Bulova Jet Clipper.....

[ricardopalamino]

I recently acquired this really nice Bulova Jet Clipper....

 

As I said , It was nice but needed a little TLC . It was advertised as running good , just cleaned and serviced . Also It came on a period Spiedel watchband and had a decent crystal .

Unfortunately it would only run for a bit , and needed an inspection and service . It's a front loader , so after pulling off the crown and the top of the 2 piece stem , and the crystal , I got a better look at what I had . The dial is a beautiful scallop sea shell design that has a soft pearlesent sheen,...subtle on the pearlesent . The lume on the hands was starting to fall off , and all three hands had signs of rust present . 

The movement had some dirty lube in the stem area but the rest of the movement was in top shape . I proceeded to clean and service the movement and was pleased to see good results on my timegrapher .

I removed the lume and the rust from the hands , cleaned and polished them , and relumed the hour and minute hand  . I also sanded and polished the crystal , but it didn't take much to make it look like new . I like the little spade arrow on the short side of the second hand .

I found a decent beads of rice bracelet in my stash and the watch was looking and running good . 

 

 

As good as it was looking to me , I wanted to up the ante . In my searches I had come across a vintage Spiedel Calendar watchband called Romunda by Spiedel . It is stainless steel and has leather looking links . The calendar has 7 faces that moves the 1st from Sunday to Saturday by rolling the calendar backwards or forward with 2 setting wheels . The calendar cost $10.95 when it was first introduced ,...I paid $25.00 ,....but had to have it for this watch .

 

 

The lug width on the watch is 18mm , and the watchband is 19mm , so I had to do some body and fender work to make it fit . Also the band was too loose on my wrist so I had to remove 2 sets of links to fit me . That was fun .

 

 

All in all , I am very pleased with the total look of the watch and band . I think it looks pretty darned spiffy . 

Like something from "Mad Men " .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[noirrac1j]

Excellent Ricardo. I just did an 333ft Oceanographer with black/ gold cross hairs dial. I really liked the beads of rice bracelet until I saw how good the calendar stretch band looked! I would not have made that choice, but it really does look as good as any Omega of that time. Very clean looking....its nice to see esthetics being given priority rather just focusing on the mechanical aspects. Of course timegrapher readings, smoothly functioning features and original hardware are important believe me I know this very well. But in the end, when all the work is done, the watch just has to look and feel "right" on the wrist. Otherwise, whats the point of wearing a timepiece? Any 10 dollar watch could serve that purpose.... but not for us!

JC

[ramrod]

that is a terrific looking old timer. it's really cool that it kept the same original watch band all of these years.

it has that classic bulova handsome look to it.