Quote:
Originally Posted by SearChart
This is very very interesting!
I'd love to know which lubricants he uses for the escapement, which epilame and if there's a noticeable difference in the replacement mainspring that he might use.
The barrel can indeed be taken apart like any other, problem to me is I'm not allowed to do so, or even think about using an aftermarket spring.
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I was asking him similar questions. For lubes I believe it was HP1300, HP1000, 9415, 9010, molykote dx, 9504. He did mention that Rolex seems to use a very small amount of lube (even by watch movement standards) and he finds the ones with low amplitude are extra dry in the escape wheel and pallet fork. He also said that with a generic replacement mainspring (in the factory barrel) he still achieves 72 hours of PR. He used to buy the real Rolex ones but couldn't justify the cost for no added performance. I wondered if that aftermarket spring might have more torque and that might account for higher amplitude initially. Obviously it could be lube related too.
But the real interesting part, to me anyway, isn't so much the difference between achieving 270 deg and 290 degrees when new, it is getting that amplitude to last over time. If all our watches held 270 degrees at full wind for years we'd never be having this conversation. The problem is when 270 becomes 250. And 250 becomes 230, and so on.
Overall it didn't sound like he was a big believer in the 10 year service interval on these, but seemed to think they should have no issues at all running 5 years without problems.