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I won these at a local auction yesterday for future restoration. :)

I have lost and found several springs but the best and more dramatic was one date jumper spring from an AS2066. While I was stripping down the movement, I heard this awful sound (tsaf!!!) then the spring lost!!! Down on my knees for a whole 30 minutes and keep looking on the floor with no results! Anyway I stood up to continue with the disassembly of the movement and suddenly realised that my free eye (the one without the loupe) was irritating me! I could not believe that the little spring had landed into my eye and after a while was moving inside my eye!!! I went to the bathroom and started to wash off my eyes with plenty of water in order to ease the pain or maybe to free the spring from my eye. The pain was getting worse so I called my friend to take me to the hospital. I explained the situation to the doctor and after the proper examination he concluded that the thing (the assumed spring by me) could not be found in the eye. He told me that the pain and irittation was still there due to the initial injury. Anyway, after getting the prescription for my eye, we got back home and guess what: I found the **BLEEP** spring laying on the edge of the washbasin!!!

I picked up a Mido Chronometer at the weekend for not much more than old seiko money for the very same reason.It houses an ETA 2837 36000 bph offcially certified movement to 6 positions which was running 2 mins fast over 24hrs. Stripped cleaned and serviced and over the past 24hrs gained 0 and lost a mere 1 second.......1970's movement that is well worth re housing into a new case.

Hello Ken, The Timex mechanical was a very clever answer to making a cheap, reliable, everyday watch for the masses. I don't think it was ever designed to be serviced like a Swiss watch as it was cheap enough to throw away. Probably the safest and easiest way to clean one is to remove the hands and dial and run the movement through a cleaning machine or leave soaking in lighter fluid and agitate now and again. When clean and dry re-oil where needed, adjust end shake on the balance and it should be up and running.

Greeting folks :) Now i know you've seen me in the advice section a few times ( too many times lol ), but i figured that i should share some of my recent repairs that are a success rather than a mess. I do manage to succeed 90% of the time with my restorations but no harm in asking for help when i know im stuck ;) So today i finished two watches that i had been working on, one being a nice automatic and the other a more classical manual. I can't quite put my finger on why these simple watches are such fun to work on but i do enjoy some of the more basic pieces. Both had a few issues but nothing that a good tinker would not put right. Both movements were crammed up with old oil and gunk and few small parts had seen better days, luckily i have a draw full of spares that brought new life to this pair. Casings have had a light polishing with scratches removed from case backs, new glass and a restored glass, new crown for the auto, and a nice but simple pair of straps to finish. Tissot Seastar Automatic GP ( Cal 784-2 ) & Rotary 21 Jewel Incabloc ( Cal AS 1702 ) Tissot - Has nice new gaskets, new AT Glass, and a nice new gold crown to match, the old crown was Tissot but silver ? Lord knows ? Rotary - Simple but effective timekeeper :) The poor Rotary was swimming in oil and dirt from where someone had previously tried to murder it by drowning, luckily i have two very good cleaning machines ;) I forgot entirely to take photos of the Tissot engine but im sure most of you know what an automatic looks like by now ha ha :) Anyway i figured it was time to share some success rather than my stumblings. Enjoy :D

What a good read, I have enjoyed these tales. I do hope the Health and Safety people don't get to read about vaguras incident. They will have us all wearing eye protection. Although I must add, I once had to attend Accident and Emergency with an eye injury caused by............ safety goggles :D

I will put a video together shortly. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Guys, A little story about a gravity clock I repaired recently. A fellow clockmaker from Tiffanies had a gravity clock on his bench for month's. The problem was that it failed intermittently, no particular time or position on the gear bar. While it worked, it had lots of pendulum overswing, until it stopped, my friend bushed everything and asked if I would try to fix it before it found a home in the parking lot. I suspected the gear bar assembly since my friend did beautiful bushing work. In order to test the gear bar, I disabled the click so I could run the movement up and down the bar to see if it would bind up, it did but not always in the same place. I looked in the movement and there were two large round brass guides that slid on the back of the gear bar, they both had developed flat spots where they rubbed on the bar. I rotated the guides about 15 degree's to expose an unused curved area, readjusted clearance as well. Gear Bar and guides must be kept dry. Took a 1/2 hour to repair and now the customer is very happy with it. My friend owes me a beer Al Takatsch

Congrats Will and Gareth - you have taken forum interaction to a new level :) Any thoughts on this: http://www.parliament.uk/visiting/visiting-and-tours/tours-of-parliament/bigben/ Does anyone know their MP or a Lord?

I lost a bezel spring for a Tag heuer which I found resting nicely "horeshoe fashion" on my desk lamp about a month later!. Bugger to get hold of a replacement too...

Excellent Will. Hopefully more of us will get a chance to do that sometime. :)