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A lot of work went into restoring this Lathe. This include complete disassembly of the headstock. Fixing the cracked pulley using JB Weld and fixing some major missing material in the headstock using JB Weld and then filing to original shape. Then reassembling the headstock and polishing the complete Lathe. A lot of work. This is the before and after. Assembled with tight tolerance on the headstock so there is freedom but no movement for making small parts like balance staffs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Looking at my Moebius Sales Brochure (which appears to date to the mid 70's) 8300 and 8301 have good adherence but poor response to pressure which I imagine means it would be pushed out of the bearing by torque on the arbor. My (certainly outdated) Moebius document suggests 8030 or 8040 as thick oils for arbors. Might work... D5 is typically what I use unless the technical sheet specifically states otherwise, my understanding is that HP1300 is essentially the synthetic replacement of D5. I don't work on Seikos too often but have viewed almost all of Spencer Klein's videos on them and have noticed worn arbor bearings seem to be a very common problem. Considering that, I'd say the thicker the oil the better.

One thing you can do to minimize risk of losing parts is to not wash screws when it's evident they are clean. Just drop them in the right compartment. I know that will horrify some people but it's not them that will find parts for you that got lost during unnecessary manipulation. Beside that, good work with the lathe and all.

Hi As an exile Yorkshire man (ex Leeds/Tadcaster) to me anybody butchering a clock in sutch a way is no artisan and has no pride in his work, probably working on a profit basis, get it in get it out and charge. They need re-bushing them selves.

My new Seiko Prospex PADI Solar. Could not believe it was at the local Hudson's Bay Department store on sale for 40% off. They usually just keep dress watches. Love the blue dial and bezel with the red highlights. Unfortunately It would not hold a charge and back to Seiko it went. But now it's back and looking sharp on a blue black silicone strap. Now if only I knew how to scuba dive... Ron

That made no sense at all mate. For a mainspring you can remove by hand, and you are correct with the grease and light oiling. As for putting the mainspring back in the barrel, I generally put mine in by hand but I also have a number of mainspring winders, no matter how I put them in the barrel I always wear either finger cots or latex gloves. These stop your hands getting greasy but more importantly stop contamination of the mainspring from the oils in your skin.

a lathe is the only machine that repair itself; coined before the internet. the specifications for turning can be found in "the machinest's hand book". good luck vin

Thank you. Dial and hands are from Dagaz, superb quality! https://www.dagazwatch.com/apps/webstore/products/show/3654766

