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Hi guys, Wearing an old Rotary today. This is an older watch, probably from the 40s. The case is Gold-plated and has seen some wear. Under the "Rotary' it says 'Super sports' . Above the sub-seconds dial it says 'shock-absorber' and 'anti-magnetic'. It has fixed lugs which makes swapping strap difficult, the one it has on is meant for fixed lugs and has a sturdy fold-over (probably metal inside) which clips on the lug. It has nice simple hands which have been blued well, the center of the minute hand has been left silver given a niece contrast. The case back is a faithful rendition of the dark side of the moon. Nice hands The dark side of the moon... not much can be done here without spending too much money. The inside of the dark side of the moon.. I believe the '38' means 1938? At any rate, its more than 10 years old ;so good job Meteor! When you pop off the bac, the movement stays in the caseback. You have to use a bit of force, working around the edges, before it comes away and you are left with this.. an inner caseback. This is comes off easily. Revealing the movement. I think it's an FHF of some sort. Note the early form of shock protection on the balance cock .. the cap jewel is retained by a spring plate and will 'give' is subjected to a hard knock. The problem with these early shock absorbers is that they were only mildly effective and that only if it hit the ground level. It had not much lateral movement built-in so if it landed edge-on the pivot would still break. Still better than no shock-absorber I suppose, If I am not mistaken Breguet pioneer this and later on it is common to find a similar system on Cyma watches. The ratchet-wheel has the normal Rotary 'Flying-wheel' which reminds me of a vintage car..Austin I think? You can see the early type dial holding screws at 6 o'clock and slightly after 12. The movement is marked 7/440 and just belove that there's a 'V" or maybe the 'pheon'? The watch runs well and keeps time. I haven't done anything to it but the regulator is cranked over to slow so there may be other issues, need to get some case screws too. Not so evident from the pictures is that the plates have been plated with a 'whiter' finish which looks like silver. You see similar on Movado movements. Finally in the era before center seconds, 15 jewels was as good as it got so this would have been made for the higher end of the market. v Well its almost the weekend so have a good one! Anilv

Many thanks, Chopin...Oli....it took some time to see it, but as I pushed and pulled the stem in n out I could see movement on the left of the stem then I noticed the small dimple the size of a pin head, pushed it with a pin and out popped the stem. New Crystalal in, "job done"

I was finally able to acquire this vintage WWll Omega Dirty Dozen 1940's caliber 30T2 watch . I had been looking at this model for quite a while ,….wiping the drool away every once in a while . This watch was issued to British soldiers during WWll . The dial is the original one supplied by Omega . I had seen others with a refinished dial , but it didn't "do it " for me . The hands are a replacement which is a MOD [Ministry of Defense ] approved alteration and neither the dial or case have ever been refurbished according to the seller who is listed as a Trading company in New York . The watch has a 30T2 movement which is a robust and reliable performer used by Omega in other models as well . It also has fixed lugs to hold it securely to the strap even in combat . W.W.W. stands for Watch , Wristlet , and Waterproof which was a spec given by the MOD in the 1940's . It has a 35mm case Diameter W/O crown . In total 12 different manufactures produced watches to this specification for the MOD . These watches were also referred to as the Dirty Dozen . Hodinkee has an article on these 12 watches which are in the following link…. https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/dirty-dozen-twelve-military-watches And here is my Omega ' Dirty Dozen ' watch... I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I do …….Aloha , Louis

Be wary of the sliding pinion slipping out of place or falling out when the winder is removed, there is often very little stopping them from falling forward through the dial in these skeleton watches. For reference.

Confirms it's a cleaning machine: Average times for small watches/clocks: 12 minutes to wash 10 minutes to rinse 5 minutes to dry

Hi chez138 I've repaired one of these a couple of times for a friend. There are plenty for sale on the bay. They look good but use a cheap Chinese movement which is not very robust. The metal used is not very strong, and further weakened by skeletonizing it. Given the quality of the parts they are not fun to take apart and put back together. Eventually I replaced the movement with a new one from Cousins (<£30). Fortunately to adjust the hands you won't have to disassemble it. To release the stem, press the lever shown arrowed : Good luck Mike

I put together a DIY on my blog, it documents the procedure on the 5M62 but I believe the location of the release is the same. http://onatelier.co.uk/seiko-kinetic-5m62-0bl0-capacitor-replacement-diy-instructions

Looks like he came back and posted a new thread.... https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/index.php?/topic/6799-Swiss-Army-Watch-Dissapointed-...

Yes u r right, after some observation on the day jumper, trial an error on adjusting its position and tension, applied small amount of oil back on day disc gears. Finally it can jump completely to next day after the date changed. Thank all of u for the suggestion and time.

Yes, Timex began to create service manuals as far back to 1960. I have everything up to 1977. You will find these manuals listed often on EBay.

