Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/07/19 in all areas

  1. More HMT goodness. A quick service and a polish, and a new light tan band brought this sunflower yellow faced beauty back to life. I thought I had all of the scratches out of the crystal, but there is still one little one that caught the sunlight at the 7 O'clock marker. I'm going to have to remove the crystal anyway, to get at the "history" trapped between it and the case, so I'll have another crack at getting it perfect then.
    3 points
  2. From what you can glean via Google, you can see that Lucien Piccard was a quality make, however I can't find anything online that resembles your particular watch. There is probably a good reason for that. I would guess the watch really is 1940 to 1950 or thereabouts, but there is one minor issue, so far as I can tell, the Piccard should have two "c"s in it, so I suspect that you have a particularly interesting fake. If it were just the dial that was spelled with one "C" then I might give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it was a re-dial, but since the caliber also has Lucien Picard I can only assume this is because it 'aint gen-yew-wine. It probably isn't a recent fake either, but rather one created at that time. The watch is probably worth $20 just for the curiosity value alone. I've seen quite a number of pseudo this and faux that, but not a Lucien Piccard (or rather Lucien Picard). Someone with more expertise may chime in at this point and prove me wrong of course.
    2 points
  3. Well, I've pretty much wrapped up this project. The replacement chronograph pushers (buttons) arrived last week and needed a bit of adjustment before they could be installed. As you can see from the picture below, the shaft of the pusher which acts on the Flyback Lever was a bit long and needed to be turned down on the lathe then re-threaded. The lot of Excelsior Park parts which I purchased earlier included replacement coil springs for the pushers which was just perfect as the spring for the Flyback Lever was quite rusty. The replacement is pictured below. I found it was easiest to case the movement first, then install the pushers. While doing this I noticed there was a part missing from the keyless works. Worried that I had lost something irreplaceable, I went back over my images taken during disassembly and discovered the missing bit wasn't there when I started. The missing piece belongs to the setting lever assembly- although what exactly it's purpose is I'm not sure. Perhaps it provides stability when applying the clutch. I noted the keyless works seems to function properly without the part so maybe it's just the appendix of an EP40 movement. I've circled the area with the missing bit below and added a linked image from the Watchguy's image archive which shows exactly what is missing. If I ever do find the missing part, I'll probably have to give my right arm to purchase it. I replaced the Flyback Lever and Operating Lever, both of which secured the pushers to the movement. The Flyback Lever is secured with a left-hand thread shouldered screw. The original screw was destroyed by rust but I found a suitable replacement; it doesn't have the three slots cut into the head so I added a dab of blue paint to distinguish the screw. I still need to find a large case screw to replace the original which was also destroyed. I needed to adjust some of the eccentrics in order to get the chronograph working just right. It's a pity too because those eccentrics had perfect heads on them until they were galled by my screwdriver. That will serve as a reminder to review the section in George Daniel's book on screwdriver sharpening. I cleaned up the dial with a bit of water and a Q-Tip but as you can see I lost some of the tachymetre around 3 o'clock from my efforts. The text came away without effort so I stopped any further efforts to improve the dial. The Hour, Minute, and Minute Recording hands all had oxidation damage. I scrapped the rust away with an oiler and Rodico and applied a coat of varnish to the luminous paint to keep it from crumbling. I think I could have polished and re-blued the hands (which would have been the "correct" solution) but opted to keep the scarred look; it's a reminder of what this watch has been through. By the way- blued steel hands on a white dial is just a fantastic look. They look black against the dial when viewed straight on, but when the light hits them just right they shimmer with the deepest blue. I tried to catch an image of the effect with my camera but just couldn't do it justice. A high dome acrylic crystal completed the job. So far, so good. The movement has kept time for the past twenty-four hours without issue. Once I've found a strap for it, I'll take it out on the town and then make final adjustments if need be. I think I got lucky on this one as the water damage wasn't as great as it could have been and I was able to find all of the replacement parts at a reasonable cost. Only the pushers broke my budget but I'm happy with the new buttons. I still have some NOS parts left over which I can hold onto or flip later to offset the cost of repair.
