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So I was at the local sunday market today, and happened upon a weird little digital watch. I normally avoid them, but this one was a pulsar and it caught my eye. It was missing the strap - the seller was a big old man in his 60's selling knick knacks like beer glasses. He was asking $5 - I tried bargaining down to $4 but no cigar. I scored the digital watch and a Russian 9micron Gold plated Zarya with 16 jewels in running order (ladies watch). In Australia it is quite hard to find anything other than ladies watches because there are hundreds of blokes going around to all the thrift shops and buying up the gents watches. As most men over 40 here are divorced - they have nobody to buy ladies watches for and hence normally I have my pick. This was a lucky score to find a unisex/mens watch - I knew from straight away that it was something interesting - It had a large screen with many buttons, I initially thought it had a HR monitor or excercise function. From research it cost around $200 US in 1999 and was quite a trendy watch at the time. It is powered by a Seiko module with a pulsar assembly in "China". I got it home and started having a good look: According to another watch blog, it has the following features: Other modes are: - address book - memo/messages - chronograph - timer - alarm The full model number is: W440-4000 Beautiful working module Very grubby - but it is 100% complete minus the strap. It is a plastic/resin body with a base metal brass bezel that is chrome plated. It has resin/abs pushbuttons that are fully spring and water sealed. It has a stainless steel case back with a waterproof seal. I plan to replate the chrome. Spotless back - apart from minor marks. These watches were designed to be serviceable. Not like modern rubbish which is sealed for life. This beauty was able to be stripped down to the bare nuts and circlips. Starting to ease the buttons out. Mint original glass- will gently polish it thats it. (Mineral glass) Spring bars for the assembly. A little trick I use to remove circlips. A photo of the module Nice and clean AN old article about the watch from Popular Mechanics;

Hi Scott, all sounds good to me. Welcome to this fine forum. Mike.

Nice transition here. Note the very small brown transition between straw and blue. When blue-ing screws, you want the very deep blue which is hard to achieve.

Using a very sharp knife followed by a case back knife seems to have worked: this was indeed a front-removed movement.

Congratulations on getting her running nicely and looking fine! Nice work. Cheers.

It looks like a common Swiss bar movement. These are tough to attribute to anyone, especially when they are not marked with anything other than something generic, like this one is on the dial. Maybe if one had access to Kathleen Pritchard's book on Swiss makers, one could identify it, but that book is pricey, rare, and may not be much help. I wish you luck on finding out the maker. And once you do, who knows how interchangeable the balance will be. Best of luck on your project.

That's correct. They also made a couple 12s movements with a motor barrel as well, this almost looks like a stop gap between going barrels and the later motor barrel.

So I just whipped this up down in my shop this morning, looks like it will work like a charm. 1/4" T6 aluminum plate material. 4-40 screws to tighten the holding plate, and 6-32 screws with jam nuts to adjust the height and angle. I cut the inital slot for the screw shank on the bandsaw to get a good vertical (90°) groove, then enlarged it with a triangle file.

Good luck with the repair. FYI we've a section where most members like to introduce themselves.

Yes the pivot is broken off.

Well, I wouldn’t beat yourself up over breaking the balance staff pivot, in order for the watch to keep good time in all positions, that pivot needs to be perfectly straight. The tolerances are too precise and the objects are too small. This isn’t something you could do by hand, just sighting it in. I’m not even sure if it something that could be done with a lathe, or rather it’s just not wort it. Either way, you were gonna need to replace the balance staff. I agree with khunter, that unless you can identify this movement, and even then who knows, sourcing a donor movement maybe your only option. Sorry, wish that I could provide a better answer. Being only a hobbiest myself, I can tell you I have gained a supreme appreciation to those that do this professionally. I myself have damaged more watches then I’ve successfully repaired. I’ve learned to live with my failures! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

cripes that response was illegible....apologies, I miss words when I type, mild dyslexia and this site doesn't let one go back and fix things :(. It should have read " yes, it sort of ended up that way. I do reflect though that I had just as much fun when starting out. Collecting and often reconditioning all the stuff is a pursuit of its own, but you don't have to have so much to make great stuff or have a ball doing so.

Yes, for small parts I go for around 90s and slowly remove the flame so that the heat change is gradual.

My wife bought me this Official Cosmonauts for me for our wedding 15 years ago. It was my Grail watch before I knew the term. The stem broke awhile ago. Eventually I decided to take it to Right Time in Denver. Fortis finally shipped the parts after a couple months and got it back yesterday. Oh how I've missed it! I am really digging it on this new black nato with matching satin stainless steel hardware (originally got this strap for my Lunar Pilot).