gerry

 

[gerry maddenParticipant @gerrymadden53711]

Chris, I understand your challenge. I think my answer would be do it by good spigoting on your pillars.

Make all the relevant holes with the small support plate glued or clamped to the back plate. (Don’t space the two parts and tram your mill first.) Ream the holes for good diameter and roundness.

Then turn your pillar faces and spigot diameters between centres to ensure everything is as square and concentric as it can be.  Make your spigots good snug fit with the reamed holes in your plates. Clearances make position errors.

Confirming you have achieved the required alignment between the two bearing housings in the finished assembly is a challenge for another day!

Gerry

 

[Chris Raynerd 2Participant @chrisraynerd2]

Gerry, I really appreciate your comments and diagrams -very helpful, and they make a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I had a bit of fun tonight with an idea that was suggested,  purely as a concept, not tested -by a clockmaker I visited over the weekend. He told me about the BHI course he took many years ago, where he learnt a little about jewelling movements. He admitted he wasn’t particularly successful at it, but all the discussion I’ve been having on here and with him recently got him thinking about jewels again.

During the course, he had a lump of synthetic ruby and mentioned the idea that you might be able to use commercially available round-cut stones to make clock jewels.

As I say, it was a very experimental discussion – no thoughts about mounting, tolerances, or finishing – but I came home and immediately ordered some. Here’s a short video I filmed tonight. What does it show? Essentially just me drilling a ruby! But discovering it can be done – something I didn’t think was even possible in my workshop – has got me wondering whether there’s mileage in it.

I’m not sure whether the hole would need further cleaning, and the question of mounting would definitely need more thought.

Will I be using it straight away in the Tekippe clock? No, probably not. But I had some fun, learnt something new, and I just wonder if this idea has some potential.

So here are a couple of questions:

How would or could you mount something like this?

And how might you polish or clean up the bore more accurately?

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Interesting to see you working with modern tooling, Chris

To the best of my limited knowledge, the traditional methods are long and very slow … Diamond slurry and Copper rods spring to mind; but I’ve never tried it.

MichaelG.

 

[Chris Raynerd 2]

On Chris Raynerd 2 Said:

…I’m not sure whether the hole would need further cleaning, and the question of mounting would definitely need more thought.

…

So here are a couple of questions:

How would or could you mount something like this?

And how might you polish or clean up the bore more accurately?

 

Enjoyed the video, many thanks!

The hole will need further cleaning.  This type of bearing requires a high-polish, otherwise the rough edges grind the steel part rapidly.  Ruby is carborundum, same as emery paper.  Polished in two ways:

• Traditionally with successively finer grades of diamond powder.   Like emery paper, a succession of finer grades remove scratches left by it’s predecessor.  Might start with a 150 grit and end up with 3000.  Michael mentions the powder being applied on a Copper rod, which sounds right.
• By passing a flame through the hole that’s hot enough to melt any raised edges.  I guess this would need a small Hydrogen / Oxygen flame.  Small torches and generators are made for jewellers, about £350, so  here’s a DIY design.

Mounting.  Traditional jewels are pressed into a pocket.  I think press-fit is possible without ultra-precise machining because the jewels are thin enough to flex slightly.  As a thick home-made jewel wouldn’t flex, the alternative is some form of clip.  Most common in manufactured watches is a shock absorbing clip, good in watches because they get dropped:

I guess the main problem with a home-made mounting would be accurately aligning the two ends – either by depthing, or by precision XY positioning with a mill.   Gut feel, by the time all the problems have been solved, might be cheaper to buy precision made commercial jewels.

Earlier I found this table of Horological Coefficients of friction with comments on the advantages of Sapphire bearings over Steel, and why un-lubricated steel on steel isn’t recommended!  Washing grease out of a bearing reduces friction briefly because grease is sticky, but then the steel starts grinding…

Further investigation into jewels may be advised.  The table refers to Sapphire rather than Ruby!  Although they’re much the same chemically and both are synthesised, ‘Ruby’ isn’t simply a red sapphire.    Sapphire may be slicker than ruby, hence better for bearings…

Dave

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Interesting to see you working with modern tooling, Chris

To the best of my limited knowledge, the traditional methods are long and very slow … Diamond slurry and Copper rods spring to mind; but I’ve never tried it.

MichaelG.

 

Thanks Michael, I may however try the copper rod method to clean up the jewel hole.

Thanks again for the comment!
Chris

[Chris Raynerd 2Participant @chrisraynerd2]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hi Dave</p>
Great reply as always, very detailed.

I think I will buy some diamond pastes and try and clean up the hole. I believe copper rods can be used for this with diamond paste.

I’m not keen on the idea of a clip simply because I think I’d struggle to make it! I do still wonder if I could press fit it into a reamed hole with a taper at the back end to match the “diamond” shaped end and align it square. I might give it a go with this one just as proof of concept.

Regarding the use of sapphire, it is interesting you should mention that. We discussed that a little as well and he actually gave me some sapphire discs which I’ll show at a later date. I really don’t want to talk out of turn and happy to be corrected as it is not my story to tell, but my understanding is that this synthetic ruby is the same thing that was used in the BHI courses for jewel making. I certainly could be wrong – the only difference is they had a lab grown chunk and this has been processed and round cut.

Embarrassed to say, but I started with this ruby because it is a nice red colour as traditional jewels are! The sapphire we have sourced are clear.

Finally regarding jewels, I can only find one source this sort of size and without looking again, the biggest sizes they do are around 2mm and £20 per jewel! That is quite an expense for a pair and especially if you wanted to jewel multiple arbors. That said, if these home made ones don’t work at all then the commercial ones seems  bargain 😀

 

thanks

Chris

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Very interesting to see ruby drilled so ‘easily’. Another thread about grinding wheels recently lead me to CBN with the statement that it was the second hardest material next to diamond. I wonder if anyone is using it for bearings.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Chap. XI. of this is brief but interesting:

https://archive.org/details/treatiseonclock00reidgoog

MichaelG.

[Author]

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