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Been a tad busy this weekend so apologies for the delay in posting, but here are a few pictures of the strip etc. First one is a general picture of the start And abit further in to the strip down, starting to find lots of crud in the movement now And a strange blue in colour dried up substance that I can only assume is old oil You can see it pretty clearly where the pallet fork sits And now after a good clean I just test fit everything for the first of many many times in this project Here's the original hairspring, I soaked it in hairspring cleaner but the rust stayed, also after purchasing a couple more spare movements I also realised the balance staff was 0.1mm too short so I had to change that aswell as replacing the hairspring Here's the replacement hairspring re pinned and also the roller table and roller jewel fitted, I have to say roller jewels seem to disappear very well from these movements, out of 4 movements only one had a whole roller jewel present. After lightly pressing the roller table onto the staff and fitting the hairspring to the cock I manipulated the table so that when the hairspring came to rest the roller jewel was as near as dammit smack in the middle of the banking pins, I then staked it in place. So after much wheel swapping and a plate swap and also swapping the jewels on the balance cock for a decent set I finally got it together and running after I demagnetised the whole movement fully cased up (twice both sides) This picture is a genuine shot of the time after 24 hrs of running after being set to the time on my tablet when I fully wound and set it going, as you can see it's just on a minute slow on its first full run in god knows how many years, not bad for a non jewelled (apart from the balance) movement. I have to say I'm more than happy with the result, it's still going strong after 2 days in my jeans pocket being bounced around.

My experience is that, with a lot of practice hand setting with the hand held hand press tools is usually a smooth process. (but hand setting can at times be the most frustrating and difficult things you can do, at least if you have high standards for how precisely they're set.) I have the set of 3 from bergeon, just having the singular one doesnt always give you the precision you need, the canon you're pressing the hand on to might be slightly larger or smaller than what you get with the single tool, which causes problems. It helps a lot to have the two other hand press tools. I've also bought a cheap, indian made hand, bench sitting hand press and wish I hadn't bothered. it gathers dust in the cupboard, so if you are going to get a hand press I'd say be prepared to buy an expensive one for it to be worthwhile.

Ha Ha Ha! The Chinese-Breitling....Chitling?!? Oh that's a funny one. Being from NYC, I get the joke all too well, but our buddies overseas might not be familiar with the porcine delicacy? JC

Small update. No one I can buy directly from has any 3u62 movements. Been keeping my eye out for donors ever since. Watches using this movement are sought after and often go for silly money. I think Deep Blue also bought a hell of a lot of movements. Anyway, this came up and no one was bidding very high as the seller mistakenly advertised it as missing battery cover screws. They are in fact the screws to the depth meter gauge of which I have a spare. Hooefully the movement is good. I prefer the Accurist (with a nice sapphire crystal [emoji4] ) but we'll see when it arrives. £12 from Italy

If I'm not mistaken the "standard" height is 3 for ETA...that said, your movement could be any height so you need to measure the components you are replacing that are affected by this "standard", in my mind they will be the hour wheel, cannon pinion and fourth wheel...this could be your case too but I'm not familiar with your specific movement that well.

Thank you ro63rto, saved for a rainy day! Cheers, Bob

Thanks.Maybe, if luck is with me for once, all this one needs is a battery, some screws and a clean. I still want to get the accurist working though. Its a really nice hefty watch. I love all of it. Dial, hands, case, bezel. Just the addition of a sapphire crystal from a Hong Kong supplier I found will improve it further. Fingers crossed [emoji256]

I have just double checked with my "Generale Resorts" catalogue & it is GR2673-T that is required. It is highly unlikely Cousins & the the GR ref: book are both wrong. If the spring is slipping then it is either fitted incorrectly or there is fault with the barrel. If a T end spring is not being supplied then Cousins have a wrong stock number assigned to the spring.

