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Hi All, I started this forum over 10 years ago and never intended for it to me a 'for profit' concern. Since then, I launched an online course and I draw funds from that business in order to fund this website. There is also a little bit of funding from Google ads but I don't rely on it because they keep changing the goalposts. The forum costs a few hundred pounds per month to run and Im comfortably managing it. Why a few hundred pounds? I am OCD about backups and not relying on a single company to host those backups, I use amazon S3 to backup hourly and daily, I also use Digital Ocean. I use a separate mail service to handle the serious amounts of emails sent from the site, I am on here most days admin'ing and updating the site or servers/applying security patches and the like - its not a big deal, I enjoy it. In short - you might not see me a lot posting (for my sanity as it's addictive (same on all my social media)) but I certainly do a lot behind the scenes. I can't control my mortality and so there's always that - but other than that, I'm damn committed to this site as I am committed to my commercial site watchfix.com which supports this site. I have no interest in shutting down, selling or otherwise changing this sites format. Having said that, if anyone wants to consider taking on moderation tasks to help (in particular, making sure people post in the correct place and moderating new members posts) that would be very helpful. (Only members who have been active for more than a year please). Finally, thanks very much for your support and kind words - I truly appreciate that. This forum has to be one of the friendliest I am part of - a massive refreshment after reading some of the Facebook groups I'm part of - except mine FB group - that's also great with great people

I should have done this a long time ago. I would like to say a big thank you to all my followers new and old. If I can help in any way just message me and I will do my very best for you.

Its 4 o'clock in the morning here in the Uk, i cant sleep, i dont sleep, not much ever really. My brain never shuts off to rest, I'm just a constant thinker, i have to be very tired to be able to sleep, i guess eventually it will be my undoing and my health will suffer because of it I'm sure. But while I'm here i want to get as much out of life as i can, and give as much as i can, to help,maybe to make a difference to someone's life if that is within my capability,recent events have made that need even more clear to me. I'm not sure where I'm going with this or why i bring it up , or if its relevant to want i want to talk about its just in my head right now. What i do want to talk about is something thats been on my mind for ages. I like to be prepared, I'm not fond of surprises because surprises take control away and i am a bit of a control freak at times. This forum, Our Forum if i can call it that, is here because of two reasons. The guy that created it and keeps it funded and the people that joined it. Without either, it would not exist, and lets face it one day it won't ( I'm a realist and i talk about things others dont or who are afraid to in other words folk that dont particularly prepare for the inevitable). How many of us visit here regularly ? How many among us almost depend on the forum as a way of socialising because they are stuck at home and how many of us has it become part of a daily routine to check in and see if they can offer advice or get help with something they are working on or just to have a chat and engage in some banter. The members here are in the thousands and thousands have disappeared over the years many had just a fleeting visit. But there are a good few of us that know each other quite well and visit regularly. I dont know about you but i wouldnt want to lose that communication with you all, in all honesty it has become an important part of that side of my life and helps to feed my passion for all things watches. Some of you may think differently and thats ok, some of may stop and think # what would i do " Without Our Forum " #

Alright, the job is done. I first filed down the stubs flat. I then used a Proxxon hand drill first with a 0.5mm bit to score a point to work from, then a 1mm drill bit to properly drill out some lug holes. I just went slowly, checking the depth as I went. I drilled the inside of the lugs, leaving the outsides unblemished. I was worried that drilling at an angle might be a problem, but it turned out fine. Lug holes don't need to be very accurate, so it was actually easy to create holes to easily accommodate a spring bar. The result is a 'good enough' outcome that worked for me. Thanks for your help everyone, loving the hobby so far. I learn so much with each project.

