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Here's three more freshly arrived for the 404 club. Sold as non runners. Thankfully all seem to be running, just needing a clean and buffing. The Montine's stem was loose and was helpfully attached with sticky tape. Got lucky here as it appears the screw was loose and soon had this remedied.

Omega crystals usually have the omega logo on the inside surface, in the dead centre of the crystal. It is very tiny and feint and easily missed. Hold it up to a light and use a loupe to check. If it has the omega logo, then it most probably is the original crystal. Scratches can be buffed out quite easily. I like to use the new, foam type nail buffs. I use them to wet sand the scratches out. Start with the coarse one first. The crystal will go blur and frosted but that is normal. Then switch to the medium grit. The crystal will start to clear up and you can check if the deepest scratches have been buffed out. If not, go back to the coarse buff. Work your way up to the fine buff and check for scratches. You might have to do this several times to get most of the scratches out. SG$ 1.75 | 1/2/3/4Pcs Nail Polisher Block Nail Buffer File Polishing Block Manicure Tools Buffs For Manicure Art Beauty Nail Polisher https://a.aliexpress.com/_mraaWFm I like to do a final polish with a table top polishing machine, fitted with a wool mop. But equally good results can be achieved with Polywatch crystal polish and polishing by hand.

I have fabricated a metal hand using the 3d printed hand as a template. Not perfect. In particular, making the square hope perfect size and perfectly aligned proved difficult, but I think I have a way to fix that. Here it is...still needs more tweaking, polishing, and then painting. My starting material was a clock mainspring. First annealed and flattened and then started the cutting.

The best method to remove the nut, It to fill the centre with acetone (nail polish remover) and leave it for a while whilst it dissolves the glue then clean it off with more acetone, job done. polish remover costs about thirty bob £1,50 at Superdrug/Semichem.

The day date movement is 1020/1022 The year of manufacture should be 1972 and the reference number 166.0117 If so the crystal is with tension ring and has the Omega part number PZ5200. https://www.ebay.de/itm/124439929582?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=707-53477-19255-0&campid=5338722076&customid=&toolid=10050 https://gleave.london/glass-omega-pz5200-steel-ring-xac-316-549-generic/ https://www.ebay.de/itm/133371038181?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110013%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIMRXI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20201210111452%26meid%3Da3322f8c2dc04494b5c11bddf173e62b%26pid%3D101196%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D2%26sd%3D202894886333%26itm%3D133371038181%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DPromotedRVI%26brand%3DOMEGA&_trksid=p2047675.c101196.m2219&amdata=cksum%3A133371038181a3322f8c2dc04494b5c11bddf173e62b|enc%3AAQAHAAAA4Iq9Pd1eiueKRlho1pRz6mIJ6weI3%2FxNU2tNvKX%2FOKj8EsrrzzSHvr8Eo0E6qugi6mSuGMsq8qIf7FA5O0HFSbA4bEb%2Bg8f%2BNVtcMKOir8bBYKReVOMinwQz7eGK73lixEHso3gM3Iqfwe%2FcdxbhjzMpEHHPYVweQr2YwFDCngPHNNCh6CltsON%2F%2BFjiAKwCma2srC0VqPfG75sL1UAt5tFBhbu%2FEibNvjBmXrHE%2FbrkE0pys8gnQJUJWvRJ0V%2FxWLVy89zJCpNizRsY%2F0h67aXK3Uf69gLnjbxYxjLSeBJB|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2047675

Thanks guys. I have assembled a watch with it still, just waiting on a strap. Take care

The Geneve, not as popular as the Seamaster of the same era, though i think there is a Seamaster Geneve also. Possibly on the same playing field as a Deville. The Geneve so named after the Geneva Observatory where Omega gained acclaim for very accurate chronometers. Some good history from Omega going back to the mids 1800s. Known very well among collectors for the Speedmaster Moonwatch, Bond watches, pioneers of the co axial escapement invented by our very famous English George Daniels.

Thanks I have to admit, it is a far cry from where I started, sitting on a low stool and working at our dining room table.

@Kalanagcheck and mate. Thank you!

Hi A bum steer then, These styalised Monograms can be a pest as they can be interpreted differently depending on style, old english etc . Have a look at the type styles and old english alphabet might give a clue.

I ordered an Omega crystal replacement from a well know material house in the UK and it was clearly stated on their site that it was not an original Omega crystal. Guess what, when it arrived it had a tiny Omega logo in the dead centre of the crystal only visible under strong magnification. I guess someone in the warehouse mistakenly picked it from the Omega box of crystals Anyway, I didn't mind and the crystal fitted perfectly.

I have not used this technique as of yet but I will keep the concept in my back pocket just in case. I would think that using a flange nut. Being round, it would give you a greater contact patch upon the case back and transfer greater torque then a regular hex nut. That said, it doesn't seem to have been the limiting factor in this case. If I'm not mistaken, acetone is the solvent of choice for disssolving cyanoacrylate on the cheep. Unfortunately Krazy glue and I do not get along. I keep buying it and it keeps getting hard in the unopened tube before I need it... I don't understand why but think that it's probably time to buy some more. Thanks everyone for the discussion. Shane

Very much the convert to this method now. Most certainly put on by a gorilla, countered by gorilla super glue from the supermarket. Yes very surprised by the post breaking, at that point it started to budge, managed to continue on by repositioning the remaining three. Not got round to getting the nut off the back. I have some IPA (which reminds me to pop to the shop for the beer variety later) I assume soaking in that will get it off?

