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When fitting new stems to watches I use these tools :- Digital calipers, Fine grade diamond lap Wire cutter Pin vice Now for fitting. (1) Hold the stem in the pin vice and screw on the crown tightly by hand. (2) With the movement fitted correctly in the case, insert the stem until it locks in place. Now measure the gap between the case and the underside of the stem. In this case it is 2.16mm. (3) Subtract 0.2mm from this size and this will give the amount to remove from the stem. In this case it will be 1.96mm which will give 0.2mm clearance below the crown when fitted to the watch. (4) Now remove the crown from the stem and hold the stem very tightly in the pin vice, then place the pin vice and stem between the jaws of the digital calipers then zero the calipers. (5) Remove the calipers and without touching the zero button set them to minus 1.96mm. THEN RE-ZERO THE CALIPERS AT THIS LENGTH The wire cutters are now used cut off the excess thread leaving a small amount to be filed to the exact length. (6) All that is required now is to dress the stem with the diamond lap a little at a time until the calipers read zero. (7) Finally screw the crown on tightly and it should be ready to fit to the watch without further adjustment. I find that this method cuts down on trial and error. FOR SCREW DOWN CROWNS. A) Screw down the crown tightly onto the case without the stem and measure the distance nbetween the bottom of the crown and the case. B ) Screw the new stem tightly into the crown, then insert into the watch until it engages and locks into the movement. C) Press the crown down firmly as far as it will go and hold it there. D) Using the vernier callipers, measure the distance between the bottom of the crown and the case. E) Subtract the size determined in (D) from the size measured in (A) then subtract a further 0.15mm from this size. This is the amount to shorten the stem by. This should allow the crown to screw full home without compressing the stem too tightly between the movement and the inside of the crown. F) Cut the stem leaving it slightly longer than the size determined in (E), and dress down to size using the diamond lap and vernier callipers as described in the original post. G) Screw the crown onto the shortened stem and check fit and function, before using a tiny spot of Loctite 221 to secure. Click here to view the article

Giving an very old movement an old case Some weeks ago I was fortunate in finding in Germany a very early IWC Cal 64 pin-set movement in reasonable good condition. Movement number: 97059, year of construction: 1893, Caliber: Sav. Cal 64, 12 1/2 lignes. It was presumably a left-over from a cash sale of its gold, hunter case. The movement came with a perfect enamel dial marked: E. Sommer, Mexico. This was clearly worth some attention and being a savonnet movement could be re-fitted into a period wristwatch case. So, after a dis-assembly and complete clean in an ultrasonic bath the re-assembled movement ran beautifully with reasonably good timekeepin and just a little beat error. One gremlin, as Mark would say, turned out to be that the cleaning solution had removed most of the shellac from the underside of the pallet - the little blobs of shellac that help keep the jewels in place. Fortunately it turned out that the jewels had not moved. Being an amateur on the wrong side of 70 with not-so-steady hands I had to find a solution. This was as follows: some flakes of shellac were dissoved in high-grade ethyl alcohol. This solution was then left in an open jar until most of the alcohol had evaporated leaving a rich syrup. Using a fine oiler minute blobs of this shellac syrup were applied to the underside of the pallet in the places where the original shellac had been. The syrup dried to a hard shellac layer leaving the pallet looking exactly as it was before the ultrasonic treatment. The pallet went into the movement and behaved perfectly. The plan was to fit the movement into a silver trench case - I had a 1917 case of the right size.The next gremlin was how to fit a crown onto the protruding square end of the stem, and as this stem is permanently assembled in the movement, how to manage the installation into a case. My rather awkward solution was as follows. While out of the movement, the square end of the stem was turned and tapped to 1.2mm for three-quarters of it protruding length. The movement could be slipped into the case by first feeding the stem through the winding stem hole in the case. And then the case screws were fitted. A suitable crown was found that could be screwed onto the stem provided that the stem could be prevented from turning. This was achieved by making the little very thin tool with a rectangular slot. This slips between the movement and the inside of the case gripping the remaining square end of the stem. The crown could then be screwed, and unscrewed as needed, A suitable strap was made using a 10mm trench strap supplied by Chris Balm and a little in-house genuine lizard to act as a back pad. Here is the emminently wearable final product.

The tweezers system, it never fails! :) As JC mentioned, this spring likes jumping so my recommendation is: get a big, very transparent, nylon bag and cut off both ends and work inside the bag if the spring jumps it won't go far! You use the openings you created in the bag for your hands to work inside.

Providing you keep a sharp peg wood in its middle its quite simple to manoeuvre with a tweezer without a flyer. Thats how I secure the spring. There are other ways but this works for me.

Hi Phil, You just did and welcome from another "old man"! Bob

There's a lot of confusion about Voken - some say it's a Russian make, others a Japanese - and others a Japanese movement in a Russian-made watch... My guess is that it's a Japanese movement, but it's fairly obscure stuff from the '70s or '80s...

Here one of my Omegas that I rarely wear because its old and I don't want to put too much wear on it. It keeps phenomenal time--I mean, really spot on throughout the day. I wore it today in the house just to give it some wrist time, but its raining out and I won't wear it when I step outside later. JC

Not trying to take away Marks thunder, but there's a good tutorial here: http://www.clockmaker.com.au/diy_seiko_7s26/