Hello everybody, sorry for the late reply. Thank you all so much for your help and your tips. I got lucky and found a replacement wheel bridge for cheap which actually ended up being in decent condition. I decided not to do anything about the mainspring barrel pivot since I didn't have the right tools and the barrel didn't have much endshake anyhow. I am happy to report that the watch now runs great, I have regulated it to about +-10/s day which is fine by my standards. The timegrapher result looks decent as well, although beat error is around 0.6ms which could be better I suppose. Amplitude reaches over 230 quite consistently which I'm happy with also. My lighter fluid has also been replaced by balance spring cleaning solution and now the springs don't stick to themselves anymore - who would have thought. I'm super happy with this watch, it might not be worth a whole lot but it's awesome that I could restore it and it makes me wear it with pride. To me it's a genuinely good lucking watch, it'll be my daily driver for a while. Thanks again to everybody for their input! I couldn't have done the repair without your help. Here are some images for those interested, the bracelet isn't original but I don't really mind:

Double Oooooo Removal tool? Dreamed of one of these. However, Kalle on Chronoglide showed everyone my system with the pegwood. Worked a treat. Felt so chuffed to be mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTFrXjiyGKc 46:40 for the wheel removal. Mentions me at 50:00 and does the removal with the pegwood. Felt like my 15 minutes of fame.

Like losing Ranfft. That was a wake up call. We took his website for granted. Miss him terribly.

You are so true on a lot of what you have said. The main reason for changing the mainspring even if the old one is in good order is because it will take out your thinking that the mainspring is contributing to poor power output or fluctuations in amplitude. If a new spring is fitted that box can be crossed off as a potential source of a problem. Most customers are happy to pay the extra £20 for a new mainspring if they are already parting with a couple of hundred pounds for a service. A new spring is an investment for good running for the future.

Yeah you need more amplitude, and if this is full wind a new mainspring isn't going to get you there- there are other issues. Good news is if that's your max delta at this miserable amplitude it will probably run great when you get it up to something normal!

The K&D (Levin made the same style too, probably others as well) are a clever design and work well when you get used to them. The only issue is if you wind the spring so that the tongue goes in, there's a really good chance it slips futher and then comes out the next slot, usually breaking off. Best to size it so you can fit it in the barrel with the tongue sticking out.

Tah-dah. A mini blow torch to harden it, then quench it and just a lighter held under a brass mainspring barrel that the part sits in to temper, Its important to wipe off any grease from fingerprints with ipa, you might be able to see i missed a bit at the top of the arm. Its a very satisfying process. I now just need to deal with the more difficult repairs, anybody any good at replacing rubbed in jewels ?

1947 NOS Ambassador 'C'. Actually, the case came without the movement so the movement isn't NOS, but she sure is pretty.

All Done, Here are the finished pictures: This one shows the generic "one-size-fits-all" base which accepts the bespoke rings - notice that the parametric movement OD (27.40 mm) automatically prints on the ring From another angle: Here is the ring about to go into the base: And finally the base and ring together: Here it is next to a pen for scale: On my system with 20% fill each ring will take about 18 mins to print, but I am sure this could be optimised: Here is the screenshot of the spreadsheet in FreeCAD, you just need to change one value to create the ring in cell C3, (the base doesn't need any changes). I just uploaded the files to printables link here, but also include here as a fake pdf, please change the .pdf to .zip to make the file work once downloaded: Modular Movement Holder.pdf Any feedback welcome! I'm also going to make a parametric ring insert for rectangular/oval movements - but I just finished a parent teacher evening so too tired now

This forum is a big part of my life. When I retired from horology many years ago due to poor health I missed what I had trained for. On here I can still do my bit in helping and advising others and have a little fun as well.

High frequency day: 36000 bph.

Just picked this up earlier today. This find just about epitomizes vintage watch collecting for me and what really keeps me going. Hit 2 antique malls today and saw a couple of pieces at the first one but just nothing that I needed. At the second one saw a Accutron 218 but it was 20 minutes behind the actual time. These "malls" have numerous booths of a variety of sellers who likely go in once or twice a week. Considering that that watch should be within a couple of seconds a month, I figured it hadn't been phased so passed on that for now knowing it would need work to run correctly and the price tag. Then I found this Excelle in a display case. I never heard of the brand, but in was an auto and had a little heft. It turned out to be 40mm lug to lug, 35.3mm case width, and 12.3 mm thick. On the spiedel once size fits most flex band. At $10.80US with tax I immediately pulled the trigger with nothing to lose. Before pictures: I spent a nice 30 minutes taking it out of the case and running that through the ultra sonic replacing the crystal and gasket and recasing, but spent five minutes first getting it running close on the timegrapher. Had a new crystal already in stock. I probably could have sanbed and polished the old one, but for $3 there is nothing like a new acrylic that makes a watch pop, in my opinion. The caseback gasket was hardened and just glad it wasn't tar. Changed that as well. Here is the after Pic on a temp black strap while I decide on a leather or steel bracelet. An added bonus was doing some research and finding out the Elgin connection and the movement is a PUW 1563T which is German I am pretty sure and probably why it doesn't say Swiss made on the dial. This movement is supposed to have a hack feature and quickset date by pushing the crown. But neither of those complications seem to be working. Not sure if the stem is cut too short because there is no gap for the crown to move. Either way at some point will need to be serviced and check the keyless works to find out what is going on with the quickset and hack of the sweep second hand.