    2 points
  4. I wish I had more projects to report on but things have really bogged down lately as I continue to bite of more than I can chew. I'm in the middle of three long term projects (the Favre Leuba Bivouac going on year three) and am running short of workbench space. I'm in the middle of changing out the engine in my wife's Mini Cooper too (that's another story but if you own a Mini- be sure and replace the timing chain guides!) and that has really eaten into my "fun time". I thought I'd bring this one to the board for comments before I'm underwater- it's an old Gallet from the 60's. Do you think it can be salvaged? We clearly have some water damaged however, the seconds hand will move if the crown is given a little pressure. Water entered in through the chronograph buttons and the pendant tube. I haven't tried depressing the buttons- I think that would just lead to bits snapping and rust moving about. I'll need a new stem for sure... The dial actually looks quite good. I wonder what it looks like underneath though... It's not terrible, but it's not great either. Most of the rust damage is concentrated in the keyless works. There's a bit of damage to the hour recording mechanism... That's as far as I've gotten thus far. The screw for the Operating Lever is rusted tight and is now being treated with a bit of penetrating oil. Once removed I can pull the second pusher button out and remove the movement from the case. I'll know the full extent of the damage once it's in a pile of bits and pieces. This is an Excelsior Park EP40-68 movement. I've wanted to work on one of these for quite a while but couldn't afford a proper working piece. Excelsior Park parts are difficult to source though so I may not be able to bring this one back to life.
    1 point
  5. That sounds like a good idea. I have a very fine mesh colander which is big enough to get quite a bit of mesh material from to fashion dividers. But, I also fancy a bit of a challenge. Once I get moved I will see if I can manufacture a shaft. I have a mate with a lathe and I’m sure he would let me loose on it for the usual “consideration”. It also depends if I can get together the Elma bits at a lot less money than they seem to be advertised for. On the plus side, I already have the basket holder... But, it will have to wait till the move is over with and I’m settled again. So I’m keeping my eyes open in the meantime. And, my wife’s colander may well bite the dust in the meantime.
    1 point
  6. Lovely Rajat right there Andy. On the Yellow theme. I've shown this one before but this one accompanied me as a second watch for my summer hols with my son.
    1 point
  7. On the dial side it looks like the subdials are functional, but not as true chrono. J
    1 point
  8. This is typical with diver's that are used at sea but then not rinsed in fresh water and inspected every few months. Having got a micro lathe I finally could repair it. Holding the piece is the easy part as the chuck grabs the inside nicely, I placed a live center just for safety. I used a parting tool first but the cutting profile was all wrong. Getting there anyway I reground the tool with all the right angles but it became blunt quickly, I will try hardening it the next time. Trying various speeds etc, I couldn't get a finish better than below The crown was in a sorry state too. It cleaned quite good with an ammonia solution, but in the end it was replaced anyway as soment went at with pliers. Luckily I had a spare from an NH36 swap. 5 minutes @ 6BAR, all is good.
    1 point
  9. You are looking at very magnified pictures. I;m fully aware of that. You can only use the right gasket, any other will cause leakage. I think its great you have managed to do such a good job.
    1 point
  10. That is so true, and so easy to overlook, especially for someone like me who has zero backgrounds in engineering and solving problems involving physical objects. I was into music, playing the classical violin until my early 20s, and after that (except for sorting physical mail to make a living) its all been about working with computers and software. I'm fascinated with that Rotring pen, I might give it a try eventually. Thanks for the shopping advice! I've already looked at them at eBay and there seem to be quite a few offers.
    1 point
  11. Good work. I’m a little surprised its still waterproof.
    1 point
  12. Sorry for my late reaction, I haven't been on WRT for a while, WUS has my current attention. Always great to read about your endeavours, your well & clear written articles, your optimism and perseverance. Hats off with the end result
    1 point
  13. Before auto-cat and all those other computer drawing programs, all technical drawings were made first with pencil and concluding using Rotring pens, filled with black ink. They came / come in various sizes. For the work I used to do 0.13mm was impractical, too small and too fragile. I would say the chances of over-oiling with a 0.13mm pen are negligible. You could use your automatic oiler for the same purpose. Your imagination is the limit ......as you can see it doesn't have to be a tool out of the watch industry. As for the old fashion German Rotring, which aren't made anymore, there are still some old stock sold on eBay. Make sure you get the old fashion German High quality and sadly they are not super cheap, have never been. Unlikely if they were ever intended as oilers, but it works to my satisfaction and I get to go down the memory lane
    1 point
  14. There are many ways leading to Rome and whether to lubricate or not can be up for debate I normally do lubricate the seconds pinion and indirectly the dog-leg leaf-spring. For this job I'm using a 0.13mm new, but old-fashion Rotring pen with some light oil in the reservoir. I'm not using Moebius, but Dr.Tillwich 1-3 oil. Just for the purpose of demonstration I took an empty 2409 main plate with the center-wheel inserted. Normally the small tip of the Rotring pen is wet enough, due to the capillary working of the oil, to pick up the seconds pinion; You can run the pen past the pinion and this will lubricate the pinion, if ever so slightly. I than insert the pinion and push it carefully down the shaft of the center-wheel. The gently push on top of the seconds-pinion will lubricate the top of the pinion ..... and therefor indirectly the tip of dog-leg leaf spring. The dog-leg leaf-spring can cause a variety of problems such as irregular amplitude, low amplitude, "dropping" second-hand when tilting the watch or a jittering second-hand. It needs therefore to be adjusted such that it just touches the top of the seconds-hand pinion, easy to be lift up but enough "push" to provide just enough friction to let the seconds-hand to run smoothly. Anyway, it's up to the watch repairer to decide how & what .... Just my two cents
    1 point
  15. Thanks for your kinds words @m1ks! Usually yes, but in this case, I decided not to as I was thinking that it might create drag reducing amplitude. Anyway, I may very well be wrong about that and perhaps a tiny amount of Moebius 9010 would be beneficial at the contact point and on the arbor. Anyway, I was thinking back to this post when I serviced the movement. Also, this post might add something to the discussion, but I'm not sure. There is a pretty strong following of Russian watches at WUS. There are several interesting threads but perhaps the most useful thread is this one although a bit cluttered.
