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A few weeks ago myself and my dearest took a short break and as it was close by we visited the horological museum at Upton Hall. Upton hall is actually run by two separate entities the museum and the training workshops which are run by the BHI. If anyone wishes to visit be aware that their website is shows the wrong opening time it is only open for visitors on Fridays and opens at 11.00 not 10.00. I did raise this with one of the managers and was assured the site will be updated. I was also allowed to visit one of the workshops and met the tutor who was at the time overseeing a course on quartz watches.We did have an interesting conversation regarding how the industry has changed and spare parts was also debated!!. To be honest overall I was a bit as disappointed in that there are only three rooms and I was hoping for a bigger museum. There are however on display early electric clocks,turret clocks,bracket clocks,long case clocks and a few watches mainly pocket. It also has a working expanded model displays of the various escapes and clearly shows how the various escapes work. I found the most interesting display and a talk was on the UK talking clocks. On display there were talking clocks through the years from the first to the latest talking clock which still is used receiving 100,000 calls per annum. The first talking clock was ingenious with the voice recorded onto spinning glass discs. However the first voice was by a telephonist Jane Cain who had a lisp so the discs had to be modified by hand to remove this imperfection and this task took 3 months to complete. The talking clock is still used mainly by charities to raise funds such as children in need. But for those who need the exact time such as scientists it is still used because it is almost the exact time being linked directly to Greenwich. The first UK speaking clock (1936) was accurate to within 1/10th of a second. Today’s speaking clock is within five thousandths of a second. Overall it is well worth a visit and the BHI courses are certainly worth considering. The first of two speaking clocks 1936

One easy check is the balance jewels, if they are clean and oiled properly that's a good sign. But- some unscrupulous people know that, and might service the balance cock jewel (imagining it's an easily accessible shock jewel), leaving the rest in its state. Nothing against Turkey but an overhaul costs a certain amount for a reason; the watchmaker has most likely spent years in education and have 10s of thousands in equipment, and to service a regular watch impeccably might do 2 or 3 per day. Maybe your guy cleaned it assembled and oiled what was accessible. Maybe they didn't clean it and added oil where accessible. Maybe they painstakingly cleaned every part in clean benzine and oiled properly. Maybe they used olive oil and lanolin for grease. I doubt they cleaned it in industry standard solutions in a proper machine, or used fresh Moebius oils, in a clean room on a clean bench, timing on a quality machine in 6 positions, but maybe they did? 45 bucks for two overhauls, 22.50 apiece, it's easily 10x less than standard Europe price for a simple watch.

Power off, stud cap screws loose, insert stud. HS in pins, wiggle watch a little so everything settles. Screw down stud cap screws. From there, if you need to adjust anything adjust- beat error, move the hs collet. HS not centered in regulator pins, adjust. HS not flat, centered overall, adjust. Ideally with everything "relaxed" and snugging up the stud cap it should all be good. But a watch this age has seen many watchmakers and probably needs some loving.

Checking on a timegrapher would probably give a good clue. However, a conscientious repairers would not deliver an automatic with bad helicoptering before having tried all what is possible and having explained to the owner about it. I think that $45 for professionally servicing two watches is unreasonably little, no matter where in the world.

The stud should end up where the hairspring naturally rests. You should not twist the stud to adjust the hairspring.

What kind of actual power reserve does your watch have, ideally a healthy autowinder should fully wind or wind close to its nominal power reserve with five hours on wrist.

Rotor turning as you give the watch a manual wind or helicoptering as some like to call it, is indicative of a fault in selfwinder module, worn or real dirty reversers or worn/ broken jewel hole, perhaps even a broken arbour. Often a clean& lube treated with epilame fixodrop or equalent is all that reversers need.

I like to use 1mm rod for making small drills. You can get it from Travers on that side of the pond. https://www.travers.com/product/micro-100-srm-solid-carbide-metric-round-blanks-527624?size_3615[0]=1mm I hold it in a pin vice with a square head, then grind to the classic pivot drill shape like is illustrated in the Levin book. First I grind it more or less like a screwdriver blade, then grind the lips, then narrow the sides until it is the right diameter. The square head pin vice become the "indexer"; doing it all freehand and eyeballing (and measuring for the diameter) you can make up a drill in just a few minutes. A diamond wheel really makes things go faster and you can get a better finish, I like a D7 (7 micron) for finishing small drills. Too coarse and the edge breaks down very fast in use, and for really small drills like 0.10mm anything much coarser just breaks it as you try to grind. A D15 is OK too. AWCI has a video from Ron DeCorte showing how to hand grind the drills; in the video he uses carbide tipped dental burrs as blanks, but the process is the same.

I have matching serial number head/tail/bed for three of my lathes, so the head-tail issue matches as well as can be I suppose. In the experiment shown, I used a boley headstock (which I bought by itself on ebay) on a peerless lathe--seemed to align perfectly.

I have a Wakmann art deco watch from the 1950's. The movement is re-branded Helvetia 830. I have heard that Wakmann used re-branded Breitling movements, but I could not find anything about using Helvetia movements. Has anyone seen this before?

The pinion you query is the date corrector (part #2544) for the date quickset ... and this has the clip to keep it in place. The shape of the clip means it is actually more commonly referred to as an E circlip as it looks like a rounded E: To remove the circlip you must rotate so the rounded part of it is facing down and you see the two ends facing up towards you. Now with a sturdy pair of tweezers place the tips on each of the circlip ends and push down; the clip will pop off. If you do not have a suitable pair of tweezers you will need to secure the movement whilst you use your hands to push with two small screwdrivers. You don't often see such circlips in watch movements but they are a common securing mechanism in engineering and I know they can be fiddly so just be steady and patient! Reassembly is the reverse where you put the rounded part up towards you and push down so the clips 'snap' back onto the relevant groove. A tool like a spring bar remover (i.e. the tool you remove the bars for a watchstrap with) can be useful here as the notch in the blade will resist slipping better than a screwdriver blade. Hope this helps!