The front, runs lovely now and alarms works great.

A big thank you Mark for clearing all this up. We all appreciate you and the work you put into the running of this forum. If I can be of anymore help to you and this forum just ask. I love it on here as well.

1973 Bulova Diamond Excellency Q. 11 AN mov't manual wind. Love the UFO look of this one. Not sure the size of the diamond but looking around for an advertisement to see if it is.listed....strap is not original but the buckle is signed along with the crown. In excellent condition.

My newest 404 candidate, a late '60's / early '70's Waltham with a UTC 33 / Seiko 6601 17 jewel automatic movement. It needed a new crystal and I put on a strap from my Strap Graveyard. The timegrapher was a snow storm before servicing but it cleaned up nicely. I really like the funky font used for the hour markers.

Here are the pics of the bridge. Looks correct, but as soon as I screw on the rotor, the watch stops. Video here: https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArG5E62RGctxjokY5ws85BzuJLVakA Pics. Might have figured it out. I have been working on this watch for a while and since I got it as a non runner in a terrible shape, there was no guarantee that parts were proper. I think the main screw that was used on the rotor was too long, so it was stopping the main train. As soon as I fished out a much shorter and larger headed screw, things were good again. Please celebrate with me.

Finally figured out why my hands are so god damn steady. My mum 87 years old , 4 weeks after her stroke and has a macular hole in both eyes, she wiped the floor with me and my lad at a kids stacking chairs toy game. Here she in rehab placing the last chair into position, bloody ' Supergreatgreatgran' i hope I'm half as fit at her age

Hi guys, I wrote a set of five lessons for my second year students regarding the Landeron 248 chronograph watch, which incidentally we are meeting tonight. They are going to be polishing pivots and pinion leaves of their 248s, before putting the movements through the cleaning machines. This is number one of five. I posted number two of five the other day HERE There are seven eccentric studs on this movement, so understanding what the studs do, how to set them, their actions and interactions with other parts of the chronograph mechanism is vitally important. I found there is very little out there on the internet to help understand the principles of these eccentric studs, especially video content to show various faults and alleviations, so I put together quite detailed walkthroughs of various complicated movements usually consisting of 15 to 18 hours of learning/servicing in the workshop per movement/module With any watchmaking, especially with complicated work, only make one adjustment and measure the results, if any. Be methodical in your approach. The lesson was originally in PowerPoint and I had to convert it to PDF to post here, so a lot of the video content won't play, but the PowerPoint version is in my cloud storage here. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10KJJ58P0v2BglKZSilIv9o69xBsbrQPI/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107902587627140904870&rtpof=true&sd=true You'll need quite a newer version of Microsoft Office (PowerPoint) so the video content will play, otherwise it won't. I hope you find this lesson useful and begin to get a better understanding of how to set eccentric studs. Sometimes you'll come across a stud that is too loose, or even too tight. Usually if one is problematic it will be because it is loose. This can't be left, as the stud will turn whilst the chronograph is stopped, started and reset, throwing the chrono mechanism setting off which could lead to the movement grinding to a halt. Don't fool yourself in thinking it will hold. Either a replacement stud is fabricated to suit the enlarged hole, or the hole can be closed up. In turning and setting the eccentric studs prior to disassembly of the movement, we are able to set the chronograph mechanism, especially the minute register mechanism correctly and test for any faults, such as a bent wheel over fourth arbor, or incorrect depth of the dart tooth with the sliding gear, or a mis-set minute runner jumper spring, to name a few possible faults and mis-settings. Also in turning these eccentric studs we can gain a 'feel' for how tight they are in the mainplate or bridge. The more they are turned the more the chance of the stud becoming looser increases. So once set correctly prior to cleaning, the less chance they will need setting once the chrono mechanism is assembled, only if a stud isn't tight enough in its setting in the first place. This is for setting Landeron 248 eccentric studs, but once an understanding of their uses and actions is gained through theoretical aspects together with practical application, then this skill and knowledge can be used in most vintage chronographs to set their eccentric studs and even in modern timepieces where you'll find very few eccentric studs, such as an Omega Speedmaster or Tag Heuer Calibre 01 chronographs Enjoy! Lesson 22. Landeron 248 Chronograph.pdf

