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The basic setup: Missing of course is the power supply, electrode, and thing to plate. The small jar of plating solution (Nickel acetate) is sitting in a water bath inside the ultrasonic cleaner. The water bath serves to conduct the sound waves into the plating solution. I've no idea if this makes things better, it's just what I did. It does keep bubbles from sticking to the surface of the object however. The result for me was a nice satin finish, similar to the crown on the watch For the case I polished and sanded this away to make it smooth and shiny. You can see a bunch of imperfections but that seems to be due to it being insufficiently polished and my worrying about breaking through the finish. So, some lessons learned from plating: It takes longer than you think. First attempt I stopped way too soon and it just looked like a weird thin gold plate instead, with all the brass showing through Get the object perfect before. It's not really possible to polish things smooth after plating and they're much more visible. Like most things prep is everything That's it for plating. If anyone has pictures from their attempts or suggestions for how to improve the process I'd love to hear them!

It depends ..if you are looking for watches from the big players,bargains are sparse.If you are content to just have good running watches look at the off brands. 17 jewels or better,round crystal and stainless steel cases with screw down backs..buy intact complete watches whenever possible.you Will often be surprised to find that a watch that looks like it was pried out of the asphalt will have a spotless movement..the reverse is also true. Old caravelle watches came with horrid cases and very nice citizen movements. HMT watches have very sturdy cases . And a movement that will interchange directly with the caravelle.. lots of ways to have fun for not a lot of money.

This 1967 classic Timex accompanied us when we went out to the cinema with friends tonight.

Yes this one has three mag windows in the crystal...I used to have one of these but sold it a while ago. J

Today a 1956 Longines with a 12.68Z movement.

Auction houses can be fruitful but be careful you need a close inspection which is usually offered a day or two before the actual day of the auction. Omegas ,Rolexes etc that are not working especially vintage are to avoided. If there is one problem when looking for antiques, watches etc is the sellers use the internet as we all do, so rarely anything is sold at a true bargain price.

I'm afraid that the watch market has evolved beyond bargains. In my experience, there's always something wrong with the watches that are left. Sellers are usually quite experienced and know exactly what they're selling. eBay gets too many eyeballs and the watch virus is too widespread for true bargains to be available for long. Professional watch dealers have people looking for them all day long so there's not much left for enthusiasts like us. In the past year, I've seen a friend buy a JLC Memovox, only to spend $800 on reparations and parts. A similar story with a "bargain" Omega chronograph. After parts and repairs, he paid more for it than if he bought a decent one in the first place. To answer your question, I sometimes buy at watch fairs, local online marketplaces but I mostly buy watches that need some TLC from friends who are also collectors and hobby watch flippers. They can quickly and easily sell them to me and I have some nice projects for a decent price.

First a nice Elgin driver, a "Parkton" I believe. Its been sitting finished so long I can't remember the movement details, but a 670 inside I "think". Next a 1928 Elgin in a "jobbers" case with a 6/0s, Grade 430, seven jewel movement. Finally, a lovely Elgin "Capricorn" with a 714 Shockmaster movement. Michael was a lucky kid in 1962. The movement dates to 1958. RMD

Just wanted to share that I finished building my first watch. It runs on a Miyota 8215. Here is a picture.

I guess we must be similar vintage then, since it is almost as old as me too.

The jump hour above Yankeedog? Surprisingly fewer than I expected, only jumpers and clicks for the date and hour wheel. The minutes is directly driven from the equivalent of the cannon pinion, (this being a pressed fit centre wheel) and then the sweep seconds as normal. You can see the innards of it here. I had no intention of filming this one as it was my first jump hour and I wasn't certain what to expect but the difficulty removing the centre wheel led to the video which is a bit choppy in procedure due to the above reasons. If I get another I'd enjoy doing a proper strip and service video. https://youtu.be/Dfi_z19317s

Hi You will probably find these tech sheets useful doing the V7733 . all the best 1060_valjoux 7733, 7734, 7736 Pages 1-5.pdf 1061_valjoux 7733, 7734, 7736 Pages 6-10.pdf 1062_valjoux 7733, 7734, 7736 Pages 11-15.pdf

Mark has very good videos of servicing a breitling venus 175. I suggest you start with that. If you get stuck you can refer to Marks videos.Here is a link for the first part. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=breitling+venus+175

Well, I don't about bargains, but the NAWCC chapter meetings and regionals can be fertile grounds. There is a lot of trading that goes on, but wristwatches might be only a third of what you come across. The rest are clocks and pocket watches. Have Fun!

We're here to learn, aren't we?

Akin to U.S. flea markets where buyers hope to find naive sellers and sellers hope for naive buyers.

A UK term. Car boot sales, a large gathering where people drive into a field and sell items from their car boot (trunk in US parlance) typically Sunday mornings. Again like the above they're now saturated with dealers getting in early as possible and buying up the best stuff and many sellers now either knowing the rough value of things or having watched too many episodes of Dickinson's real deal or bargain hunt think every bit of crap they have is worth a load more than it really is.

I usually use E-bay, as house bound at present. Traders are a joke price on e-bay, and as said before a lot of scrap watches, which is fine if cheap, when learning the hobby. I personally have a pile of not fixing as not worth the cost of a repair, saying that i also have acquired some nice pocket watches before which work, just need hands/crystal. Wish i could get to boot sales, but expect the same, people hunting for them, before its opened.

You can get bargains you just have to look for them, people do wrongly list things and in order to find a price for something it often helps if you known what you are searching for, sellers don't always and often come to the wrong conclusion on price, I have had recently a 14 kt gold automatic longines for £120 listed as gold filled a lack of understanding on American gold markings on the sellers part I should imagine, a 9 ct pocket watch listed as gold plated at £50.00 again an ill-informed seller, a quarter repeater pocket watch listed as a chiming watch £99.00 buy it now and various IWC pocket watches, I don't attend auctions anywhere near as much as I used to commission charges are an average of 25% now with many at 30% I find them a bit of a non starter now.

Wow, this variant of bfg866 is ultra rare, the crytsal, dial.

Those are gorgeous. I really LOVE that era of watches. Nice work!

I've been having great luck with ebay lately. It takes a while to find searches that work and give good results but once you do you can get ebay to send you alerts when new items matching those searches are found. You might also have access to catawiki, not sure. It's not available in Canada :(.

Hi guys.. Sharing a few pics a Slava I got off the 'bay. Sellers pic was a bit blur but it had a movement I liked and was advertised as running. The crystal was pretty scratched up but it was running. A Russian 2 piece case back. Quickset date by pushing this ..well..pusher! As you can see , the crystal has a very high 'rise' and this contributes to the overall thickness. And this is the reason I bid for this watch..it has a Slava 2414 (or maybe a different number as it has day and date) with twin barrels. It looks pretty clean and the finishing is slightly better than the other Slava movements I've seen. Its running pretty well these last two days but I'll probably tear it down and take some pics and post them here. I spent a few minutes with some sandpaper and autosol and managed to clean it up a bit. Interesting dial with some constellation around the edge of the dial and some Russian words where a minute track would usually be. Also some numbers. Anyone can shed someone light on this? Or speak Russian? Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Mine is almost over as its 9pm here in Malaysia. Anilv

We'll need a pic of the completed piece! Joe

I was going crazy with the same matter. I took everything apart twice. I could set the time and change the calendar but not wind it. In the end it was just a very little tiny thing. The yoke "tail"was not attached to the spring.