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Our great member, Geo offered to help me out recently should a UK supply company not shipping to Finland, Geo stepped up, and has proved his weight in gold, transhipping my order. Thanks G!

Purchased for myself this non working & badly scratched Seiko 7S26-0030 which is a mid sized diver. Interesting project that was on & off my bench for a couple one months. New Seiko parts fitted dial, stem,crystal & bezel. After market parts the hands & mainspring. The only issue was when I fitted a GR2378X mainspring I had problems with the centre coil around the arbour slipping. I tried to reduce the final bend around the barrel arbour but it still slipped. I don,t know if it was my Bergeon winder which arbours have very fat diameters made matters worse by re-widening the inner coil but it still slipped when under presser. Anyway I purchased a GR2377X which is slightly shorter in length but seemed to have a smaller inner coil & it worked.I polished out the case scratches with a Proxon fitted with cotton wheels and different grades of Dialux polishing compounds The strap is a mesh style from “watchgecko” who supply better quality straps. Before After

i gotta reply to this because i tried to do a couple by hand. they were also seiko automatics. i ended up breaking the friction end. i could not get it to lay against the wall of the barrel - it wanted to take a "shortcut" and just lay flat making it cramped for the rest of the spring to get into the barrel. i'm looking for a winder myself, but am unsure as to what i need. i keep seeing sizes, but i don't know how they relate to an "average" watch....9 1/2 to 15 mm.....etc. i might continue my search on this forum and if i can't find a good recommendation, i'll post the question.

Hi Alexander, the last (Welo) is ok, it is (east-)German quality. Punch number is a little bit limited and the anvil surface not as strictly flat as Boley`s, comes from machine polishing. The Indian machines with at least 80 punches are not bad, I know them. Drawback is, the punches are thicker than the standard 4.7mm. But for the money you may also get a good European brand, used. Of course I did not mean to buy a new Swiss or German one! Frank

My suggestion: Look for one with extra base like standard Boley or Welo. Its extra mass makes rivetting much easier. Frank

the bigger Boley or Leinen etc have about 120.

Where does it say Boley? At least I never saw such a Boley. 50 punches are really not much. Price is too high for this. Btw: flat punches (simple or with bore) can be touched up easily with a flat grinding stone on the hole plate. Frank

Anyone who is just starting out on clock repairs should never use any type of machinery on a clock. Irreparable damage can be caused in a flash, in all my years as a clockmaker I never ever drilled the plate to re-bush. Hand held reamers is the only safe way to re-bush as I have said that way you have complete control, if you follow the correct procedure nothing can go wrong, you take your time with the repair, also you yourself can feel the cut and you will be aware of how much the reamer is cutting a machine can’t, the difference in the type of brass is phenomenal. I have worked on many high value clocks and you won’t believe how hard the brass can be, some will even take the edge of a reamer and the brass just splinters away. A machine drill can be very handy in a work shop but for re-bushing don’t even think about it. Not even one with a slow feed control.

Is it a screwed own crown u need? Otherwise i have a few NOS crowns with 1,2 mm tap. In different sizes and colors.

Good thought about the mains frequency. Yesterday had the same noise. It is surprising since i did not have such before. I was starting my laptop, put the microphone in and started measuring a big pocketwatch. All went fine, but the signal was to big, out of the window in sweep mode. So i started Equalizer APO to lower the gain, and the suddenly it got noisy. But now i am thinking that my desk is close to the electric meter of our house. Maybe the electric water-heater was switching on accidentally. Whatsoever, i could filter out the noise and tek the measurements, but not with the 60 Hz but with the 16kHz siwtch. Here You can see my equalizer setting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA2NIjlThqw All frequencies except 4 kHz - 16 kHz are suppressed so i am a bit confused about the mains frequency noise. The other mysterious noise i have sometimes is a regular echo in every 10 seconds. Sometimes it is there and sometimes luckily not. A month ago i have reinstalled my laptop from win 7 to win 10. These noises were not present in win 7 so there is an other possible source of these noises. Win 7 hovewer was frozen for me as well if i wanted to increase the gain in to much steps.

Hi Mtsaz, I hope that the above is of some help, it is a 2783 but should be the same as the 2784. It should be possible to install the jumper and the spring as above but you have to ensure that the opposite date ring retaining plate is secure first so that the date ring doesn't move about too much. I install the jumper first and then the spring. With the spring I first of all get the leg that goes against the jumper in place, and then using a piece of peg wood on top of the "U" bend in the spring to hold it all in place I push the other leg into position with tweezers. I then very carefully place the retaining plate on top and secure it with the screw. This is an operation that is prone to the spring making a bid for freedom and often takes 2 or 3 attempts. The peg wood helps to control things, I have also heard of people using rodico over the spring to reduce its range if it goes. Another trick is to perform this operation inside a clear poly bag which can drastically reduce the search time. I am however intrigued by Rogart's suggestion of installing the spring through the hole. I will have to try that because if it works then it has to be the way to go, and it would explain why the hole is there. Good luck :-)

Good DIY work PietO. On the hum of 60 Hz, if I checked on my laptop. I can suggest creating a filter by integrating the APO EQ application. As noted above. This setting lets pass the most important frequencies of the watch sound. Guido

I have an addiction to LOOKING at tools....Too poor to buy any right now. But, a staking set and mainspring winder are on the list. Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

The alum that is generally available is hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate (KAl(SO4)2·12H2O), or potash alum, and it is one of those wonder compounds that has many uses including; post shaving treatment for skin deodorant fire retardant leather tanning water purification pickling dissolving the broken steel threads out of brass watch plates/bridges etc Alum also refers to a family of compounds though, all useful stuff but the one you want and which is easiest to get hold of is potash alum. you need to make sure that there are no other steel components in the plate in addition to those that you want to dissolve, and you need also to use a concentrated solution of the stuff. It also helps if it is warm. Other than that you need a little patience as the process usually takes several hours and can take days. Occasional agitation also helps, and I would imagine that the use of an ultrasonic bath may also be beneficial. I have the Bergeon extractor referenced by CB and it is a handy bit of kit to have but it is rather pricey (what else?? after all it has "Bergeon" stamped on it). I was fortunate to find mine at a car boot sale, albeit minus the actual pins, but then it only cost me £1 complete with a rather nice canon pinion tightener so I'm not complaining, and I made my own pins on the lathe. It does only works if the broken screw is in a hole open at both ends though. If it is in a blind hole then it can't be used.

Geo for president !!!