Just a heads up that the CousinsUK branded replacement forks and pins fit the Bergeon tool and look/feel exactly the same. I damaged my Bergeon one and found that the replacement Bergeon parts were almost the same price as a complete new tool, so I decided to try the cousins own brand version. Out of curiosity I tried the fork and pin in my Bergeon tool and found they were exactly the same, and to buy the CousinsUK replacement parts individually is far cheaper than the buying a whole new tool. Hopefully is will save someone some pennies!

Never and others. Yes, like you I do spend a fair amount of time reading the contents of this forum. I find it better that any other. Clear, lucid, no Prima Donas, and most of all an easy access without adverts. All thanks to Mark. God bless you mate. You give so much to many of us. What if? No Mark? Hypothetically. A forum. I did run a forum for a few years. Really enjoyed it, but became so engrossed that it did affect my health. I gave to to others to run. Not been back. It was very successful and rivalled a number of large paying sites. No adverts, no others but me. I did ask and listen to members comments and it worked well. Costs Having a domain name, £10 annually. Register the site with a forum company, free. Build the site using the forum company guide lines, free. It looked and ran almost the same a Mark's. All the same facilities. The cost was only £5 per month, but counted visits (views). If I recall, it was that price for 5,000 views. Each extra 5,000 views increased the price by £2 per month. Success was my own personal undoing. From £5 per month initially, it rose to £60 a month and looked like increasing. This was 10 years ago. I could not afford that, and asked it anyone would like to take over and someone did. I would assume that this is the price that Mark is funding for us all. His return is our continued comments on the internet about his course, and the fact that many of the big names on YouTube mention him as their Tutor. Those of us who have done, and are still using, his course, benefit. In comparison to other courses, I can't believe how cheap it is, and the value is exceptional. It is the structure that gives the value. Long may Mark reign. Ross

Hi guys, the question is what is a forum, a place for discussion and passing on information, idle chat and a bit of fun and I for one are the richer for it. When in Hospital last year with the Covid being force fed oxygen and feeling total sh1t and close to the pearly gates a daily look on the forum to see what was going down helped to keep me focused on the job in hand took my mind off the problem for a short while but it was a lifeline for sure. We chat to friends for that is what they become around the world read their posts help where we can post information where we can. I like @Neverenoughwatches some times think of members past and wonder if they are still at the watches or given up, some drop in for advise and drop out again never to be heard of again. The forum reminds me of Yorkshire hospitality, The door is always open and the kettle on the stove. Long may it continue. My two bobs worth.

I finished my polisher yesterday, and just tried it out. I'm surprised how easy it is to get a good result - just a couple of minutes. I thought it was going to be more difficult - a nice surprise as most things in watchmaking are harder than you expect. I bought self adhesive 3M lapping film https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/film-lapping-3m-261x266x , 9, 3 and 1 micron, and stuck it to sheets of glass. The 9 micron is course enough to remove large scratches. I'm glad I used the M6 thumb screws as the large heads allow for small adjustments.

Yes, I think I have one of these wormholes under my desk that spits my parts out into DS9: If you look carefully you can see my yolk spring exiting the wormhole!

So I grew a pair today and installed the balance complete. And it's ticking. I made a 5 seconds clip, but I don't know how to upload it. I'll put some strap and wear it today to see how it works. Have a great day!

For those of you who are looking for a Seitz jewel gauge, I just want to make you aware that there may be a good opportunity right now at Tradera.com (Swedish eBay). The site has significantly fewer visitors than eBay and I have made several fantastic deals there. 1500 SEK corresponds to approx. £110/€128/$137 https://www.tradera.com/item/1922/631487681/seitz-urmakarverktyg-matare Just to make sure, I'm not associated with this listing in any way!

