Leaderboard

Case refurbishing is a lot of fun. Here's a new turtle that had ugly dents from the previous owner removing bezel and replacing crystal. I use pretty much the same materials and technique as Cad101, but do not have a real bench motor.

Probably the same gremlins that think its funny to put the entire contents of my washing, inside the buttoned up duvet cover.

Cleaning a Seiko 6222 barrel bridge today? Put all the stuff from the barrel bridge in one jar. Had taken it all apart before that . When i took the parts out from the ultrasonic machine i didn't find the left hand screw? I looked in the jar and on the bench, Nope . But for some reason i looked on the other side of the barrel bridge. And there it was. Nicely screwed in to the left hand thread. But from the other side? Amazing stuff that it could find that thread all by itself.

I'm as tight as a camel's **BLEEP** in a sand storm and proud of it

Yes I've heard all about tight fisted Yorkshire man.

Hello and welcome from me at present on holiday in LA This is a good place to get started as there is a wealth of experience and knowledge at your disposal. Also the members are not without a sense of humour (or I would have been chucked out ages ago). I am a hobbyist tinkerer and have gained a lot from membership. In brief a lot of us start out by getting a simple old very inexpensive working watch from a well known auction site, I would suggest a wind up one, not automatic, without a date or any other complications and basically take it apart and clean the bits in lighter fluid with a soft brush allow to dry and oil as necessary and put it back together. I don't know what tools you have or how to oil look it up in the forums, you will need some and some cheap all purpose watch oil for this exercise - start buying the expensive stuff when you are hooked and you have a decent watch to do. Take photos before and after you take each bit apart and refer to them to reassemble it. If you get stuck try a trace in the forum and if that does not work post a query. This advice is only for starting off and it gets a tad more complicated and expensive as you move along. Best of luck, Vic

Level of the water should be kept lower than the beaker edge!!

The thing is, Seiko balances are not really made to be taken apart. It's a risky proposition.

Check the hairspring collet is central when placed on the balance clock you'll have to remove it from the staff but the hairspring could be out of shape or twisted is it straight and not catching the clock anywhere.

that's a tell tale sign of a left threaded screw ghost!!! they sneak in when you're not looking an wreck this kind of havoc in memory of all the left threaded screws heads that were broken of!!!

Yesterday I gave another attempt and the conclusion to which I've arrived (sorry if I'm stating the obvious) is that these movements can only function (meaning having amplitude above 200 deg.) with a perfect hairspring, which is able to deliver its elastic properties, Otherwise the balance swings only because of the mere action of the pallet and does not exercise any isochronous action. The most important part from the end to the outer coil, and it also the one most easily deformed during handling, not to mentioned manipulation. Probably when I was poking on the ends I was just temporarily bringing it back into an acceptable shape. I continued on this path and was able to grab the hairspring by the dog leg, experimenting with the smallest amount of movement, there was a large variation of amplitude on the timegrapher. Alt some point realized that the hs was rubbing on the balance spokes, I attributed this my poor manipulation attempts when the edge of tweezers was not perfectly vertical, hence directing the hairspring away from its plane. I could't not correct this defect and called a day, I will need more balances and more even more respect to them.

A little improvisation from my day job office: The die: Place "crystal" on the die Lower "plunger" - just touching the crystal. Depress plunger and you can see how the crystal compresses - sort of

Colin Andrews, with his informative webpage: http://great-british-watch.co.uk just came out with this very educational polishing article; http://great-british-watch.co.uk/how-to-polish-a-watch-case-and-bracelet/ Thought people may be interested to know.......

These videos are important to look at before you start polishing. Morten