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Jolly good. A little tip about hands, never rotate the hands from the tips always move the hand as close as you can get at the center, that way you will prevent bending the hand or even breaking the thing off.

Less blurry movement picture.

Whatever you do with the watch just make sure you upload some photos, you might end up getting requests!

The location of the regulator pins suggests that you should have a Breguet style overcoil hair spring, in which the terminal curve is bent up and over the main spiral, heading back inwards towards the regulator (bad description but Google Breguet overcoil and you will see what I mean). The terminal curve therefore sits above the main spiral, and significantly inboard of the outermost coil. If your H/S is flat then it is probably not the correct one. That being said a side on shot of the balance and H/S would help to clarify things.

Never remove it. It doesn't need to be removed. Clean all the parts and grease or oil (I preferred grease) it where metal rubs metal. You can check that it moves smoothly by just putting the hand on the square or use pin tongs.

Ha, yes. I thought that the H/S terminal end was malformed when it crossed over the other coils. Unfortunately I had already started to "straighten" it before I asked. With your answer however I was able to reform is back (mostly) and now it's ticking! Thank you! A lot more work to do but I'll take the tick.... Thanks again Marc! Todd

Thanks so much for the advice - I'll leave it as it was. I suppose I was comparing the gasket to changing tires or wiper blades on a vintage car. I was drawn to this Bulova 23 because of the interesting dial and the scalloped bezel. I also found a nice site listing the variants; I think I have the 1955 Variant B. Full list of Bulova 23: https://mybulova.com/watches/model/bulova-23 1955 "B": https://mybulova.com/watches/1955-bulova-23-b-12459 Sorry about the poor pictures; I only have my phone camera. Also, nothing is cleaned yet.

i have another Hebdomas case and surprisingly it looks Japaned. Would have been a great way to keep the steel case from rusting.

That needs adjusting, the door should stay open when striking.

Willkommen! It is always good to have more people acquainted with tool and die work. And if you are used to tolerances of .0001 of an inch, then you will have little difficulty with watches, although you will see millimeters much more often than inches. And you will find that many of our store-bought tools follow the same pattern you see everywhere else: there are cheap tools from China or Taiwan or nearby to there which are fragile and hard to use and terrible overall, there are better tools which some of us can afford, and there are excellent tools some of which are Swiss and very expensive and some of which are vintage and could also be very expensive. If you know tools, you know all this, and nothing will surprise you about it. I work on antique watches a lot, so I have been gathering mostly vintage tools when I can afford to. Enjoy your work on timepieces! Ask us questions! Poke around in the forum; use the search function! There is much to see: manuals, links to tech sheets, the Best-Fit stuff, you name it!

If you're going to paint a butterfly on it, do not forget to place your signature somewhere near. Imagine if Vincent van Gogh owned a watch and delicately painted the inside cover. If you're going to do it, do it well, and sign it. Just my 2 cents.

I bought this 100% genuine Benrus off a guy in India on eBay before I knew enough to beware. Exquisite job on the quality control is one indication of it's authenticity. Oh well, only $14.00.

Iagree with plato Its your watch and what ever you do to it is your business, you could paint it green , the purists would jump about a bit but do what you like its yours.

Unless it's a Harrison Chronometer do what you like, it's your watch.

I still don't get the part about the cannon pinion. Did it break into two? Did the tube come off the wheel? If not, just tighten it pop it back on.

Hi @adenfulton ...the 'R' and 'A' on the regulator are just the initials to indicate 'retard' and 'avance' i.e. the French words to indicate which way to move the regulator to slow or speed up the balance wheel oscillation. As @watchweasol says, if you can get some decent photos posted we'll try and identify for you.

Maybe it's about time Western countries stopped turning their noses up at mass manufacturing? (Germany excluded) Weren't the British and American Empires built on manufacturing and slave labour? It's China's turn now, learn to accept it.

I've been warned about price negotiation with Chinese manufacturers. It seems that they will try and hit any price that you request, it's just that the quality will suffer in their attempt to make money at that price. Be careful what you ask for

Yes, I'll just take the balance out. Can't see properly and it will have to come out anyway regardless. I'll come back with another picture and whatever I discover. Thanks for your replies.

Looking at your pictures again one of things that bothers me is look where the stud holder is? Typically get find the regulator in that position and the stud holder should be moved back considerably. But in need to look at whether the watch visually is in beat and put that where it's supposed to be it may be somebody is bumped that it may be grossly out of beat or it may just be fine. The understand what I mean by this look at the link for the 694 I have above and you'll notice that the stud is in a different location

Yes, he did quite a nice job adapting a friction jewel for rubbing in. When actually reducing the diameter, and keeping it concentric, it gets harder (and I think one can see how much work it was just putting a proper chamfer on in the above video). I know, some people chuck the jewel similarly with shellac and use a diamond file on the perimeter, but this doesn't necessarily maintain concentricity. You really have to have a live spindle on the cross slide with a diamond grinding wheel to be sure.

