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Morning all. well all finished now both watches have had new crystal glass fitted. the black one I washed in the sonic cleaner yesterday, I wasn't expecting the amount of dirt that came of it, I even found a shell of a ladybird or something floating in the cleaning solution. but thinking about it I really think I bought a polish for metal while I was at a flea market some time but anyway I didn't except the amount of dirt. The white face watch was bought on ebay just to practice on before I opened up the black one. This was the best move I ever made because on removing the stem I didn't pull it to time setting so I had to strip down face side to address the reason it wouldn't accept the stem. I'm really pleased to say that both watch are all cleaned and back together. I bought the black faced fossil while on holiday well the wife bought it for me so it will always have a special place in my heart.

Just reshellaced the pallet fork last night. Now to test if that makes any difference

I finally had time to try this out and it worked great! Thanks for the help!

Genuine Earnshaw. This one probably has 100% Chinese parts. Who else would want to replicate it?

At lest it resembles shellac, I've seen a couple where I'm pretty sure someone had used superglue. Speaking of the Mumbai Special. I have a number of HMT watches. Some of them could best be described as Mumbai specials, but the nice thing about HMTs is they are very easy to service. They are also almost bomb proof in terms of robustness and the parts are interchangeable (and even interchangeable with the Citizen movements they are cloned from). Take "Fully Serviced" with a pinch of salt however. At least one of the "Fully Serviced" HMTs I got from India had enough dirt in it to grow a small crop of potatoes.

Look at this beauty it got off eBay for $30. A great bargain right? However, it doesn't run. I contacted the seller, who replied in a condescending tone that the watch is a mechanical wind watch and has to be wound up every 34 hours to work. I popped the back off and found that the balance wheel could be turned but it bangs into something. I assumed that the balance was overbanked, probably from a hard bang during transport. But when I took off the balance and inspected the pallet under a microscope, I found that the entry pallet is so deep that the escape wheel can't unlock. Just look at the amount of shellac on the fork! So the entry jewel can't unlock, how did the seller test the movement to be accurate to 2-3 minutes a day? Are they checking the watch at the same time everyday, so the time on the watch shows the correct time?

So in Harrogate with my gorgeous wife, walked into an antique shop and ten minutes later and 60 quid less walked out with this. A silver cased fully working Elgin pocket watch. Just needs a subdial hand

HI, I thought I'd post a photo of my finished watch, since you all helped me fix it, you at least should see the finished product. (Sapphire crystal and display back, SST case). I'm very pleased. I put it on the time grapher and it's @ -7sec day, 221 deg Amp, and 0.4 ms beat error right now. I'll run it for a few days and check it again. Thanks again everyone, I truly appreciate all your help! Bill

Haha behave you wally are you drinking and getting all meloncholey with yourself ? Stop being all woe is me lol . Look on the bright side you can pull 25% from your fund soon, so youll have 1250.00 to go buy yourself a nice second hand swanky lathe to start repairing more watches with.

Just an update at the close of this little project of mine. Here's a picture of the final article, warts-and-all. You can see the damage to the scale, and the flaking paint I mentioned earlier, neither of which affect the function of the tool, which I'm delighted with. Something else I learned which may or may not be useful for others to know. The knurled ring on top of the micrometer screw is a separate part and a simple interference fit above the scale. Thanks again to everyone who offered advice and assistance.

Ooh open heart with power reserve indicator. I like extra things to look at on the dial. Dial looks nice , inside doesnt exactly exude quality. Dial not super accurate, indices 5 and 7 not accurate to the balance viewing bezel. How much ?

For some reason I laughed out loud when I read this.

I'm pretty sure that's what it is now. A traditional abbreviation for number was No with a line under a small raised o. Or Nø with the letter o raised again. Both yours and the one with the ebay link are both like that. And mine is definitely a letter N though the letter o is slightly different. Phew

Well done!

That is allowed. The "rules" are pretty flexible. (i.e. there are no real hard and fast rules). Postage should be "reasonable", whatever that means to you. I would draw the line at £1000.00 postage on a £4.00 Rolex, but that is up to you. I have bent the rules slightly on occasions, so a £5.00 watch with free postage would be within the spirit of the rules I would suggest.

Another 404 club stopwatch. This time branded "Smiths England". I have no idea what is in it, however there is a very slight chance that it is more than a simple dollar watch style mechanism, since Smiths produced a wide variety of different grade movements. My gut feeling is that since it has no jewel count, it will be fairly basic inside. I'll just need to wait and see what turns up. EDIT: Some googling and looking at near identical versions, suggests it is probably a Smiths SW43 movement (jewelled balance, no shock protection) in a Denison case. If so, then well worth the 404 club price.

Luckily I just completed Mark's lesson 3.3.7 on the Balance Cock Assembly. Could be that the rust was holding it together! When I took it out of the WD40 the balance wheel dropped off the cock and there were two really tiny pieces which I realized were the roller and the piece that fits into the cock that actually holds the hairspring. Tried to fit that back where it goes but as you might imagine it's about the size of a shoe that an ant would wear and it has to be oriented. So, I'm going to take a break while everything soaks in ONE DIP, squeeze my rodico and ponder a slug of Glenfiddich and Drambuie or maybe some Woodford Reserve bourbon...

