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This is probably the only platform where I can show what I found and the people will actually care......

Alida was a trademark of Havila Watch Co., Switzerland. The following might be of interest : https://www.watchuseek.com/threads/niello-pocket-watch-any-ideas-or-info.5288787/

Hi Had a close look at the picture. I should check to see if there is a stem tube fitted to this watch as this looks like its rusted to the stem and come out with the stem attached, soak the stem in coke for awhile to dissolve the rust and see if it loosens up and comes free from the stem. or it maybe a sleeve from a cobbled job as per jdm.

When I started to learn Television was not available to the masses and the books were hard to locate and expensive too, and living in the sticks didnt help. So it was a case if you want to learn do what you could from the books you could find in the second hand bookshops. The problen with formalised training is that you follow the trend and to some degree stifles origional thaught. In other words you become intitutionalised and think like your teachers. You do it that way because thats how you were taught even though there may be otherways of doing it . There are out there some watchmakers who were apprenticed and learned practicaly , who are capeable of thinking out side the box and are brilliant at what they do. So in essence I am with jdm on this one. I have seen people with letters after their name I wouldnt let work on a pram, they know the theory but because they think in a straight line It takes a long time before they have worked through the theory by that time you have fixed it. JohnC If you are serious in following the dream, head down and focus all the training and titles will not make you a Great watchmaker/restorer determination and skill will do the job. I wish you all the best in your endeavour.

I didn't know about that, crazy. When I went to WOSTEP, a couple of days after the courses started one of the guys in another class was missing, turns out he had a nervous breakdown. These were classes for experienced watchmakers too, not new guys. I always wondered if they refunded his money (an alternate took his place), those classes were expensive. To the education thing, I know a couple of people who are definitely in the very top tier of watchmakers who were self taught. They did take short courses here and there over the years, and did have mentors at some point, and did get certified, but largely they were self taught. As JDM said, with the current interest and videos and forums like this one it's far easier now than years ago.

@jdm Amen, well said.

Most of people here (admittedly hobbyists with no professional ambitions) and elsewhere learnt by themselves, with a varying amount of things gone wrong. In the past many used training books sold by mail in the USA during the great depression, many men had to to reinvent themselves and practice on the kitchen table, dim lighting and very basic tools, I don't doubt that many good watchmakers were made that way. Now people has everything easily available, can watch free videos, buy online and if needed ask on reddit or facebook, less often here. Having a mentor in person is great but it can be inconvenient and expensive, as with everything in life one can't expect that things will line up in an ideal manner and will have to take things into own hands. No matter how one learns is will that gets thing in motion, then continued focus is what produce results.

Maybe a poor quality stem that had been replaced or cobbled up? I would start checking well the bore in the plate and getting a new stem.

So here is a tick from a USB earbud with a quiet movement. We can see the loudest part of the sound, at about 2.011 seconds. It's about 7 dB above the noise. The first sound should be about 12.5 ms before, at about 1.998. I certainly can't see it. There's no way a simple threshold detection will find it and not the noise around it. The peak at 1.993 looks larger and that's just noise. But, some filtering and FFTs later, we can make this graph below. The first sound can be detected. It's the yellow bit of energy around 20kHz near the blue vertical dashed lines, which are the detected locations of the tick and tock average amplitude. It no more than 20 dB above the surrounding noise. Suppose this microphone had poorer high frequency response and dropped everything above 15kHz. That sound at -12.5 ms would be pretty much all gone then. If the software does thresholding, it would think both the microphones are equally bad, but the reality is that one that can detect sound at 15 kHz is more capable. So I think if one measures the microphone against an algorithm that does nothing to reject noise, then it will be overly dependent on the microphone's own ability to reject noise. But noise can be dealt with through software. But the microphone's ability to capture a signal can not be augmented after the fact.

Here it is after teardown. It is now reassembled. I need a stem for it. The one in the watch was goobered up. Tomorrow I will try to turn one on the lathe.

Oops. KRDial Well, there is a K and a D and I am old!

I have a Hard Arkansas and a Medium Arkansas that I've had for years and years, I usually use the medium for screwdrivers, makes quick work of them. I also have a large assortment of carborundum (India?) and diamond stones, but still use the Arkansas stones for most everything. I worked on some brass tweezers on the medium stone and ended up with some brass embedded in the stone, won't do that again

I think it was this company. Sorry lost the invoice details found it yes this was the company https://www.vsonidials.com