Leaderboard

I found a rather elegant chronograph pocket watch on the bay recently. It was listed as non-running so I took a punt on it. Not cheap, but I liked the dial. The watch wouldn't run if the chrono was engaged, and would barely run without it. It's a French watch made by LIP. Popped the moment out of the case to have a look. It's very pretty in there... Time to strip it down. Took many photos so I could put it back together in the right sequence. Here's a bird's eye view of the chronograph works Removed the operating lever, pillar wheel, transmission wheel and various springs Removed the chronograph bridge: And the movement's now just a plain ol' pocketwatch movement: Time to see what's wrong with the movement itself: ...and found the culprit, or at least a suspect! Cracked 3rd wheel jewel: Spent a quiet Sunday morning sifting through my box of random jewels until I found one with the right diameter for the pivot: Reamed a wider hole and fitted the new jewel. I was pleased the colour matched the old one: Now I can put the movement back together. With the new jewel and a lot of cleaning the watch works extremely well - one or two seconds fast and only a little beat error which I'm going to ignore. Putting the chrono works back together was relatively straightforward - just a matter of lubrication and adjusting the eccentrics so that the depthing was correct: Time to fit the hands. The second hand for the chrono wasn't tight enough on the arbor, so every time you re-set to 0 the hand would spin! Tightened it with a cannon pinion tightener - there must be a better way! Movement goes back in the case: And another fine watch for my collection of slightly-battered-but-working-well watches. This was the first chronograph I've done, so I'm extremely pleased that it's working nicely. Learned a lot in the process. One of the things I learned was not to use Naptha on dials. The astute observer will notice that the word LIP has vanished from the dial. While I feel extremely guilty for having done this to a 100-year old watch, I'm secretly delighted - the first thing my wife said when the watch arrived in the post was "lovely dial, pity it says LIP on it...", and I agreed. Thanks for watching.

Hi Scottster, welcome to the forum. If you have got the watch running and the seconds hand is moving, but the hour and minute hands are not then the first thing to check is the canon pinion. try pulling the crown out to the setting position and see how easy it is to set the hands. If they move too freely then this would also point to a loose canon pinion, in which case you should be able to tighten pinion (carefully, and in tiny steps until it's right as it's difficult to rectify if you go too far) and restore the proper drive to the hour and minute hands.

This is not really a project for the inexperienced. It looks like the movement could do with a good service anyway as it appears to be very dirty re the pic. If the chrono second hand is loose then it maybe needs a really good push to seat it properly and this is why the jewel needs to be supported as it may push out. The tube may well be split and I would check this under high magnification because new hands are extremely rare, if even available, and a new hand will require high force to seat it properly, so a sound old hand is likely to be better. The chrono wheel/pinion could also be damaged and be the reason the hand will not fix properly (these are available but check carefully as there are differences depending on calibre and build. The videos on youtube are very useful but they do have some errors in disassembly/assembly processes, and fitting of springs, so be careful. I would advise using the seiko service/parts info you already have and follow their disassembly/assembly procedure. This movement is quite complex and there are some screws that must NOT be turned/removed as they are only for setting the chrono functionality, these are clearly indicated in the seiko data. If you are going to proceed then research thoroughly,take plenty of pics and make notes. The seiko watch forum (www.thewatchsite.com) has more info if you search for 'Seiko 6139', 'Seiko 6139B' and 'Seiko 6139B mainspring'. Hope this helps a little.

Good view here in Wicklow - clouds made it quite dramatic