FHF 69-21 (Standard)

Description

One of the most often produced and used movements for ladies' watches is the FHF 69-21 (ST), a so-called “Standard” caliber with a size of 6 3/4 x 8 lignes, which was ideal for the popular mid-sized ladies' watches at that time.

The suffix “-21” indicates the semi-fast beat rate of 21600 A/h, which was the standard then.

The base plate shows the good execution of this movements, where of course all important bearings contain rubies. The minute wheel is only ruby-beared on the movement side, not on the dial side.

The gear train construction with its modern non-decorated gears is “standard”, too: On the rather large mainspring barrel follows the directly driven center minute wheel, the two small third- and seconds wheel and finally the large escape wheel, which is partially located below the bearings for third- and seconds wheel.

With that two-storey construction, the available space could be used very well and many parts were of a larger size.

The FHF 69-21 (ST) uses a modern three-leg anular balance, which is secured in two Incabloc-shock-protection bearings.

A speciality is the tiny lever on the hairspring key, which can regulate the distance of the two pins of the hairspring key, so that the hairspring has got as few play as possible. This should enhance the accurancy and ease service works.

On the dial side, you can see, that the escape wheel bearing is covered with a cap jewel. While a cap jewel for the movement side bearing would have even been better, this is not a bad solution.

Besides this, you can spot the Incabloc bearing (at position 12:30), and the yoke winding system with its characteristically shaped setting lever spring.

In the lab

Timegrapher result

The specimen shown here is from the Dugena ladies' watch and shows a fair performance on the timegrapher. The deviations in the individual positions should more or less neutralize each other.

Technical data

Usage gallery