The glue/nut trick works most every time as long as you you use a good quality superglue (Loctite). The back must have been put on by a Gorilla to damage the post or the post was flawed. I have had some stickers but none that broke the holder.

I tried tightening those down a bit. Didn't seem to help. Maybe I have to do it a bit more. They sure are hard to access. Might have to cut an Allen key to make it work better. Came across this for the Vintage Elma machine that the Pearl was copied from. Some clear instructions in there. https://www.hswalsh.com/sites/default/files/related_files/Instructions For HC511 - Elma Super Elite Watch Cleaning Machine.pdf

I think that I have some you can have.

According to the red Elgin Material book the p/n for the case screw is 5186. These screws were used in several of the 5** grade watches. Maybe try Dave's?

If you have one of these, place the watch on the charger and if the second hand starts to do the double tick, then the charging circuit is working. If you have an electric toothbrush charger, you can try finding the sweet spot for charging by putting the dead watch on it and see when the second hand starts moving. Give it a 2 hour charge and observe. I just found another interesting video on charging kinetic watches.

I never oiled the pins until beginning to work on the M104, M105, M106, M107, M109, M116 series. This was for the same issue you mention of the movement running very slow. Now it is part of my regular service routine with vintage Timex.

Seiko kinetics use a rechargeable battery instead of a normal silver oxide battery. The amount of charge inside the battery when it reaches you is a big variable. It might be 90% charged or it could be almost flat. When installing the new battery, it is imperative that non-conductive tweezers be used. I've seen YT videos where normal metal tweezers were used and the guy said that it's ok. It is not! Also, you have to make sure that the insulation on the battery clip is not damaged and the clip is not shorting the the battery. I have given up on using my kinetic watch because it takes a lot of shaking just to keep it going for 24 hours. My Oral-B toothbrush charger can actually charge up my kinetic watch but it's a bit fiddly. It has to be placed in just the right place at the right angle. And it still takes several hours to get it charged up.

Can you provide some pics of the hairspring? A slow-mo video of it running would be useful

Lots of gold in this thread over the last 24 hours! Wow! @nickelsilverbringing some serious knowledge! I had no idea! I've probably tossed a few perfectly good mainsprings. To think, all this time I thought I was a stingy hack reusing them, when in fact I was being decadent by upgrading to more modern alloys. Also, the color coding is a breaking headline! Also didn't think anything of it, and thought it was just random based on what the supplier had laying around at the time. Crazy! Then the emmywatch site... Bookmarked. In the folder. That's clearly a newer site based just on the technology behind it (compared to ranfft and the like). The overlap between horology and web dev is an extremely narrow sliver in the Venn diagram, so anything like that popping up is rare! Great find!

Imo both are typical Black Forest made clocks. Frank

You can get cuckoo clocks like that with wood frames and inserted brass bushings.

This sounds like it's possible. Not because you're leaving your watch within the motor coil's field for 15 minutes but because you think you need to. You must draw the watch or whatever you're demagnetizing out of the A/C magnetic field for it to work not just shut it off. The stronger the field the farther away you need to move from the coil for it to work. As mentioned before, incorrect or parts parts from different movements may have been incorrectly installed. Even parts of the same movement just from a variation of a different beat rate could be your problem. Photos of the movement would probably help someone here guide you in some direction. Good luck. Shane

Ah, it does look good although it's only slightly cheaper than the Elma complete basket. When you consider shipping and how bad our local currency is against the USD then I'd rather just go for the Elma set to be honest. If it was a LOT cheaper that would be a different story. But thanks for the heads-up though! Looks like an interesting store for other watch tools. Hmmm, I'm wondering if it'll be a good idea to have the basket on its side. You're tumbling the items now instead of spinning them - I suspect there's a lot more chance of parts clanging against each other or pinions catching other parts and bending. Just a guess though. I'm still toying with the idea of my own setup. Currently the US works it just takes loooooong

This basket set from Aliexpress looks ok, but with all things AliEx things may or may not be as they appear: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256804227192349.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.34242f244ddiSC&algo_pvid=a236a129-fd26-4c6f-90a0-2c2f1e8d13be&algo_exp_id=a236a129-fd26-4c6f-90a0-2c2f1e8d13be-2&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id"%3A"12000029096345270"}&pd In my case, the issues aren't major issues anymore. The watch machine runs good enough to do the job of what it's supposed to do. I was just hoping to get it to run better.

The more I look at the issues you guys are having, the more I feel I should just cobble up something myself. I’m thinking of getting the Elma basket complete (around 130GBP) and rigging up a stepper motor to drive it (which would give me the bidirectional rotation) and controlled speed for when the basket is lifted out of the solution to spin off excess fluid. The only expensive part here would be the Elma basket complete - maybe I should just pull the trigger and get it. That’ll put my backside into gear and do this

Helpful to the point of making me smile. Love the doodles, exactly the faces I was pulling at the time.

It don't actually see much of any evidence of testing in that article. It's just a pile of amazon links and every single product tested is "best for something". Nothing is ranked or measured. If you read each summary, it's just what is written on the bottle itself! I think just three products had one sentence each that actually said they used the product on something themselves.

Well OP's post the slot goes over center, so no idea at all, total nmLystrt