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I would like to share a simple modification of a cheap Chinese demagnetizer. I found the modification in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhTYBPdJG7A. I applied this modification in a newly bought demagnetizer (from Aliexpress) and it works quite well.

Hi Thats a fine watch and too good to practise on. One can acquire pocket watches without a case for £10 on ebay which would be better to use untill your skill set is up to speed. Its something to aspire towards.

Not that I know much, but I would think there would be cheaper movements to practice on than one with artwork like this has on some of the wheels and bridges.

Why not get a movement with no case? They outnumber pocketwatches with a decent case about 100:1 on ebay.

LOL, last night my neighbor was over for happy hour and I am telling her about my watchmaking renaissance. She says she has this watch that belonged to her grandmother...wondering about it. So she runs it over today and hands it to me to check out. Oh my!

With a bit of TLC they could be both runners. good luck.

There ya go.

Making an offer on eBay as interesting process. Yes you will get something for less but not necessarily a lot less. Then sometimes you wonder if anyone's home as they don't have to reply at all. Then they offer just expires. Fortunately you can specify whether your offer is good for one or two days. Then there's a whole bunch of scenarios that can happen. The seller can ignore you your offer will expire. Other times they've entered in a minimum amount and instantly rejected. But you're given the offer to make another offer. Sometimes you can just continue to increment it up and the one time I did that I think I saved one dollar. Other times a limit and if you go past the quantity which was three you're locked out for many more offers. Sometimes they'll respond back and give you a counter offer. Because I suspect the seller is not home and not responding and apparently not limiting how many offers I can make I've been decreasing the price with each offer. I've attached screenshots initially it looks like. Entering into a binding contract with no way out. By the second screen indicates that may be there is a way out? But once you go past here you've agreed to purchase the item. But I'm guessing if they make a counter offer you can reject that and get out. So yes it's really important not to make a whole bunch of these at the same time otherwise you have an unpleasant surprise possibly. Then annoying for me the price forgets to include the sales tax. So sometimes I have sticker shock on what things cost on eBay.

Sorry. The movement is a AS 1791. After further investigation it seems that Tuvia is correct. Thank you.

You don't actually need the 66 movement once you take the time to do all this research you come up with a huge list of everything that has the same part. The rest of those at least some of those should be really inexpensive especially if they're broken. the unfortunate problem With watch repair is detective skills are required. Detective skills to figure out what the problem is with the watch. You cannot assume that cleaning fixes all problems. Then the detective skills to track down the parts.

I don't want to poop on the good info from JohnR, but I've got a couple Westclox brand watches with what I think are non-running Seiko 66 movements that I could part with for about that. Anyone can PM me if interested. I would have to hunt around for them to send photos.

Thank you for your introduction and welcome to this friendly forum.

On another thought, if you were going to practice on it and you weren't really worried about it, box it up and send it to me. I can't find pocket watches in Australia that are worth saving. Can't even find pocket watches that aren't worth saving. ?

I think most everybody would agree with WEASOL, your watch is worth saving. You might want to put it in to do box, for when you have gained the experience are seeking. Best wishes

Hi Matt, Welcome

There are plenty of Waltham’s on eBay so you should be able to find spares.As xyzzy points out many pocket watches have had their cases removed for the scrap value sad but a fact of life.

Hi Gary Not much on the Eterna other than a single parts sheet. But the recomendation from Graziano seems the sensible way to go as it looks as if something is not seated correctly. Eterna 1478, 1479.pdf

Welcome Matt enjoy the forum. Horology is one of those hobbies / skills that has a never ending learning curve and it can become very addictive. However there are rewards when yo get a vintage non running watch back up and running. Enjoy the forum.

Hello and welcome to the forum Matt. Anything you want to know the members usually able to come up with an answer.

Imado 1970s AS 2600 movement. Love the instant day/date change in this model, very un-Seiko like. Grey/brown dial. Plated brass case.

