Continuing with my restoration project I moved on to the balance staff, when I checked the balance staff in the movement I found out that both pivots were bent, I tried to straighten them but I broke one.
I knew that the only solution was to make a brand new one from scratches rather then search for another one either in the school's stocks or online.
I removed it from the balance wheel and tool all the mesurements and noted down on a blank draw that I had from the balance staff course I did a few months earlier.
One of the major problems was that while removing the rivert on the balance wheel the balance staff got damaged and I had to navigate a bit in darkness during mesurements.
Anyway I took a piece of blue steel, made the cones on both extremities, tightened it into a carrier I made in the past months while I was working on pivot gauges(I actually used a few different carriers in order to be able to make the balance staff) and put it in the between centers tool and started to turn it down.
First thing I turned the balance seat and balance shoulder checking regularly as I didn't want to go under the tollerances, then I made the undercut.
After that I turned the hairspring shoulder, bavelled it and went ahead to make the oil groove.
Then I turned the cone and roughly turned the pivot leaving it still quite thick as I had to turn down the other side of the balance and didn't want to risk to break the pivot and restart all over again.
I changed carrier and glued it onto the hairspring shoulder put it back in the between centers and started to turn the roller seat leaving it a few tenths of mm bigger (later I adjusted the diameter and thickness).
At this stage I turned the roller post checking with the safety roller that it was fitting into the post and resting around the centre of it for at a later stage to be able to friction fit it.
Then I went back to finish the roller seat and balance hub.
As last I made the cone and roughly turned the pivot.
The next task was to burnish boths pivots (of course one at a time) the most riscky operation, I didn't want to break them as I was so close to the completion of the balance that breaking one of the pivots would have been a total disaster and it would have destroyed my confidence.
One at a time I reduced the diameter in the jacot tool and when I was around one tenth over the target size I started to burnish them.
I must have checked a towsend times the size and being careful not to bend and break them, that was my worst fear and worry.
Now I had to do the domes and reduce the total length of the balance staff by reducing the lenght of the pivots and trying it into the movement by checking the end-shake, also making sure that the length of the pivot was equal; during this operating I was assisted by my instructor as at that time I didn't have the necessary knowledges to proceed alone.
As usual proceeding very carefully and slow.
I took only pictures from the burnishing of the pivots on only because I was so concentrated in turing this balance staff that I forgot about it.
Once done with this last operation I put the balance staff back to the in between centers tool and polished it with diamond paste and pegwood.
Cleaned it from the residual paste and it was ready.
Enjoy the pictures as I enjoyed making this balance staff.