An indicator repair. I call this watch-like work in that its similar tools and techniques so thought some might find it of interest I have this Helios tenths dial indicator that needed some help. It was locked up, so, with some bergeoning (haha misspelled double entendre?) watchmakers skills I decided to have go at it. Helios (German) stuff imo is of excellent quality and well worth restoring On disassembly I found that several jewels were cracked. First task is to remove the chatons from the plate. Here, everything has been cleaned. I usually keep simple green degreaser solution in the ultrasonic cleaner and after removing most stuff run it through the L&R for a final clean. The L&R with the right solutions does an amazing job. Here’s a close up of a cracked jewel. https://i.imgur.com/SFnXyau.jpg[/img] The breakthrough on this repair was the discovery of inexpensive miniature ball bearings. New jewels are available, but after shipping the cost of the three needed would exceed the value of the indicator (used anyway). So it and a few similar projects sat until I recently read a 2011 Horological Times article by Mark Butterworth, “Reducing Friction in Clock Bearings and Bushings. There are precedents to this in horology (Hermle, Sattler) so I thought to give it a try - an indicator has a much easier life than a clock (based on duty cycle) so if it works in a clock maybe it will work here Better still, there are seemingly good quality low cost miniature bearings available now, in the range of 2 for buck! Here’s a shot of the 3 x 1 mm ball bearings I used, with a typical watch jewel and razor knife blade included for size comparison. I think I bought a bag of 50 from that online retailed that used to be a great auction site  I set up a lathe to make new chatons to fit the plate and bearing and went into production. I have several indicators to look at as well as a travel so thought it worthwhile setting up a turret. It was good experience, I made some tooling for the turret and ended up disassembling the turret and fixing a few things…so I partially justify the time as the shop the got better  https://i.imgur.com/jtNF3jK.jpg[/img] As a second op, I used a watchmakers lathe to clean up the other end. I snipped off the burr, gently countersunk the bore and filed a slight bevel (with a fine watchmaker’s file) on the OD to help start the press fit Back with the staking tool, the chatons are pressed in Pressing in the bearings is really delicate. Too much of a press and you’ll damage the bearings. Also use a stake that only puts pressure on the outer race. In making the chatons I bevel them so they could be rubbed in but ended up with a nice press that held them but didn’t damage them https://i.imgur.com/ymQUbqT.jpg[/img] I discovered what I thought was a depth issue as there was some binding of the wheels. I pressed the chatons a little further in and things ran smoothly. It turns out I hadn’t pressed the bearing to the bottom on the chaton, but at the time thought I must have made an error in their length With this erroneous conclusion, and the chatons now proud of the other side, I needed to face off the now pressed further in chatons. ( didn’t discover it was the bearing press depth until later) These watchmaker lathe faceplates make such a job just so easy to do. With a very accurate centre through faceplate’s collet mount, work is easily centred I used rodico in the bearing to keep it clean – it really did the job and caught all the swarf. https://i.imgur.com/Jg6Z3vg.jpg[/img] The pivots that go into the 1mm bores don’t need any attention but any going into plane bearings got inspected and polished Cleaned, here’s the completed indicator working to perfection. 3 jewels needed replacing.

You might be able to source spares from one of the many Orient approved service centers, and there is one in Turkey. https://orient-watch.com/service-network Also, while the movements look similar to many Seikos, and Orient is (or perhaps was, since I think they are not currently in production) a Seiko brand, from my limited experience of them, they are subtly different, so parts from one most probably will not work on the other. Your best bet might therefore be to try to source a donor movement somehow. Sadly I have nothing suitable in my spares. One final point, whoever the "professional" was who looked at that watch, should stick to arable farming, that thing looks dirty enough to grow potatoes in. The first thing a real professional would do is strip and clean the movement before they even attempted to fix it. Then again, a true professional would "own" any problem they caused, for example if the broke something in the watch. In my professional electronics repair career many years ago, we would always ensure that customer's equipment was returned in the same or better condition than when we received it, even it repairs were uneconomical. All dirt, and grubby paw prints removed, and the item packaged securely is the minimum you should strive for.

Hello - I started getting interested in watches about 10 years ago when I interviewed a local watchmaker for a design project in school. I picked up a 1965 Seiko Weekdater around that time and have sent it away to be rebuilt once since then, wearing it daily, pleasantly ticking away on my wrist. My wife's father passed recently and I was given his daily-worn 1976 Bulova Accutron in non-working condition. I finally got around to trying to sort it out and I was surprised to find that it needed more than a battery and also surprised when researching that the movement is so different and transitional. I would not really dream of tangling directly with the Accutron guts so I sent it off to someone with more direct knowledge and an appropriate parts-bin for it (works great, now). Along the way, though, my own interest was piqued and I looked around for more simple watches that I could perhaps learn on, with the objective of being able to service them and know them. Soon I had several decades-old soviet watches in the mail from Kiev which I'm having fun wearing and restoring but would eventually like to service. Now I have an ST-36 on the way, a very-expensive set of small screwdrivers and tweezers, magnification, and I've sprung on this course bundle after surveying a few options. I have a background of software, and lots of automotive projects large and small, but nothing so fussy and tiny as watch maintenance in my resume. Hoping that pure curiosity and interest can push me forward through any frustrations. Glad to join this community and please wish me luck! steve

perhaps a repair manual might help? vin