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found a link using... toothpaste! http://forums.watchuseek.com/f11/how-diy-cheap-crystal-repair-scratch-removal-tutorial-420568.html

Most of the older watches have acrylic crystals. Polywatch is ok for the final polish but you need to get rid of all the nicks and gouges first.. other wise you will end up will nicely polished nicks and gouges. Dried Autosol can be used if mixed with a little light oil. Water will work but I find light oil is better. No harm in trying, if you screw it up then you'll end up where you started. Anil

Hello Entropy, Welcome to the forum. This is a nice looking watch indeed. I can tell you as someone that began trying out watchmaking with pin-levers that they are simple, but not easy to put back together because they simply lack the level of finish of better made movements. Now, that said, I love pin-levers and have worked on several types from the big makers at the time: Ebauche Bettlach (EB), Baumgartner, (BFG) and Brac, but I have not worked on an English pin lever. They are unusual and, honestly, some of them keep time almost as well as my vintage Omegas--that is my reference point for quality. If you have good tools and magnification, then do what some of the other members have suggested. Take a picture at every step and follow them backwards to reassemble. I will suggest you keep a close eye not just on the drive wheels, but also on the length of screws as they may look similar to one another. I once put back a watch and one of the screws was slighty longer than the other two and it was rubbing against the barrel. It finally discovered it after tearing the watch apart again and noticing the very slight differece between three screws that held the calendar wheel in place. Another suggesstion I will make is to be very careful with the hairspring/balance. If you mess that up you will have a watch that will not run, or it will run very fast--this has happened to me three times. I've never had a watch run slow! The problem is that even though you may be able to find a replacement complete balance, it will be difficult to replace on the old balance cock/regulator because of the stud used to secure instead of a screw as in higher quality movements. I have ruined brand new hairsprings because the stud requires steady pressure to stay put AND it has to be at a right angle to the axis of rotation AND the hairspring MUST be poised or the impulse finger will not drive the pallet properly, and the watch will not run. This is an area where I have not seen any videos demonstrating how to do this. In any case, give it a shot....if at any point it seems too daunting, stop and put the watch away for another time. I am also sure the wonderful members of the forum will provide help and guidance if you ask...myself included. Good luck! JC

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.