    1 point
  16. Perhaps one day they will wake up to watches the Swiss can learn from, perhaps they never will ............ Meanwhile we are having a field day I'll leave m1ks question and his introduction to WUS f/10 your honor ...... Great job !!!
    1 point
  17. Thanks hugely for sharing these, I'm a Vostok fan and enjoyed the detailed photos immensely. Could I ask, do you lubricate the tip of the centre pinion wheel where the brass pressure plate contacts it? I have a few Vostok but haven't yet serviced one.
    1 point
  18. Don't know the answer to the question, but recorded a video demonstrating the 1A a while ago.
    1 point
  19. Thanks for your kind words @Endeavor! Heartwarming! Well, that box looks more tempting and exquisite than a box of fine Belgian chocolate! You'll never be out of spare parts and movements for your finest CCCP dials. I just bet you got that box for a trifle! Well Endeavor, we have been promoting these Russian watches for a long time now, but I must say, the passion for them doesn't seem to catch on much here on WRT. Anyway, never give up, never give in! We'll just keep going with our collusion, oops, I mean promotion!
    1 point
  20. I find a smaller piezo to be a little better. Here I've attached a .zip file containing two comparisons between 27mm and 12mm piezos from an 18000 bph and 21600 bph movement. Hope that helps! 27mm_vs_12mm_Piezo.zip
    1 point
  21. Well, I spent quite a bit of time with it today (about six hours), extracting the rusted shaft of the screw for the Sliding Gear Spring, polishing the other screws, and repairing the Center Wheel and I finally have the base movement back together. The Mainspring was in fine shape, so I reused it. Other than the Center Wheel, the pivots in the going train were untouched by rust. Again, this was a relief because sourcing the various bits of the going train just may be impossible One of the interesting features of an Excelsior Park movement is the Fourth Wheel/Chronograph Driving Wheel arrangement. In most chronographs the Fourth Wheel has an extended pivot that the Chronograph Driving Wheel is mounted on- it's usually a friction fitted. Excelsior Park instead designed a double-decker arrangement where the Fourth Wheel and Chronograph Driving Wheel are both permanently mounted on the same pinion. A separate cock secures the wheel(s) to the Main Plate. Another thing I really like about this movement is how the milled springs and small bridges have little "clover leafs" that extend outward from the edges. These leaves fit into cutouts in the plate and that ensures the bridges and springs are always oriented just right before you screw them down. You can see the leaves extending from the edge of the Pallet Bridge in the picture below. Little things like this also catch my eye- the cap jewels have a small circular trough cut into the bottom of the jewel. I just can't wrap my mind around how that's accomplished with such precision. It took quite a bit of time to get the base movement back together. The plates went through the cleaner multiple times and much elbow grease was needed to remove the rust damage. The screw for the Sliding Gear Spring took about two hours to extract this morning. A lot of other screws were cleaned up with the help of the lathe too. In the end, I don't think I'll have to replace many. The Balance Assembly got quite a lot of attention too. The hairspring was fouled with bits of rust and other muck that must have been carried in by the water that caused all the rust damage. It was cleaned with lighter fluid and a steady hand then went through the cleaner with the top and bottom plate this morning. I do like the design of the entire escapement in this movement also. Excelsior Park movements are some of the earliest Swiss movements I've seen to use an adjustable stud for the hairspring- this makes beat error adjustment quite simple. Here we have a screwless Balance Wheel too and one with an Breguet hairspring. All good stuff. In order to test the movement I needed to assemble the keyless works as well. There's a lot of scarring here but I was able to reuse everything but the Stem. So I finished the day by giving the movement a good wind and popping it on the Timegrapher- Mind you that's the reading at full wind in one position but it's a good starting point.