I think we all get a lot out of this group, and it has been pivotal in my development by the sharing of knowledge, experience and learning from more seasoned experts such as @JohnR725 and others (you know who you are!) as well as fellow novices. I think that having a backup communication plan in reserve so that if there is a future problem just makes good sense. I don't think anyone is trying to undermine the forum, but if something unthinkable happens, like the Ranfft website for example, then it would be good if those who are willing can still keep in contact. Speaking personally, and I know I risk a charge of heresy, it would be good if Mark could be a little more visible in this forum, and maybe give any insight from time to time on the future/progress of forum and instructional videos etc. even if its just to confirm the status quo. I appreciate he is a busy man with a full time job, but so are most of the rest of us and to post a few lines every now and then shouldn't be too much to ask to reassure the restless villagers. Best outcome for me would be a message saying something along the lines of: "Hi guys, all good, no planned changes... enjoy the forum, will message again next month!" Just my two cents.

Knocked out another 404 last night...when you are in the zone! This watch was a non-runner which I picked up as part of a lot of 8 watches, so works out to be $3.12 per watch. Before: And the finished watch, new crown and stem and the crystal was cracked so was replaced. I also replaced the mainspring as the original was the old steel type spiral and very 'set' - all else is original: The Movement was a AS 1686, but in reading around a little the ACCRO watch company were sued for their use of the five point crown on their Jacques Pere range as it resembled Rolex, see below: ACCRO then reverted to just ACCRO on their watches - I have done some sniffing around the internet and haven't seen another example of ACCRO and the crown together on a dial so maybe I have something unusual, or maybe I was looking in the wrong places .

No matter what I did, I could not get the amplitude more than 240 deg. At least there is 0.2 beat error and minus 1-2 s/d. So, probably not the happy end I would have hoped for, but still I think the watch turned out quite nice. You be the judge of that. Thank you everyone for your help!

According to these guys "Coating watch parts with a thin, even monolayer of epilame provides an effective oleophobic barrier that halts oil spread in its tracks." Which is exactly the same process that causes water beading on a waxed car. An oleophilic treatment would actually cause the oil to spread out to as thin a layer as possible as every oil molecule would try and come into contact with the oleophilic surface. The reason an oleophobic surface prevents spreading is because the oil behaves in such a way as to have as little contact with the treated surface as possible.

Picking up this side-tracked post again as I just removed a balance staff of a 1920's Omega (35,5L-T1) I was impressed by the way @Delgetti had his setup when he had to change out a balance-staff (https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/28854-new-balance-staff-not-riveting-to-balance/page/2/#comment-244054 Not only that, but also the idea of removing the seat first before punching the staff out from the seat-side, avoiding the whole discussion of the rivet yes/no enlarging the hole. I didn't have the fancy clamps & tools Delgetti has, so I used my screw-head polishing tool. Initially I used #1500 grit diamond paste on the steel wheel, which kinda worked, but very slow. I changed to #800 grit diamond paste, which worked better, but still slow. Then I glued #240 sanding paper to the steel disk; That worked and the disk was hand-driven. Once close to the balance wheel, I took the sanding paper off and continued with #800 diamond paste. One can only do this when the balance wheel sits true on the staff and has no "wobble". I went on grinding until I saw some diamond paste on the rim of the balance wheel. This was as far as I could grind and it seemed that at that point there wasn't much left of the seat. Carefully, with my staking set, I knocked the staff from the seat-side out. Turns out that the thickness of the seat left, now a small ring, was only 0.1mm. The balance wheel hole is in perfect shape and no damage done to the wheel at all. Of course, if the wheel has a "wobble" or isn't seated true on the balance staff, you can't get as close and there will be more left of the seat. In my case, it worked perfect I'm very happy how this method worked out !

They showed up! It's a perfect fit. Can't wait to populate it and try it out.

Lubed up, back together (minus the one screw), and I'd say not a bad result! Going to give it a day or two to run in while I clean up the case and regulate it again, but off to a good start.

I missed this earlier. The dial isn't going into the holder, it should sit proud of it. This is what I am currently using which I print for each different movement.

