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My son arrived from LA with a few packages for me that I have been busy accumulating on the Bay. I find that the watches and parts are really good value and often the sellers accept a quite low best offer price so I now have the following stuff in a queue for attention (except for the Omega watch which is now on my wrist). I managed to pick up this Omega movement: And I have got this case in the UK which I believe to be compatible, at least the sizes match and the ages of both the case and movement are about right as well so I am hopeful. The movement is working but the hands will need a re lume and the movement a full service. There is some rust to attend to but I have a new stem arriving from Argentina (got 5 for £8.50 postage inc.) and the case spring and bumper springs are not too bad when you get a proper look at them. Even the dial is in better condition than it looks in the photo. I also got a couple of Helbros watches one of which is in really good condition and comes with original box and papers but the lens needs replacement or polishing the other Helbros is not so good as the case is chromed and worn but the movement is working and the dial is good but I got it for a total of £12.00 and it has a brand new Speidel expandable bracelet on it so I probably will break even on it with a bit work and I have some spare cases that may fit. I got the Accutron coil for a song but it is a bit of a punt - have not tested it yet but fingers crossed. On a whim I got this GP movement that will go in my box for repairs as it needs some bits so I will keep a look out. Finally a treat from my wife, Fully serviced and working like a charm and I am well pleased with it. Now what can i get to bring back with me when I go to LA next year --- Hmmmm. Cheers, Vic

Hello. Having just discovered these forums after looking over some of Mark's great videos and though I should take the opportunity to join up and introduce myself. I'm just starting to get into watch repair as a hobby and am mostly interested in working on old manual wind movements. As a starting point I've picked up a few cheap watches that are in need of servicing. Hopefully they won't end up destroyed along the way. My professional background (and other hobby) is in embedded software and electronics. I'm fairly hands on and have done quite a lot of fine soldering work under magnification. Hopefully some of these skills will be transferrable. At this stage I'm in the process of acquiring enough tools and oils so I can perform the basic clean and service work required. I also picked up this cool toy a while ago that I hope might help out in the hobby. It's a head mounted stereo microscope that was originally designed for surgeons and dentists. It quality unit with apochromatic optics, a good depth of field and working distance. It is able to auto focus and can zoom from 3.2x - 9.0x. It also has a co-axial light source and built in video camera. It was quite cheap but was missing the control box that drives everything. Fortunately I have been able to reverse engineer enough of the inner working to enable the auto focus and control the zoom. Mark's videos have been extremely informative and there seems to be some very generous people here who are willing share their knowledge with others. I'm sure I'll be here with many questions once the screws start flying. - Cheers, Tex

I have finally finished editing the Breitling Bentley chronograph video. Featuring a stripdown, assembly and lubrication of this ETA2892-A2 movement with the dubois depraz module. The first part will be published today on Youtube at 12pm GMT You will be able to see it on the watch repair channel at Youtube or http://www.watchrepairtalk.com/page/watch_repair_videos.html/_/watch-movement-servicing-stripdowns/part-1-breitling-bentley-service-eta-2892-a2-dubois-depraz-watch-repair-tutorial-r35

your motor probably isn't the problem, green dialux is fantastic but keep in mind, like all compounds, it produces different results depending on what wheel you're applying it with, as well as how you're going about it. in polishing steel I'll generally stick to chamois and fluffy cotton mops, the chamois is a little firmer, it will take out light to moderate surface damage (depending on how persistent you are and hot you run the piece.) and finish up steel to usually a cloudy mirror, sometimes a good mirror, but usually some way cloudy or imperfect. So I have to switch out to the softer cotton, which needs to be run a good deal faster than the chamois (make no mistake it firms up with speed, so fair warning, it will take off skin if you're careless) But it's softness means it can be used as a final finish with the same compound, taking out the cloudiness and imperfections of the previous stage of polishing. For greater damage i stock felt and grey dialux, but you have to be careful with this, especially if it's a mini mop like it is for me, and not a bench motor, it goes either way but especially when you can only work on a small area with a mini mop, a mop as hard as felt can very easily distort a piece, leaving dents and ridges that the light reflecting in it warps around and betrays your mistake. I advise you work backwards, learn how to get a really good final finish, and progressively learn to take out more and more damage without putting your own damage in and still being able to get that same final finish. It's better to lean on and potentially misuse compounds/mops/techniques that are too gentle than to lean on and potentially misuse things that are too harsh.