They don't seem to be. Grade 320 is dated 1914. Grade 355 is dated 1912. In my book grades run from 1 to 673. Grade 313 spans a number of years from as early as 1907 until at least 1928 with more than a half million made in that grade.

Andy take a look at this I found on ebay I think the initials are the same as on yours but different maker and location https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265678657100?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=T8JCtEZ4Raa&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=tBiLZaCfRb2&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY I'm starting to think it's just a N and a o. Indicating just No. Serial number ?

Thank you for your introduction and welcome to this friendly forum. We all look forward to your contributions and continued involvement.

Hey bruh, welcome. I'm finding out so much from the folks here. I also got hooked by YT videos. You should take a look at Mark's classes too, at the moment I'm working through the Level 3 class.

You are correct and it is a stupid price as well.

And that doesn't always work either. I come across bodging plumbers and sparkies all the time. I can see your point but having a bodged watch on your wrist is hardly a threat to your life, unless you are late getting home for tea or picking up the missus.

As the Cousins page also says, no parts are available for Chinese mov.ts, except the stem possibly.

It is not, as said it's a cheap chinese, if you go on Cousins UK they have a large selection and with some patience you may identify it.

Not a Seiko imho. Most likely a chinese movement.

Remove the balance and give us a closeup of the main plate in that area

A flat slinky then. Nice work Mr. Mumbai 6 hours, wow you did well Ross. Indian cooking yes , er Indian watches no. HMT were apparently good though Hmmm. What time we eating matey, I'll get there early and help finish cooking and wash up I've seen worse readings and looking at the amount of shellac on the pallet, I'd be thinking of counterbalanced the other end with a house brick.

The markers are out! Heat, heat and more heat was the answer in the end. After sustained contact with my biggest soldering iron (100W) one of the markers began to creep out of its hole. The other needed a bit of persuasion from the 3-jaw chuck on a power drill, but also came out without a fight in the end. You can see the discolouration on the parts. It's hardly anything, just a tiny bit of dried up grease or surface rust, but because of the close tolerances, enough to jam up everything. Now to get to work cleaning and polishing!

Second the above comments. As crystals are normally very low cost items, I always buy a size up and down, just in case. The cost of the crystals is generally cheaper than just the postage for another crystal anyway.

Please don’t buy either tool. They are useless. You need to remove the movement and then simply push the crystal out. You will or may however need a crystal press to put in the new crystal.

Extraction, or extracted = refined, or distilled. The same definition is used in my country also. It is OK but not necessary and not a good practice. Hot water and dish soap works great for filthy cases and bracelets, together with a toothbrush. You save from buying an ultrasonic doing it that way. But for mov.ts the amount of mixed dirt does not justify it "pre-cleaning". What they need is to remove old congealed oil (which are not even always present) Once again, as repeated many time: Only If brass parts are present that need to shine are present, wash briefly in warm ammonia based solution. Follow with petroleum ether (benzine), it can stay as long as you want, but isn't that you gain much anyway. Actually if you have done the step above this one can be skipped often times. Inspect all holes jewels and peg them as needed or them all if you feel obligated. Rinse with demineralized water, at least twice, observe the jar against the light, if you can see floating tiny particles rinse again. Let dry well in meshed baskets and thimbles, in theory some warm hair could be used to be quicker, but to avoid hairdryer disasters, puffing with a rubber blower is a better idea. Last rinse is IPA, more to absorb the previous water than anything else. Note, of all that above the only thing that a cleaning machines does for you is warming fluids, moving the tray from a jar to another, and some agitation. Certainly it doesn't brush, peg or inspect. It has been invented to clean faster, but not necessarily better. Nevertheless, many hobbyists including total beginners doing one mov.t a month if that much, consider it a necessity.

Well I would definitely start with Moebius 9010 (for train wheels and balance endstones) and 9020 (for train wheels) if you are working on Pocket Watches. Moebius 9415 is a must for Pallet/Escape wheel teeth. A quality silicon grease. Moebius D5 is essential (barrel arbor, motion work). Molycote DX or Moebius 9501 grease for keyless work. Moebius 9501 or 9504 for high friction (e.g. Cannon pinion, Setting lever spring and anything at high friction). Moebius 8200 grease for mainspring. Moebius 8217 for barrel wall (automatic watches) It's a lot but at a minimum get 9010, 9415, D5 and 8200 I hope this helps. Recommended Lubricants for Getting Started.pdf Moebius_Oil_Chart.pdf

Hello to all from the sunny UK, hope everyone is doing great fairly new to world of watches been learning for the past few months independently; mainly via disassembly/reassembly (trying to lose less and less parts each time!) and slowly but surly building up the kit. Finding it very interesting, looking forward to increasing my knowledge. Eager to hear peoples advice and past experiences, will take it all on board and hopefully one day I can return the favour to a future fresh spawn. Stay Safe