Leaderboard

Sometimes with old movements after you go through the normal cleaning cycles including pegging the jewels, you still find old oil that has turned to hard varnish left in the oil sinks. This has happened to me on a few occasions and I started thinking there has to be an easier way than soaking in acetone and going through the pegging process again. A couple of weeks ago I was at the dentist and found the answer in my mouth............the ultrasonic probe. When returned home, I fired up my iPad and started searching eBay for a second hand dental unit and got lucky. I managed to get the unit for my initial bid of £40 complete with five new sterile probes. It was only after buying it I realised it had to be plumbed into a water supply, and I didn't think my good lady would fancy a hose connection in the kitchen, and I certainly didn't fancy cleaning watch movements in the garden. The problem was solved by purchasing a 5ltr garden sprayer for £8. Now that I had all the kit it was time to try it out, so an old movement plate was found with the necessary hard residue in the jewel. The result to say the least was staging, a gentle clean lasting about 10-20 seconds per side and the jewels were spotless. I just love lateral thinking! Below are some pictures to let you see the setup and the results. I only cleaned two of the jewels in the plate. The complete setup. The control box. Water must be flowing when in use, and don't touch the brass with the probe. Two jewels cleaned. Spotless!

This is a lemania nero that use to belong to the bbc. The bbc commissioned these watches, around 8000 - 10,000 were commissioned from 1940 to the 1980 (I think) and each and everyone is uniquely different.

Some of my bits. A cyma military watch, I wear this alot, so I guess it's my regular watch.

A eternia chrongraph

The most important thing when restaffing is to measure the old balance staff. This way you can verify the new staff matches the old staff. So the abbreviations are for new style and old style.. Then you have short or long hub. So if you measure your staff compared to the information I have you should be able to figure out what you need. Then the reason why all the different pivots sizes usually have to do with the number of jewels of the watch. In other words a seven jewel watch will usually have a large pivoted staff 21 jewel will usually be the finest. So ideally be nice to measure the pivots.

Not at all ash. I don't use this forum as a means to gain business. However, Geo is correct, I have been incredibly busy on the bench taking on more work than usual due to an unexpected loss of earnings in another area. Regretfully, I have quite a few balls in the air currently but I'm hoping things will calm down soon for me lol. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don't forget the 220 bezel Roger!

One of these will do just nicely Davey. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Watch-Repair-Screwdriver-Tweezers-Electrical-Demagnetise-Demagnetizer-Tools-ZX-/281839235811?hash=item419eed72e3:g:aQAAAOSwYHxWLc3J

Thanks, Its a ST 105.013. I don't know what DON bezel means haha, I'm not so good with the new terminology. But I'm pretty sure it's the original one.

East meets west. Both ww2 watches. One is a british paratroopers watch the other is a german pilots watch. So if you think about it, these watches are enemies.

An omega speedmaster. Kind of a watch every watch collecter will get one day.

A J W Benson. I dated this to 1915 from the silver hallmark. I've always wanted a early watch but everyone I've had have been rather poor time keepers. However this one keeps time within 5 seconds a day, so was a keeper.

Hi Stephen, I'm very interested in hearing from you about how it all went, even the part of the holder which I still don't have since I don't work much on chronometers, just light stuff. About the pushers, there are different solutions, including the pressed on and the screwed on. Some come with "C" or similar clips and some don't. You will know what type is in each of your watches as you go along if the study of the case -- and experience -- doesn't give it up. In my mind it is a short, interesting and careful learning curve but once you have it, there is nothing to it. If you have any questions I'm sure me or any of our knowledgeable members will be able to help. Cheers, Bob

Hello Stroppy and welcome from me, I suggest you strip the cuckoo clock down to its component parts and amend your will to leave it to the only one of the beneficiaries that can put it back together within a set time limit. At least then you know they have had to work for the benefits (:-)) Cheers, Vic

too many potential problems for a virtually new and lightly used watch. it's not what should be coming out of seiko's factory.

It looks like that Bucherer has been well...butchered. (too easy?) My normal method is to prop the case up on a casing cushion, get a pair of tweezers, unclick the winder to time set position, and simply slide the tweezers behind the crown while using blocking the crown from flying across the bench, pushing down until the incline gets wide enough that the winder disengages. There's a small chance that might mark the case however, so my alternative method is to use an old pair of these hand lifts I have a pair where i removed the center section (get's in the way a bit if it's there, but still works), making it practically identical to the dedicated burgeon tool for crown removal. Sometimes it doesn't work if you can't find a point for the plastic blocks on the side to anchor against.

That erratic pattern is very indicative of poor lubrication. Clean, lubricate, demagnetise - retest. :) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think you may well be right Stephen. What a mess that case is in, it's incredible the damage some folk inflict on watches!

Purchase a copy of this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complicated-Watches-Their-Repair-Donald/dp/0719800900 and read it, also watch as many videos on the subject you can find, then.................enjoy yourself! Don't forget to wright a report on your progress in the "walkthrough" section when you get started. PS nice watches! :)

As a reminder a timing machine cannot give correct numeric results if the pattern looks bad like this. Visually does it really look like a .1 ms Beat error? If you can't see the lines both of them what makes you think the timing machine can? Then the timing machine is averaging over time and right now it's averaging garbage. Then the line is slanting downwards wouldn't that indicates it is running slow Except numerically it says it's zero? If we only look at part of it it might be considered some sort of weird escapement problem except you have dots much farther out than just escapement so demagnetising would be good. Then look if you see of the hairspring is bumping into anything. This is where audio real audio versus the synthetic ticking of the timing machine would be nice because if the hairspring is bumping in the something it makes a really interesting clanging musical sound.

