I cant really tell what you are doing with the circuit - a schematic of your pulse generator section would be nice. If you give us a better idea of what you actually need for a test signal we can suggest better or easier circuits to generate it.
Thanks Ian, you've given me plenty to think about and learn from here.
As to the purpose - learning
I'm trying to create - strike that - understand how to create a sync'ed clock signal I can use for some logic circuits I want to use (buffers, registers etc). Thing real fancy and nothing that will make it past the bread-board. So while I understand the principles of the timer circuit, it seems very very rough, noisy and imprecise to me. It also found that a single clock signal wouldn't cut it, so I finally discovered "dividers" and it looks like it's exactly what I needed to create a few synchronized but slightly offset pulses so I can synchronize data/signal better. In essence I'm trying to build a simple bus - as a project to get some electronic principles under my skin. In the past I've simply connected in/out pins on a controller to a sensor or motor etc. - I need to make slightly more complex circuits as my next stage, and that means actually understand (prove) how small circuits work. Ie. amplifying signals and using pullup/down at the right places. I've already had to correct a lot of misunderstandings I had about signal processing. My purpose is to know enough to build very small circuits without needing a microcontroller where I'm comfortable.
Yes, it's basic VERY CHEAP NE555P chips I'm using. All they've proven to me so far, that they suck at generating a consistent/stable frequency. Or maybe it's just me that screw it up - it could very well be both
I finally got a 1-2% duty cycle setup working, but still the frequency according to my scope is jumping quite a lot particular in the 100s of KHz. Hence my idea of using simple crystals. It got a handful or so of Quartz Crystal (VAPKER), unfortunately the smallest I can find is 4MHz and well, I think that's too fast based on my reading of the CMOS/74xx datasheets. However, that's what that divider is for - for now, I would just like to see a rather steady frequency that doesn't change with 1000s of Hz every second. I don't really care if it's 4MHz or 2MHz - I just want it steady. Taking all what you wrote, it's clear you understand why it's unstable right now - and it's my hope I get to that moment too. So far I'm reading a lot, watching a ton of youtube like EEVBlog attempting to gain a better understanding. I'm fumbling around slowly - day job only gives me a few hours a day (at best) to study/learn. And there are weeks when I'm on the road with no access to my small collection of components, breadboards etc. so things move slowly here which is OK. I'm in no real hurry.
Thanks again. I'll need to google quite a bit of what you wrote to understand the answer. So I have a lot to work with here.