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Eltra..another seiko powered bargain basement beater ,cobbled together by the once prestigious Elgin when the company was on life support. It runs better than it looks.

How about showing a close up of what you are dealing with.

Something in the same theme as yesterday but still totaly different, a stainless steel 70's Certina Argonaut with a roaring orange sweep second. Under the hood still the 25-661, fully serviced with oilchange, filter and sparkpluggs.

Just won an auction for this sexy beast, another Art Deco watch. It's a Gotham, probably from the mid 30's but I still have yet to identify the movement. I thought at first glance it was an FHF movement, but I'm beginning to think it's an in-house movement. If anyone knows, please let me know. Love the 2 tone case with enamel inlay and the swinging "Drivers" lugs. Only thing it seems to need is a seconds hand. Flawless otherwise.

Today I figured was a Timex 'H' Cell powered LED watch day. OK It isn't Roger Moore's Hamilton Pulsar P2 2900 from "Live and Let Die", but its as close as you are going to get on my self imposed budget. This arrived as a non runner, as most prospective members of the 404 club tend to do. I fixed it up a few weeks back, but it was still a little flakey, which I assumed was down to my ancient stock of 'H' cells, so today I treated it to two brand new batteries and off it went. I'll need to put it on a slightly better strap, but for the time being it is borrowing a band from another watch on the healing bench. More in that if I get it going. I've just noticed, in those pictures its on the wrong date (which I have now corrected).

Well lots of spares/parts watches, one of which has a working Junghans 600 movement in it which will furnish a replacement circuit block for the Matthey Doret mention a few posts above. The only complete watch is this jump minute hand Timex Q quartz one, which may or may not be running (sort of Schrödinger's watch).....

Sporting my newly acquired Timex Q with their version of a mystery dial. Had a scratched crystal but It cleaned up nicely. The replacement bracelet looks like a large heaping pile of steaming rhinoceros poo and the clasp was mangled and wouldn't close. I was able to tweak the clasp into submission though. Seller sold it as not working because they couldn't figure out how to get the battery cover off, lol. My gain, Placed a fresh cell in it and off it went. I do like how the hands seem to be floating in space. The sales catalog suggests this was available in 1975 at a retail price of $55. That's $263.87 adjusted for inflation. Not exactly a cheap watch, but very affordable. Love the midnight blue dial and the "floating" hands.

Automatic Slava "Assymetric"

You are correct the mainspring is in a sealed unit see service below. Hopefully the fault is not the mainspring. Although found this on ebay by the look of it the barrel can be opened much the same as Seiko barrels which are supposed to be sealed. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Parts-Longines-340-Choose-From-List/274345305610?hash=item3fe041260a:m:m2VrcXcjBsMeZIGhZgnxPYg SERVICE: https://watchguy.co.uk/service-longines-automatic-calibre-340/

An early Dundee Timex M22 - probably late fifties, maybe up to around 1964. The plating looks somewhat worn, but the hairspring looks concentric. That rubber gasket is probably the texture of graphite by now.

Welcome! I'd say your English is very good.

Welcome to the forum Johnny.

Hi JayS yes you can remove the screw and while you are at it clean the Vconic bearing and polish it with pegwood then inspect the pivot, without the bearing , put a dab of oil in the bearing cup .and screw back in checking the end shake as you go. It needs minimum end shake and maximum freedom in rotation

Here is a very nice Bronze French carriage clock. I'm posting this so you can see the difference between Bronze and Brass, One thing I forgot to mention Bronze is heavier then Brass. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-19th-C-French-Bronze-Striking-Repeater-Alarm-8Days-Mantel-Carriage-Clock/383534583028?hash=item594c714cf4:g:VCEAAOSwPz1eso69

Spectre is on the right track, the crown stem has a male end and the watch a female end which mate up , remove the screws and the watch bezel and the movement should pop out the front,

The crown may be integral to the case. In some old pocket watches, the movement is removed from the case from the front, and you just remove the case screws, pull the crown, and the movement pops out.

Possibly the release will be on the keyless side.

Just finished fixing the day/date synchronisation problem on this 6923-8000 (June 1982) so fitted a new crystal and as it looked so nice I thought that it deserved some wrist time.....

Now you can add sewing machine technician to your resume. With your skill set, you should be all set to stay busy during any future lockdowns.

Sometimes problems 'aint what you think they are. The corona virus masks proved popular. So much so that we broke the sewing machine making some more. Or to be more exact I thought we had broken the sewing machine. The fact that it wouldn't sew seemed like a good indicator that it might be broken. Furthermore, the top thread kept breaking, which suggested the issue was with the top thread tensioner. I tried a new needle. I tried different material, always with the same result. It would sew for a bit, then PING, the thread would break. So I stripped the thing down. The old machine we have, gives you access to the tensioner, but this modern plastic monstrosity has all of the interesting parts carefully hidden from view, ostensibly to keep you from fiddling with them, but in my opinion the real reason is so that you can't see how cheaply constructed it is compared with its 1960s cousin (does this sound familiar). It has an "Automatic" thread tension setting and a manual wheel to set different tensions if "Automatic" is not working for you, but to access the gubbins that makes it all work, you need to remove *ALL* of the covers, and most of the screws from the thing, which I duly did. I fiddled with it, but could find nothing wrong, so I re-assembled it, and after another few sessions of chunka-chunka-chunka-PING as the thread broke for the umpteenth time, I stripped it down again. This time I decided to look at the bottom tensioner and the hook mechanism. That all looked fine too. I re-assembled it.... more chunka-chunka-chukna-PING .. more swearing and head scratching. I removed a small bur from the metal of the lower needle plate.. maybe that was it... but no... chunk-PING-expletive. So.. I pulled the lower case off again.. and then I noticed. The lower bobbin looked a little squint. I took it out, thinking there must be something I had missed, stuck under it, but nope. Nothing. I looked at the bobbin in my hand.. and that was when I had the forehead slapping moment. There was nothing wrong with the machine. The cheap plastic bobbin was faulty. The thing had cracked, and one side was now thicker than the other. This was enough to cause it to jam every so often against the top plate. This in turn caused the bottom tension to go off the scale, which in turn jammed up the top thread, which then stuck fast in the top tensioner, and made it look like the top tensioner was jamming. On the plus side, the machine is now fully serviced, working better than it ever has, and is spotless.