Go to Pocketwatchdatabase.com and enter your serial number. It will give you some basic info, including worth ADVICE not appraisal, based on internet trends. Check it out. I use it. Good luck.

My extensive and vast vocabulary is about to kick in: "Wow." That is a ripper! Feel heavy in your hand? Is your neighbor aware of what they have?

My SWAG is that your value is on the order of a hundred bucks.

Please excuse my severe lack of knowledge and terminology, I am total amateur, but learning. I know I am overwhelmingly out of my realm to be asking you guys and gals for help, but my thoughts are that someone may know information, and may be willing lend a helping hand. Yes, it was the Diafix Spring for my Seiko 66-7109 watch. I know its not a very collectable unit, but I love it. I got it at an antique store for 20 dollars, and keeps superb time. I sincerely thank you for taking time to send me this information. You have no idea how much this will help! I thank you again, I hope one day I can repay the favor.....Pals

BTW as long as I got you here, I have a nice little reference library of books for this crazy hobby, but on your advice I picked up a copy of Bulovas School of Watchmaking's latest edition from Esslinger. Glad I did. Thx.

If we go with your title of first disassembly that it's easy just take every single screw out all the parts will fall off and it will be disassembled. If this is you learning watch repair then it would be helpful to give us something. Did ypu notice that mikepilk Has asked you two separate questions that we still Do not have an answer for? To be blunt he's asking who made this watch because it would be helpful for us to help you if we knew that. Contrary to popular belief we haven't all memorized every single watch in the universe. Or it may be possible we get technical sheets which would give us a clue what some of these parts are. It's usually best for first disassembly to start with something like a clone of the 6497. Less things to worry about and help is available in the form of all kinds of technical and other documentation.

Enjoy:

I just had to do it:)

Hi Willow have a look via the search function on the site there have been a few DIY Mainspring winders that work very well, Moose build one I have two. there is also on site the complete plans from the man Joe Collins who build the first one or look him up on the net.

If I'm not mistaking, #2 is the date jumper (the thing that keeps the date ring aligned correctly). #1 might have something attached to the bottom, that in turn pushes what I circled below, that in turn makes the date wheel advance. (sorry I don't know all the names of these parts ?)

Broken balance staff pivot would be at the top of my list.

You may be surprised to know that one of your watches is featured in the collection of the V&A museum. Source:- http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1160743/hopalong-cassidy-watch-timex That's some pretty creative cardboard engineering going on there. The one in the V&A pictures is described as being located in the collection of the V&A Museum of Childhood. https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/transforming-the-va-museum-of-childhood This is presumably not directly related to the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh which I visited many times when I was young. https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/venue/museum-childhood https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Collection++Museum+of+Childhood&t=newext&atb=v124-1&ia=web&iaxm=places If you want a trip down memory lane, or have some youngsters to amuse and you happen to be near Edinburgh, this too is well worth a visit.

Yes thats a TIMEX in the corner! ? Hopalong Cassidy! And a Medana too, i love them. With £4.83/item they will not make it to the 404 club.

I plead insanity your honour. As a result of my insanity and my inability to locate the off button on ebay, there is another (lopsided) Metamech on its way to me. In fairness the first one has just had the final touches put to its shellac and looks almost new. I'm not sure if my woodworking skills are up to matching the missing piece of this latest one however, so I may need to do a little creative thinking on that score. This one is even older than the first and has the magic start button on it and the patented "tick" which you can switch on or off. As to the date of manufacture, all I can say is that it is an early model. Perhaps someone else on this forum might have a more precise estimate. The first one I bought appears to have gained and/or lost precisely zero seconds in the time it has been running. Not bad for a non quartz clock.

Arrived today from Japan: A lovely Hamilton Jazzmaster Automatic. Nice clean lines, and is currently ticking away on the TimeGrapher: +13 s/day, Amplitude: 258 deg., Beat Error: 0.4 ms. in face up.