The movement is so called 'Tongji', standard chinese movement. The stem can still be used with the help of extender.

Yes, I was so chuffed when he acknowledged me. I'd heard him talk about it and I had tried it by gentle pressure under the wheel and rolling the Pegwood in my fingers. The wheel rose. His way was to rotate the whole wheel in reverse. Learn something every time from Kalle.

Finally got one.

Funny enough, I'm working on an Omega pocket watch which has an amplitude of over 300 and I'm planning to use 9415 to bring it down. So far, my experience with this "wonder-grease" 9415 has been rather poor, especially on older movements. When changed the oil on the pallet jewels / escape-wheel to Dr.Tillwich 1-3, which would be about the equivalent of Moebius 9010, the amplitude gain is remarkable. Try that ..... And as JohnR725 asked, what is the amplitude after 24hrs? My 50-years old Omega 861 runs 250-255 at best when fully wound, around 215-220 after 24hrs. It gains every day 1 second, day after day, week in, week out. Perhaps not an amplitude "high-flyer", but It's the best time-keeper I ever had!

Funny that you should bring this up. I was thinking about it just the other day. What happens if something happens to @Mark? The social bit is fantastic and I would miss it dearly, but I worry even more about the content. Together we have created a gold mine of information which would be more or less irreplaceable if the site should disappear. People (often with a lot of knowledge) come and go. I sometimes wonder what happened to them and miss them. We have no idea unless we have some private contact information. When I was new here I saw a lot of posts by @Lawson. He had a true fire in his heart for horology and was asking for an apprenticeship in his signature. I found that very inspiring and often wondered what happened. Is the fire still burning? Did he get an apprenticeship?

What I especially like is that this forum is not full of ads. There are some but they're not interfering. No ads between posts like one certain big watch forum. Browsing is also very easy and light for a mobile device. I'm glad there's still room for old school forums like this. I'm a member in many facebook groups but there's really no long term discussion and if you see an interesting post you might never find it again if needed.

First thing this morning, make coffee, second, check the forum. I would really miss the forum, not on any social media, not interested in telling the world what I had for breakfast!!! I do consider most of the regulars friends and would wonder what had happened if they stopped posting.

I would go for the dearer spring. You won't need to remove the spring from the carrier ring and then use a mainspring winder to get it into the barrel, for a start. Also that spring is closer to the needed dimensions, especially the length. The length plays a part in the mainsprings strength. If you double the length you will half the force (strength) of the spring and vice-versa. A spring with 20 mm less length would be about 7% shorter, so technically would be 7% more strength, but I find halving this number is closer to real-world findings, so the spring would be about 3 to 4% more strength/force. On a mainspring that ideally kicks out 300 degrees of amplitude, a 3% increase in amplitude would be 309 degrees. Increasing or decreasing the length of the mainspring will affect the power reserve to a greater or lesser degree. It depends how much shorter or longer it is. I've attached a lesson regarding mainsprings, focussing on the size and strength of the spring within the barrel, you might find helpful. Unfortunately it is a PDF converted from a PowerPoint presentation, but only a slide was lost that was originally a video of fitting a mainspring Lesson 5 The mainspring.pdf

You can use bombé jewels with regular pivots if you put the convex surface facing the shoulder. You see it on (primarily older) high end pieces, particularly nearer to and including the escapement.

They are for balance wheels only and wheels with similar pivots (B = bombé). You can use flat jewels for balance wheels (not recommended) but no bombé jewels for ordinary wheels.

Thanks for the replies. I did the job today and found that the oversized stem fitted just perfectly into the worn mainplate without any adjustment. Original stem diameter was 1.24mm and the oversized was 1.40mm. I did have to make an adjustment to the setting lever though. The small pip that engages with the groove in the stem hub was slightly to wide. I made that a bit smaller with a fine file. Don't ask me why that was too big, it just was. All working very well now. No wobble and not pulling out. New crown fitted as good measure.

I finally got around to replacing the clasp on my 1972 Seiko 6139B chronograph. One of the ears on the old one had completely worn away so it would randomly pop off my wrist, which is less than convenient. It did need a little percussive persuasion to get together, but I'm pleased to have it back on my wrist. I really love this watch.