    1 point
  22. Oops, hit the "Submit" button instead of the "insert Media" button! So first off- the Operating Lever was badly rusted as was the Flyback Lever and Sliding Gear Spring. These parts are not salvageable. Quite a bit of rust was left on the plate too after removing these bits. That's too bad as the top plate has a nice Geneva Stripe pattern on it. Hopefully I'll be able to clean the residue off. Bits of rust had made their way all throughout the movement. The biggest concern thus far is the Center Wheel though. It had some rust damage on the top pivot. I'm going to try and clean this up but I may have to look for a replacement wheel. Under the dial, the keyless works saw quite a bit of rust staining. Amazingly, almost all of the rust here came from the stem and pushers. The gears for the keyless work, including the had only minor damage. Underneath the top plate was quite a bit of rust residue. The Main Plate had quite a bit of rust staining as well. Some of this will clean up, but the silver plating has been damaged as well so there is only so much that can be done. The chronograph buttons and the stem are in a bad way. This is what they looked like after several hours in Coca-Cola (well, Diet Coke actually). Here's the full inventory of replacement parts needed thus far: Operating Lever Flyback Lever Sliding Gear Spring Minute Recording Jumper Stem I can probably turn replacement shafts for the chronograph pushers on the lathe but since one button was damaged as well (or at least very well worn) I purchased replacements off eBay. A replacement stem is coming from Jules Borel for $13.50 and for $300 I got a lot of New Old Stock parts from a seller on eBay. This included the Operating Lever, Flyback Lever, Sliding Gear Spring, and Minute Recording Jumper plus seventeen additional parts and five coil springs for the pushers. It was a good deal considering most of these parts can't be had from the normal supply houses anymore. So that puts the total cost thus far at $1014.50. I've also put about six hours of work into the project- most of it on cleaning rust and removing rusted screws. This morning I decided to purchase replacement buttons as well even though the cost is a budget breaker. They'll be about $90 a piece but their New Old Stock as well. I should have some more pictures up shortly as I begin reassembly.
    1 point
  23. Ah, thanks for all of the responses thus far! I expected a lot of positive feedback and the community did not disappoint. Of course this being the Watch Repair Forum I'm sure there are a lot of members who think the same way I do, "I saw it was broke, I knew I could fix it. I went to work." I'm really intrigued with the Coca-Cola idea too. I imagine it's the phosphoric acid that works on the rust but I'm a little apprehensive about soaking the movement since it's an aqueous solution- would the steel free of rust fair well if submerged? Incidentally, I've heard that Coca-Cola is also useful for removing oil stains from the garage floor- although I haven't tried that either. A quick update for Wednesday- the Operating Lever screw is in bad shape so I'm letting it soak a bit longer before giving it a second try. Rusty as it is, I might have to cut off the screw head off to release the Operating Lever. This is the first (of several probably) hurdles. You may have figured out that my plan is to restore the watch and with that in mind I've already sourced some of the necessary parts. It appears that the pivots for the Going Train are undamaged and the Balance Assembly is also in good shape. Considering this, I think it's a good candidate for reanimation. This will be a fun project so I'm going to document the progress on the thread here. Projects like this can be long term- especially if parts are unavailable or need to be fabricated (as an example, I'm currently on the fourth iteration of the bezel click for the Favre Leuba on my workbench- the click is unavailable so a replacement has to be fabricated) so this may be a long thread. Based on the comments, most seem to agree that question of whether or not to salvage comes down to the cost of repair measured against market value; the latter must be greater than the former although by how much is debatable. With this in mind, I'll be transparent and detail the cost of repair as I go forward. I'll detail the cost of each part replaced and although my labor is free, I'll try to keep a running total of the hours spent on the project as well. As a starting point we have the cost of the watch- 710 USD when I acquired it in September of last year. A good measure of the top line value of the watch can be ascertained by keeping an eye on the eBay auction here here. This Multichron is almost identical to mine but clearly never went through the laundry. As a disclaimer- I have no affiliation with the seller or the time piece; being an open auction I just figured it's a handy method of determining market value. It will be interesting to see how close the cost of my watch (once restored) comes to the sale price of the auction item.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...