Wow! That would make you about 970 years old. I'm 73 and will be 74 in a few months. I was drafted in 1969 when the army was looking for targets. I think the military strategy at that time was to keep sending people over there until the North Vietnamese ran out of bullets. I ended up with better conditions than many others. I played flute and piccolo in the 98th Army Band at Fort Rucker Alabama (02G20 MOS) for the first half of my service. The second half was playing guitar in the pit orchestra for the 3rd US Army Soldier Show. I remained stateside because my MOS was considered to be rare and critical; go figure. The video above is an accurate description of how things were at that time.

Is it really that draconian? Look what happened to Jack Ma. He quickly went from being the most admired man in China to facing a possible imprisonment or execution. He rocked the boat and big brother didn't like it. The example the Chinese Communist Government made of him sent a clear message to the entire population of China. If a person in charge of a manufacturing operation is part of the Communist Party structure and a lowly inspector points out that his products are crap, the bureaucrat isn't likely to change the operation in order to improve the products. The inspector will be viewed as an unpatriotic nuisance and the next inspector will know to keep his opinions to himself.

Maybe it's not a norm, maybe Quality Control engineers are not on the top of the list, but the Chinese regime indeed has no much problem in giving death and life sentences to those that cross into their will. Examples, top grade officials probably not more corrupt than their colleagues, but which may have somehow crossed the line. Of important people that is just critical of the regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhiqiang That is when one is brought in front of their parody of justice, in other cases e.g. Hong Kong intellectuals, Jack Ma, and Confucio knows how many others, people disappears for a while and then comes back wonderfully re-educated. However, other people, also extremely important like "belt brother" Xu Jiayin manages to get away with managing "his" company to grow bottomless debt. It's is a big mistake to think that China has adopted "Western values" since relations were normalized. But they adopted private property and limitless enrichment, the latter it's not even a value in my opinion.

Are we talking strictly about about manufacturing, or about the entire industrial process, from idea to design and prototyping? While the first is proverbially marginal, perhaps with the only exceptions are when the customer is able to oversee Quality Control himself, as the (partially) Western owned factories can do, or can inspect the goods before payment and delivery (much more difficult). And I doubt very much that China of today is at the top, even when willing, when it comes to idea and design. Watches are no exception, the very top of their domestic production is a Seagull tourbillion, which was made probably more as a demonstration than something they had expectation to sell in large quantities. Other sectors are actually much more advanced, as train transport, aerospace, and anything military. Still, there is non where China distinctly leads. And I still have to see (pardon the ultra popular example) a Chinese car or motorcycle that can be brought up to comparison with Western or Japanese products. Incidentally, I normally advocate buying Chinese product, for watchmaking or other purposes. The reason is that I believe that is right for everyone in the West and even more in less developed countries, to be able to buy certain goods, be for work, hobby or fashion and entertainment, that they could not afford before. At the same time I'm at time quite disappointed with the product "shortcuts" that often I see in what I buy (please don't get me started), and more importantly, I'm ethically torn about my (our) purchases going to the continuation and success of a repressive imperialist regime of the worst kind. But since life is anyway full of contradictions, I just have to get along with all that. On the same line of my reasoning above. If we replace 'create' with 'produce' I agree with that. It's not a subtle difference when it comes to a lot of extremely important global scenarios that still have to fuly develop.

Just received this update: Cousins are happy to announce that we now support the IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) scheme on our website. This scheme ensures faster processing by your local customs authority without incurring any additional customs or carrier processing fees. Orders Under 150 EURO For orders under 150 euros (excluding shipping and VAT), Cousins will add VAT according to the VAT rate applicable in your country. Cousins will then pay this to the respective European tax authorities on your behalf. Orders Over 150 EURO Orders over 150 euros (excluding shipping and VAT), will continue to be delivered “DDU” (customs duties paid by the recipient upon receipt) in line with the European Union IOSS scheme. Thank you for your ongoing support. Anthony Cousins Note: My county post (I understand there are others also), still charges customs handling fees, but not VAT, for IOSS orders, e.g. Ebay. Their justifications is that the 'item is presented to customs", even if that may not be true, and surely is contrary to the intentions of the program. I'm curious to know what the various couriers will do about the same.