16-Point Check (Bulova 11ACC)

Here we are, the end of the 16-Point Check Project for me. The final entry in the 16-Point Check system will be my interpretation of the 16-Point Check outline.

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My final watch for the 16-Point Check was this Bulova. When I got the watch, it was in pretty decent shape. The dial was a bit dirty, but I loved the numerals on it. I love applied numerals, and these are great looking. I’m not sure what is going on with the split in the dial from twelve to six, but it looked kind of neat. It was working and had no issues with winding or setting (though the hands were misaligned a bit).

Housed inside the case was a Bulova 11ACC movement.

Something new with this movement was the wheel-over-third-wheel, also known as an indirect sweep seconds wheel. If you look at the center of the watch, you will see a spring/strap holding down a pinion. That pinion is a seconds hand pinion and it is driven by the wheel-over-third-wheel. The wheel can be removed by a special tool, or you can use a collet wedge to gently pry it off. The pinion is pictured below. Sorry for the over-exposure.

Cleaning and oiling went well. Regulating this watch took me a little longer than I would have liked, but again, not always having a beat regulator is a good thing. After I got the watch regulated, I took the watch up to get checked out and Mr. Poye noted that the indirect sweep seconds wheel was bent a bit and told me that I needed to true it.

Truing the wheel turned out to be a bit difficult. Most wheels that you true have a pinion that you can put in your truing calipers. When you are dealing with a wheel-overasdfads-XXXX-wheel, it rides a long pinion from the wheel that it sits on, so the calipers aren’t going to do anything. In this situation, you use the movement as a pair of calipers. You place the wheel on the pinion, give it a small wind and watch for the high spots. You can either attempt to correct the bend(s) with the wheel in place or you can take it off and work on it using a bench block or some other set-up.

After a few tries, I was able to get the wheel straight, but the hole that the pinion goes through was a bit loose. When it is loose, instead of driving the seconds pinion, the third wheel pinion just spins around in the wheel. Mr. Poye told me to use a round punch from my staking set to close it up a bit. I didn’t have a small enough punch to do it, so Mr. Poye went ahead and took care of it for me.

After getting the the wheel fixed and secured, I was able to get the watch cased up and back together with no issues. I forgot to take a picture of the timing tape, but needless to say, it went from being slow and out of beat to on time.