The watch I have coming in the mail will not belong to me. But I get to work on it. My brother has had good pay these past couple months. And he wants his Elgin serviced (along with four others). I include the photo to show off the decorated movement. Five mechanical watches - and a brother who knows the costs and wishes to spend for proper maintenance. I may be able to pick up the staking set I was eyeing sooner, rather than later.

Thank you for your kind words! ? It's a very slim automatic movement. Just take a look at the oscillating weight (rotor) size and how it is fitted.

Found a (imo) nice looking cushion cased Alpina in steel on eBay. Probably from the 1940s on eBay. Obviously I had to have it. It’s been sold as defective, we‘ll see in what shape it is once it arrives.

Thanks for your kind words :-). Yea, at the end it was "like new", but Man-O-Man, winding that beast feels so different from any other watch. I did everything - from mainspring to the balance cap jewels - cleaned / oiled properly, but due to poor poor winding gear ratio - it is a pain to wind that watch. No wonder one that intermediate crown wheel could not take it anymore :-(. I found small piece deep inside the movement between the mainplate and bridge. What did not help that Cousins sent me the wrong part due to cataloguing error on their website. Then i had to re-order Buren part (identical). Took some time to sort things out. Btw, the coupling wheel (automatic winding component) requires braking grease just like mainspring barrel wall. All extra friction while winding is actually created mostly by this, swastika-like looking, coupling wheel... ?

A previous fella opened the watch, broke some parts, did not even recover all remaining pieces out of the case, replaced the back cover and declared it dead. I had to resurrect it :-). Thanks God, CousinsUK had spare parts available.

I'm a bit of a fan of Russian watches, and in my opinion not only are they pretty robust, but with a little care, they can be very presentable. Just to illustrate that point, here are a couple of 404 club members. One is 9ct gold and originally cost the best part of £1,000.00 and the other is a USSR era 20 mikron gold plated Sekonda. Now I'm not saying they are equivalent, but neither would either of them embarrass you at a formal function. Sure the lines of the Sekonda are a little more solid, and the hands and case, perhaps not quite as well finessed, but on the wrist it is a pretty close match, and I know which one I would be less worried about scratching.

One day I got loose on Russian web and got these! I know what Soviet watch is. But honestly, I enjoy them a lot with their big imperfections + they make me feel like real comrade ?

I bought a load of old Accurist ETA movements on eBay for practice (all reported not working in listing) 4 of them are ETA 2390 with small variations (different balance settings). These arrived yesterday morning. A couple of them run at least for a few minutes, but I decided to tackle the 'worst' one first, I figured it would be easier to see if I had made a difference. (It wouldn't 'start' at all despite being fully wound). It had a fair bit of corrosion and was pretty dirty. Photos show a summary of strip down and cleaning. I manually cleaned in a small jar with horosolve, removing corrosion as best I could with pegwood and fibreglass pen, the end result is far from perfect but a massive improvement on how it started, and joy of joys, on reinstallation of the balance it started running! I got quite emotional! I did a reasonably thorough job, relubricating as I went through reassembly, only 'shortcuts' were that I removed the barrel lid and checked spring for damage, but didn't remove it, and I didn't tackle disassembly of the balance as it seemed too much too soon (really should since this doesn't have a shock setting so balance disassembly is required to clean and lubricate top setting) I gave it a brief go, but after failing to get at the tiny screw on the stud after several attempts, I had fears of ever being able to get it back together if I did manage to get it apart. Anyway, on timegrapher the initial readings on a full wind were amplitude of around 240 and beat error of 1.5ms, rate anywhere between -3 and +20 depending on position, so not brilliant, but I'm happy enough given it is a scrap movement that didn't run at all yesterday. I cannibalised one of the other 2390s from the lot for its hands (this one was missing a minute hand) and reinstalled the dial so I could pop it on my desk under a glass to let it run for a couple of days and check its rundown and timekeeping over a longer period. With the experience gained on this one, hopefully I can get the 'nicer' ones from the lot working a bit better!