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I envy you! I also buy them broken but make them more broken.

Good work Rogart! I fear this may become a lop-sided effort...... @Emancipator are we being of help here? J

...yes I did. J

The correct replacement for this is not 255.112. This is the wrong diameter and thickness. 555.415 = 955.412, 955.412 is the same movement essentially just a few updates over many years.

Good tools, books and videos are all helpful but hands on practical work is where the learning really happens. Bits fly off into space never to be found again, you will break things, you will assemble in the wrong order, you will make lots of mistakes but with practice the mistakes become less frequent and the speed of dis-assembly and re-assembly quickens. For watches you need a timographer or the equivalent.

Cleaning, overhaul, lathes, other machines?

Would a pocket malnija cater your taste? Comes with all spare parts you will need. Regards joe

Hi Adam, I am happy to have been of any help. Your clear to understand description( evevn to a non native English spaeker I am) plus pictures, makes working with you fruitful, aren,t we all learning? Awaiting a pic of the watch on your wrist working perfectly.So This guy can play his tune. Regards joe

I feel your pain

Well, what can I say. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!". Nucejoe, you hit the nail on the head, but thanks to all who confirmed your thoughts too. It was indeed the centre tube, which must have worked its way loose in the ultrasonic cleaner. I put some moderate pressure on the tube with the flat of my tweezers and the tube snapped down flush into place on the plate. I did check for side movement, but none detected. Immediately afterwards, I reassembled the train wheels and within a couple of minutes, I had the bridge secured and the wheels spinning nice and freely. Thanks again folks. I'm still learning a year into this wonderful hobby, and this has got to be the most ambitious project I've taken on.

Rule number one when replacing a mainspring is that the one you take out is not necessarily the correct one, and therefore should only be treated as a useful reference which probably worked rather than being an absolute. The 8.5 is the barrel internal diameter in mm. Everything you need to know about why that is important and how you can use it can be found here: http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/mainsprings.php, So I had a quick look here https://watchguy.co.uk/cgi-bin/mainsprings and there are just a few Elgins with DBH barrels in the GR catalogue. I may be taking a leap of imagination here from the info you have provided, but the closest to what you have measured is cal 6099, although there are 2 options for that. If the pocketwatch database doesn’t help, you should measure the barrel i/d to work out which is most appropriate. Cousins does have the GR3137DBH in stock if you have a 9.5mm barrel, but not the 3123 for the 9mm barrel. When searching for mainsprings on Cousins where the exact item isn’t available I usually limit my search criteria to the correct height and end type on this page https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/filter/mainsprings-by-size-watch-pocket. This gives 4 options in your case, so you can select the closest - if you have the smaller barrel I would be inclined to go for the GR3095DBH if you can’t find the 3123 elsewhere Searching ebay for Elgin 6099 mainspring brings up some NOS parts for 6099-299 and 6099-300 matching the GR sizes. Personally I'm not a fan of buying NOS mainsprings as you have no idea of how they’ve been stored so they may be corroded, cracked, set or worse, but I have read posts from others who have used them successfully.

Today it's my USSR era Sekonda. Still not perfected a vintage lume mix so hands are still waiting to be done. Old pic

Nice job I bet you are happy with it.

Use the black oiler for everything. Sometimes a red for grease. If it's handy and lay closest to me. For oiling jewels i only use the black. Which is the smallest .

Speaking from recent events...... Dont assume Dont assume new movements can't be flawed Dont assume just because youve done something over and over again that you can be any less careful

I only ''tinker'' with watches at the moment. The first thing I've learnt is patience is a necessity. There doesn't appear to be any quick shortcuts, the long way round seems to be the only way.

You said it. Well almost. May I add section 9 and.. Don,t lean over work bench or the piece. Instead hold your head as if looking streight forward and hold the piece up. Have a CT scan of your neck taken and ask your physiotherapist for thorough neck examination. Make sure you got the right and good quality tools. Take pictures at each disassembly stage if working on unfamiliar piece. If ths piece is givng you a hard time, leave it alone till later. Don,t lend your good tools. Get a new H/S if the old one reminds you of macaroni sauce.

Just finished working on this 1894 Elgin 6S, Grade 117, 7 jewel watch, and it seems to be running ok. Hope you enjoy the pics and my little newbie adventure [emoji4] Got the whole watch on eBay, minus crystal and not running well. The gold filled Keystone "cyclone" case is kind of worn down but still looks ok to me. After cleaning, the amplitude was poor, like 180° poor. I pulled the mainspring and it was about as set as they come. A NOS replacement went in. And the amplitude was still terrible! Then the impulse jewel fell out. Until I get my warmer tool, I swapped a balance from a compatible watch just to see if it would run worth a darn. The guard pin needed adjusting and it took me forever to get the beat error down to a crummy 2ms. And still poor amplitude. I remembered seeing divots on the cap jewels so I swapped those. And despite the fairly loose pivot holes, she finally started running right, plenty of amplitude. Whew. Now, it does have a massively bad rate discrepancy between pendant left vs. right. I will have to address that at some point. I recased it (the two had been separated for almost a year now) after finding the stem bits. Cleaned up a couple hands and re-blued them and good to go. Now I just need to find a crystal. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I totally lucked out on this watch in several ways. First, I got it for a song, given how nice the case is. Second, even though it wasn't running, the only thing it took to start up was cleaning, lubricating, and a new mainspring. Third, once running it has averaged about +8spd, ranging from -15 to +25 spd while wearing it. I had dreamed about getting this running some day. I finally took the plunge a couple months ago after some success with other watches and corresponding confidence boost. What an incredible joy to get it working and wear it around (I am now officially hooked on watch repair). Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Unfortunately I don't have any photos, that was only some of the damage that was done to the watch, the whole movement was a right off. They also lost the hairspring, lost the regulating leaver, broke the jewels on the balance bridge, cracked the glass, lost the winder and tried to bush 2 pivot holes on the bridges and just trashed the bridge. But very kindly they told the owner there was no charge for the service...............