I've had this one put away, but decided to bring it out today. This is my 12 size Elgin Transit #18182835, Grade 997 made about 1915. They were Grade 345's that were adjusted to 4 positions and were reported to be made for the Illinois Transit Authority for use on their non-rail systems. These were the first 12's to have a 2 tone finish All 1000 of the Transits made start with the serial number 18182***

The other thing you can do is to use one shot enamel paint. This is the paint that a pinstriper uses. It will lay flat and complete

Just a thought but if you watch any of those "Russian dash cam" videos you'll see that Russians are also not fond of washing and polishing their cars. I think it is a hangover from Soviet times. The Russians see consumables at the very basic level of utilitarianism. "Me Boris...me no care if watch shiny. Must work, must take knock from shovel when I dig potatoes. If broken, fix. Me no care if no more shiny. If no can fix, sell to stupid westerners! Da!"

Funny you should mention that...right now, my obsession is with Russian wrist watches...around 2011, only coincidentally about the same time as the Fukushima Daichi disaster, my obsession was...wait for it...geiger counters and related radiation detection gear. I still have a fair bit of that stuff around, though I am not sure I have a complete counter up and running at the moment.. The Fukushima thing, while a tragedy for a whole lot of Japanese folks, was actually quite fortuitous for me...I was unemployed at the time and struggling to keep my house. I spotted a market niche for a Geiger counter accessory...an inexpensive external speaker for the old US Civil Defense CDV-700 Geiger counter, which is very common here and a whole bunch of them got shipped to Japan about that time...they are good old detectors, but they don't have a speaker. So, I invented this: A clone of mine currently for sale, with a cute little CD sticker added... A simple modification to a $.99 window alarm, paint it yellow, add a $5 (ouch) connector to hook to the Geiger counter head phone jack, sell for $25. Sold several hundred of them, mostly to Japan, along with a pile of CDV-700s and parts and other Geiger gear I had accumulated right before the big meltdown, and before the copy cats (like the one above) kicked in. By then, I had saved the house, had a proper job again and the nightmare was over. :-) So...yeah, the Chernobyl-thing had actually occurred to me...lets see if I can get my hot-rodded DP-5V up and running and confirm or refute this theory... http://www.neozap.com/Rad/DP5Bgeigerreview.htm

I wonder how much was he charging for shoe repair and key cutting!! :)

Great topic, since I do admit to spending what some would consider obsessive amount of time searching the bay and here in the US the 'goodwill' auction site for unusual but not necessarily rare watches. The only reason I have had any success is by researching what I'm considering to purchase. Items I look at: complete watch with nothing missing, case, dial, hands, bracelet/strap, +condition, first question, is it all original?? second question, what do I need to do to restore/repair? Example: years back I won ebay auction on lot of watches,(~$44) one turned out to be Longines, 25j auto, 994.1 cal, it was not without issues, broken stem, not running, turns out I had to find complete balance assm, found, $65 from India, stem was not problem, sent to watchmaker in state, add $25 for stem/balance install and shipping, (it was clean and running so no charge was needed), add $45 for NOS Longines strap and there you have it for less than $200. Is it worth more than 200? In my mind, obviously yes, it's last of the thin Longines and I could resell for twice, (if lucky!) But I went through all the effort and almost a year in time because I now have a timepiece that not too many own. Do your homework and the test will be easy, but like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get, (until it's in your hands)

Great information, BeyondWorld. As a dealer you have insights into the trade from the other side of the counter. It's not easy being a buyer in these days of online auctions, Frankewatches, etc... Sometimes you are better off just going through a reputable dealer and have done with it. You have backup, advice and service that way.

Yeah, I can understand why you'd take issue with my ebay statement, for the most part, there are a lot of honest sellers. Auctions are definitely buyer beware though, so that's why I give warning for a newcomer to watches to buy from there. It's mainly due to sellers not knowing what they are selling, so I agree it's about knowing what you are buying. The large amount of watches sold by retailers often don't state if the dial is original or not, or sometimes it's well hidden or very sneakily cryptically stated. Also the prices are ludicrously high, 300% more most times, and I do think this is taking advantage of a person who don't know what a watch is worth. While other times there are people who take blurred pictures, and it's quite hard to see what's what. (A few times deliberately, wrong case back, or some sort of damage, or dial in bad state) Auction houses are the worst for me, in this month I've bought 4 watches from non specialised auction houses and 3 of them had broken or parts missing, I kinda see these places as dealers putting problem watches into them.

This is one of my favorite everyday watches. It's an Elgin 1903 Grade 240 BW Raymond RR #9777145. My first Rail Road grade watch.