I AM NOT making a recommendation as I have ruined my fair share of dials ,.....BUT , and that's a big BUT ,.... I have had some luck with Simple Green cleaner and a soft Ladies cosmic brush . I spray the simple green on and quickly give the dial a few swipes with the brush usually from the center out , then quickly rinse the dial with running warm water and also quickly blow dry it with my watchmakers hand blower . Use at your Own Risk ..... Here's the results of my latest game of Russian Roulette with dial cleaning using the method I described . Disclaimer , " I Lucked Out "....

Just got one of my Grail watches.. Breguet type XX 3820 flyback chronograph in stainless steel, yay!

A few weeks ago I was following the auction on a very Minty Hamilton "Rodney" watch . This watch has what is called a Quadrant colored dial which I am partial to . I shared this Bulova Royal Clipper on this post a while back that also had a quadrant dial.... The Hamilton Rodney finally sold to some lucky bidder for $300 . A few days later another Rodney came up for auction but the dial looked dark and the quadrant didn't show up very well in the pics . I figured that there was a gem hiding in the darkness so I got the watch for $74 . After I got the watch I took the movement out and cleaned the case and crystal in my ultra-sonic and indeed , the dial had a smokey dark look to it . I took a BIG chance and decided to try and clean up the dial knowing full well that I may do irreversible damage to it . I am talking from more then 1 experience here ....... First I said a little prayer ,..."Oh Please Watch God , don't let me mess this dial up....Pleeze "...then I proceeded . Well somebody up there must like me cuz it came through the operation OK....Whew !! Feeling ahead of the game now , I ordered a nice retro looking Hirsch watch band to compliment Rodney ... Looking pretty Spiffy if I do say so myself .

Hi guys.. its the middle of the week but here in Malaysia we're starting a 4 day weekend (independance day on the 31st Aug, Eid al-Adha on the 1st Sept)..yayy! There is also a strong possibility that next Monday may be declared a public holiday as well as we have exceeded our target for the Sea Games... If it happens it will be announced during the closing ceremonies this evening... heres hoping! Anyway, back to watches! Today I pulled out this neat Sandoz hand-wind. This is a stainless steel model and would have been one up the ladder compared to its lesser and more common base-metal cased brethren. The lume has aged and even fallen off the hands. There was some writing on the dial.. I believe 17 jewels, shock-proof and anti-magnetic but its pretty much gone. Luckily the hour markers and indices as well as the 'Sandoz' script and logo were stamped/cast (?) into the dial so they're all present. They have a goldish look and I believe they're plated but how they did this is a mystery. The minute markers are all present and the textured surface of the inner part is nice and its topped off by some nicely plated hands and a seconds hand with a pointed tip painted red. This shot shows the plated indices and hour markers.. The crown is an original Sandoz And the caseback is typical for a watch from the 50s. Inside we have a trusty ETA 1080 but looks like Sandoz made some effort to make it look a bit different by designing the bridges a bit different. The usual 1080 bridge has straight sides and this has more curves. Simple and reliable. Inside the caseback.. Wrist shot. It is a 'boy size' around 32mm without crown but its not really noticeable. Have a great day! .. or night/afternoon .. Anilv

Out for a test drive... Just finished putting this one together... The movement is a dual train design. Basically, it's two movements on one plate.. The left side train just runs the left balance wheel while the right side side balance and the motion work. If any one is curious, the extra function of the motion work does reduce power to the balance wheel. The left balance wheel has an amplitude of approximately 310 degrees while the right balance will has an amplitude of approximately 285 degrees. For some reason I was not equating this difference to the motion work and thought there was an additional problem. I spent a good amount of time looking for the cause and after switching all the components from left to right I got the same result, lower amplitude on the right side with the addition of powering the motion work as opposed to the left side that just had to transmit power to the balance wheel..

From your description it sounds like a simple case of a slipping mainspring. You don't need a Rotary specialist for this and it's a pretty simple analysis and fix situation. If a mainspring replacement isn't something you can attempt yourself (and I say this because any of the regular contributors on this forum could easily do this but I note you're a new member so assume you might want to leave this to someone else) then doing a search for an established watch repairer local-to-you is probably the best idea. And if the watch repairer is going to do this repair and this watch is something you want to use and keep long term - which it sounds like it is as a special 18th birthday gift - then you should have it serviced too i.e. a general cleaning and oiling.

Scuba divers only need to know how many minutes they have used. Set the bezel pointer to where the minute hand is, you'll know how much time you have spent underwater. Knowing how long your tanks can last you can decide when you need to surface. The uni-directional is a fail-safe device, if you accidentally move it, you can only move i counter-clockwise. This means it will show that you have spent "more" time under water. As a result, you would surface earlier if you are purely depending on the minute hand. If the bezel could move clockwise, you might end up longer underwater. As a point of interest, there are also count-down or elapsed time bezel where the numbers 0-60 run counter clockwise. Here you decide how much time you want to spend under-water, eg 10 minutes, set the bezel at the 10 minute mark and the minute hand will head progressively down to zero. Search Google images for 'count-down bezel' or 'elapsed time bezel'.. unfortunately I don't have any of these but alsways thought that made more sense for a diver. Anil