Today I felt like going full out classic at work. A 1971 Certina Town and Country with a 25-661 heart..

Rodania is a well known brand in Asia, perhaps marketed under different name in other parts of the globe, collectible, if its movement is in-house.

Fitted replacement crystals to both of these today (arrived from 'Cousins' lunchtime), currently wearing the 7S36 'Superior' .........

A closer look at my work. Hard to keep the glare off the clear top coat. Not an artist but I try

Hamilton 992 with a salesman case. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Ninety nine pence for this fine ladies Elgin, plus a couple of Timex Petites, an Oris a Sekonda and an Inventic. They should help while away a few evenings of corvid isolation.

What is your definition of a mess? Remember this is not a precision jeweled watch so it may run just fine with what look like crap for pivot holes. Another variation of using solid plugs is for people who don't like premade bushings. So for these a solid plug is used the plate is refinished then a depthing tool Is used. My understanding of these early made watches is that a whole variety of people made the components. Somebody would cut wheels somebody else made the plates conceivably somebody else fit the wheels to the plates. It was a cottage industry of a whole bunch of different people all coming together to make one watch. This unfortunately from a repair point of view means that every single watch is unique.

Hello Nucejoe. This topic has really taken off again all of a sudden. My route forwards is buy another movement, exactly the same calibre, and start to swap out one-by-one the following parts:- 1. Top and bottom end stones 2. Escapement 3. Bridge One of these absolutely must correct the problem, when it does I can investigate the difference and politely identify the fault. This may not be the way forward for an expert with all the tools to his hand, but to an engineer the logical approach will certainly isolate the problem and I will learn from it. Fortunately a second ‘running’ movement will not cost the earth. Stay safe and keep well Deggsie Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Love the rough grain suede strap, compliments the watch perfectly. I will add a bit of my own Soviet flair today. Komandirskie manual wind in a Amphibia case. The patina on the dial is almost as attractive as a blue dial would be to my eye.

Poljot 55g

1966 14k Omega Seamaster Ref KL6746. It's my understanding that these particular C cases were made for the US market and imported by the Norman Morris Corp. The solid gold case resembles the other C style cases that made up the Constilattion line that was designed by the famed designer Gerald Genta. I have it on a period Perlon strap. Summertime!

Today I'm wearing my Sicura Satellite. It's back on my wrist after having been torn down.. Again! Trying to pin down the gremlins that kept making it stall. I think I have it sorted now, it's been running for 3 straight days and hasn't missed a beat. I fell in love with that gigantic second hand and shiny blue dial. I wish the case was stainless steel and not chrome plated base metal. It could definitely use a good polish.

Some month ago Johnnie here gave an Ingersoll Sealion that needed some care and had no bezel anymore ... It took me some time but today it's on my wrist ... Envoyé de mon moto g(7) power en utilisant Tapatalk

My 1960s Gallet Multichron. One word- elegant. (Well I do) It sports a Valjoux 7733. I wear this one with a tux or formal ball type attire. I think the vintage Gemex bead bracelet makes this very festive. Way too blingy for casual use. Just took a little effort to resurrect this one from the dead.

A slight hiatus in the microscope building today, due to a minor breakage in the kitchen, which necessitated a 3D printer part. Braun insist that if you break this flimsy little plastic linkage... You need to buy this... .. which naturally costs almost as much as simply replacing the whole hand blender. However a user on Thingiverse has done the work for me, so instead I printed this. Time will tell if it is as robust as the original, but since it cost about 20 pence worth of plastic I can print about 150 of them before I come any where near the cost of the Braun approved alternative. Back to printing microscope bits tomorrow I hope.

Before we actually run out of masks, I thought I'd rattle up a little bit more PPE on the sewing machine while that lens tube was printing. I ripped up a couple of old pillow cases, a blouse with double buttoned sleeves, and a pair of jeans to give me some material to work with. Here I am wearing the latest in recycled stripey pillowcase face fungus fashion. I was tempted to dive in to my wife's patchwork quilting material, but I think the resulting earache might have been worse than the virus, so I stuck with the scraps bin. While I was ripping things up and sewing them back together I also took the opportunity to make myself a couple of small tool roll style bags from the double buttoned sleeves. This does of course increase the likely hood of misplacing, not just one small screwdriver, or pair of tweezers, now I can loose them all at the same time. Stay safe everyone.

Coming in the mail, but not actually a watch. A bunch of EB88xx and BFG parts and of course a scattering of other random stuff. Some of these job lots are a treasure trove of hard to find parts.

I am new here and keep seeing 404 club.. what is it? Thanks

Read this.