In these parts, we are lucky some of the vendors (Borel for one) will offer custom cut crystals in plastic and mineral glass (don't know about sapphire). I've done a couple with them and I'm very satisfied...only I think it would not be price effective for you guys. Maybe locally to you there is a crystal fitter or whatever their trade is named that can do the job...don't expect low cost for custom made cuts.

even the fake is beautiful!

++1. mark, your demeanor and knowledge are a great asset to this forum. i'm all eyes and ears when you posts. keep up the good work.

Glad to hear that all is well Mark, and thank you for hosting this forum, it's a great resource for us all. Steve

Stuartbaker and Mark, thank you for your input. I think you are right. The groove on the stem looks good with edges that are not worn. I am going to remove the setting lever and check the "nub". The setting lever is very difficult to install, but that is what must be done. I have a donor watch, so if necessary I will take the setting lever from that watch. I am so close, yet so far from turning this into a working watch. When I get the stem in and wind the watch, THE WATCH RUNS. That is exciting for me because this is the first watch that I have torn down all the way and put back together. Somehow I am going to have to get around this winding problem.

Good news all is ok. I certainly miss the videos and the expert advice on the forum. It gives me enthusiasm to keep trying when I watch the vids. Totally agree with Ash145 and Autowind

Good to hear you are busy with work and hope the rest will take care of itself without much inconvenience and to your satisfaction! I'm very glad you are around one more time! Cheers, Bob

Excellent job on the crystal! ...and Mark, glad to have you around! Cheers, Bob

Brasso does a good job on glass crystals also, won't remove the scratches but it polishes them and they don't stand out so much. Max

Its better to have to much much work then not enough.

Same here Mark.

Mark!!!! You're back! I am actually dancing right now!!! I'm very happy! What happened? Why the long break? Are you OK?

^^ what Stuart said plus... 1. Could be the nub on the setting lever is worn. The setting lever will need to be replaced. 2. Could be the groove on the step has worn allowing the nub on the setting lever to slide out of the groove easily. The stem will need replacing. 3. Could be the hole in the movement plate is worn and the stem has too much side shake. Much harder to resolve. Possibly find a scrap movement or turn a new custom stem with a larger diameter to fit the hole snugly. Often times it can be a combination of 1 & 2 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's hard to see from the pictures. What should happen is for the peg on the setting lever to be engaged in the groove in the stem, and then you tighten the setting lever screw. Sometimes when the movement is out of the case, the stem can be pushed in too far and when you tighten the setting lever screw, the peg is still on the major diameter of the stem and so doesn't tighten properly. It's also possible the the peg on the setting lever is worn or broken. Can you remove the setting lever and show a picture of the other side? S

You could use a ball type punch and place that in the middle of the hole. Give it a punch with the hammer on the tool. That would make the hole a little smaller. Then you could use a reamer to drill it to the right size.

To close it a little by means of using a staking tool, to make the hole smaller.

Joey welcome to the forum. I thought I had a lot of watches--about 38 wearable....Then there are the numerous little mechanical corpses laying around hoping to one day be brought to life. Welcome to the forum. JC

I came across these pictures of what turned out to be my trickiest job.........ever! The watch is a Goliath pocket watch and the problems were:- Staff broken at one end. Hairspring distorted and contaminated with super glue. Being a Goliath, I thought the staff might just be large enough to allow me to make a repair by re-pivoting, after all the shaft was 1mm diameter. So decision made, I dug out my watchmakers lathe, some pivot steel and a 0.5mm carbide drill. It was more than fiddly to make, but I did succeed on my second attempt. The first thing I did was to strip down the balance wheel and leave the hairspring soaking in acetone to dissolve the superglue that was binding the spring. I then mounted the wheel complete with staff still attached into the lathe and bored out the end of the shaft. It was a bit like mating hedgehogs! That done I turned down a piece of hard pivot steel using a carbide tool before polishing and fitting to the jewel. I decided to turn the steel when in the hard state to save me the bother of softening it and then having to harden and temper it. The new pinion was then fitted to the staff. To ensure correct alignment, the staff was held in the headstock of the lathe and the new pinion in the tail stock. I applied a tiny drop of Loctite 386 high strength retaining compound to the hole in the staff then slid the pinion into the hole by sliding the tail stock along the lathe bed. When cured the pinion was rock solid and in perfect alignment. Now I turned my at tensions to the hairspring. The acetone had done the trick, the spring was now perfectly clean. I pushed and pulled, prodded and twisted and eventually managed to get the spring back in shape. I now fitted the spring to the staff in its original position and fitted the assembly to the balance cock. This assembly was then fitted back into the movement, and started to tick away quite nicely. After minor adjustment, it is holding about eight seconds a day. Here are few pictures, the last picture shows the watch running, hence the blurred balance wheel.