I couldn't do without my Dremel but like George I always finish off by hand (just realised what I have written - please resist lads I was actually trying to be serious for a change) Cheers, Vic

Went down for me but came up a short time later, reminds me of when I was young Cheers, Vic

Thanks Geo. The camera output is S-Video so the video resolution is limited to SD video. Judging from the amount of electronics in there devoted to the video feed I do expect the quality to be about as good as SD gets though. I don't think the video camera is magnified in the same way as the stereo optics but I haven't hooked it up yet to see if that's the case. I'm intending to get a USB video capture device and see what it looks like soon. Even at SD resolution it might be interesting to see a movement disassembled from the perspective of the person doing it so it's probably worth getting the camera up and running. This isn't my first foray into horology. I've designed and produced a few electronic clocks in the past. This has what has led to an interest in mechanical timepieces. They are beautifully made and I'd like to learn some of the skills involved. Some of my clock making efforts so far are below: - Cheers, Tex

Looks like they forgot to renew their domain name - happened to me before. They obviously quickly renewed it but it takes time for global DNS to propagate and that is why some of you were seeing the site and others were seeing the Network Solutions parking page. What I don't understand is why they did not renew it for the full amount allowable - 10 years. Look - they only renewed it for one further year: Expiration Date: 18-jun-2016 It's cheap as chips to renew domains these days - probably would have cost them about $80. Watchrepairtalk.com won't be up for renewal until 2023 :P

Forgot the pic

Absolutely old chap, it's a British motor. :-) It's probably as old as me! Over engineered, built like a tank and will run forever.

If the spring is completely out of the setting, you will first have to clip the hinged end in then hinge it upward before inserting the complete jewel assembly. The spring should push back into the setting when held down flat and pushed in with tweezers. Once in, it should easily flip upwards to allow the jewels to be fitted. Make sure that the flat side of the end cap jewel is towards the pivot jewel. Once the jewel assembly is placed in the setting, you should be able to hinge down the spring and gently clip in the legs by applying slight downward and side pressure, using the point of your tweezers or sharpened peg wood.

Who's "Woking" and what do you want them to do to you? [emoji47] [emoji16] [emoji12]

A fine pair of lathes you have there Jim, and really handy having the cross slide. Are you sure the motor is powerful enough to drive it! ;)

Dear Mark, As always, thank you so much for your labors. It generally takes me a few times watching your videos to pick up on the knowledge contained. I'm sure I'll be watching this one more than once. It makes me happy to see things like this. In the modern era of atomic watches and $1 quartz movements, true timepieces cannot survive on physical properties alone. Much like other fine arts, horology will live and die by the passion and accessibility of its practitioners. Perhaps a bit philosophical for an internet forum, but videos like this go a long way towards that goal. Take care, all the best, Mute

This week I took delivery of a www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk BM1 long arm microscope. Several of you where interested in this & how I got on so I thought I'd do a review. bear in mind its written after only a couple of uses, by someone who has a few years experience on quartz but only 6 months experience on mechanical watches. Image from brunelmicroscopes Cost (including post & vat at time of writing) £219.60 First impressions where pretty good, for a couple of hundred pounds you get a well made, heavy & positive feeling microscope. you get a nice cover & some additional madnifications You can adjust the eye lenses to suit your eyes & adjust the long arm in various directions. I found three faults with the microscope, the first is if you swing the arm by 90 degrees the base is not weighty enough to support it & the unit tips over this means you have to pretty much use it directly inline with the base which gives a more limited space under which to work, especially if you adjust the eyes to suit a seated position, although once I got going I didn't notice it, it was enough. The second issues was the light got pretty hot & it didn't half make me jump when I touched the back of my hand on it, which being made to jump when your talking watches isn't the greatest of news is it! but I think this is only a matter of getting used to it as a set up The third issue was the quality of the lenses as you can see they look quite cheap & Chinese nasty & I'd like to have perhaps had something to put them in to keep the dust out of them. To work with the microscope is a joy! I mean a serious joy! my hand was a lot steadier, things where more precise. changing lense is a simple case of sliding one out & sliding the next in I found with the angle i'd set the eye lenses to gave me about 10cm of work space, which was more than enough, I didn't foul with the microscope at all. the first job I did with the microscope was to change a date when on a 255.411 from the white it was supplied with to a gold one from the watch I was repairing & I have to say I have never found doing a piece of work on a watch so pleasing. the preciseness So all in all, as a user you can see & feel this is an entry level stereo longarm microscope, but its still a long, long was out in front of an eyeglass/loupe and is a sound investment for an intermediate user & I would throughly recommend one at this price I'd give it about 7.5 out of 10. Lee