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I would certainly assume that the following is “old news” to the seasoned among you, but if you’re new (or pretty new, like me) to watch repairing, I think and hope you’ll find the following information useful. As most of you know, finding watch movement spare parts can be pretty trying. Oftentimes, they can’t be bought new as they are obsolete or restricted, and as a hobbyist it is even worse. So, one strategy I intend to use in the future will to buy complete movements on flea markets sold as “for parts/repair”. Even so, finding the exact calibre can take a very long time. I had this problem with a Unitas calibre 6380. I needed a new pallet and an escape wheel. When searching eBay all I found were expensive complete watches. Searching the Internet, I came across a page here on WRT which eventually led me to the page “JBorel Products Watch Parts”, and this page felt like a gift from the watch gods. Using this page, once you’ve located the watch movement part you’re looking for you can, with a simple click, get a list of all other calibres (and sometimes even other brands of calibres) using this exact part. That makes it so much easier to find a donor movement or the part itself if it is not listed, for example on eBay, for the calibre you’re working on. For example, let’s say we need a minute wheel for a Unitas calibre 6380 (just follow the red arrows which indicates a click):

That's the 3rd wheel. It drives the 4th pinion, as well as a central pinion for the seconds. One wheel is free on the arbor, the other is tight; the free wheel engages the 4th wheel, the fixed wheel and free wheel engage the sweep seconds pinion. Sounds weird but it's a very elegant solution to keeping the sweep hand from fluttering without adding a friction spring. The function is like this: the fixed 3rd wheel and free 3rd wheel are trying to move the sweep pinion but the free 3rd wheel is stopped by the escapement of the watch. The effect is that the fixed 3rd is pushing the sweep pinion while the free 3rd is resisting, effectively sandwiching a pinion leaf of the sweep wheel. It eats no power from the watch, but the seconds hand is totally stable. Felsa put the first watches out with this system on a commercial level, but the concept has been around for a long time. Not seen that often though.

Another forlorn watch..an st96 powered tempo.One of the tabs from the retainer ring found it's way into the gear train. Perhaps the previous owner wanted it to hack.

If you're hobbyist living within the EU, J Borel is essentially and unfortunately not an option as the EU (not the US) punishes anyone and everyone who wants to extend their business beyond the EU. For example, now that the British are leaving the EU (good for them) it will affect Swedish companies negatively as the EU will punish these companies when they do business with Great Britain and prohibit bilateral agreements. In Swedish media, the Brits are portrayed as the villains hurting Swedish business. What a joke! Oh, well, sorry for the rant! I can, first hand, report that it is very expensive to buy from J Borel as long as you're unfortunate to live within the EU, so in most cases I personally do not consider it an option unless it is my only option and perhaps not even then. I live in Sweden (within the EU abomination) and I bought an oscillating weight bearing from them in December 2019. The part itself was $17.53 and shipping (USPS First-Class Mail) $16.55. Add to that, import charges, local VAT, and administrative fees and we're getting close to $50. Just insane if ask me, so that's not something I'll be doing soon again. Anyway, what happens is that once you've placed your order and have registered your PayPal/charge card they will get back to you with an email with an offer for the shipping cost. If you want to go ahead you simply reply to the email stating that you accept the offer. At that point they charge your Paypal/charge card and send you the part(s). Pretty smooth actually, but of course very expensive. And no, you cannot decide the method of shipping yourself.

Hello, everybody. I wanted to share my restoration stories that I have done for a long time and thrown into my archive. First I discussed the Atomic Mars 71 Brand using Valjoux 7734. As it was seen, scratch and dial is broken. To begin with, I tried to brush the Case as Brushed and make it the first day. If it is decorated, I polished and re-painted the indexes (with acrylic paint). I usually do this in three layers so that the paint is not deleted in a short time. I replaced the case buttons and tubes with aftermarket buttons. Since the condition of the dial was in very poor condition, I had it re-painted. The quality is not so good. In Turkey, unfortunately, not doing the job well. Caliber 7734 (Valjoux) is a special and robust mechanism for me. With good maintenance and lubrication, you can reduce deflection values up to 3-4 seconds per day. I added a short timelapse video about it :) As a result, such a result came before us. Thank you Taskin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKH6yTKUfpM

Just started on my first attempt to restore a Wostok Kommandirskie. Winding stem broken but crown still around with remaining stem in the crown. The 2414 movement appears to be in surprisingly good condition and the casing should be ok with a bit of cleaning and polishing. But...when searching for a winding stem all that show up seems to be kind of ”integrated” stem and crown. Are these generic to fit all kinds of casings? And how does these screw-down crowns work? I suppose there must be space for the stem to move in when the crown is screwed tight? Grateful for some advice from some of the guys with a special interest in these russian wonders! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

A lazy Sunday with my Oris.

ignorance is bliss

Picked up this vintage Seiko 7T32-7C30 chrono,Panda dial from 1997 on the cheap from my pawn shop rounds. It had a nearly dead battery and very sticky buttons. Most of the functions were inoperative because of the power saving features of a low battery. Got it home and opened it up and found that a previous owner had tried to jam the back cover on without aligning the pushers and the corresponding notches on the cover and had pinched the pusher tubes. After disassembling and cleaning I straightened out the pinched tubes, placed a new battery and shorted the reset pin to the batter per the manufacturer. everything is running perfectly, including the alarm. Now all it needs is a new crystal.

Pics

Another unloved USSR made Sekonda 17 jewel, with date, no other bids, lined up for potential 404 club membership. A clean, service, polish and an attractive leather band, should do wonders for it. These are very under rated watches in my opinion, once serviced, and cleaned, they are solid as the proverbial "brick dunny", and turn in very respectable accuracy.

I'm fortunate to own one of these Seiko QT-99 Quartztesters, it might be about 45 years old but it is brilliant, you can even time LCD watches, conventional quartz watches and even electric/electronic hybrid mechanical watches with it, even managed to time a Timex jump minute hand quartz watch that only gives one pulse every 60 seconds (set the gate time to 120 seconds instead of the usual 10 seconds) Shown here with a vintage JDM Seiko 3862 from 1973, 0.1 seconds a day, not bad for a nearly 50 year old watch... Been a really good investment...

Hmm nice..I think off brands are fine.provided they are properly done.it looks to be a moderately pricey smaller brand..

Hi *, Inspired by Andy I decided to record the things I do with clocks and watches here, for the unforeseen future it will mean that I am going to describe the mistakes i make and complain a lot, and cry, and cry a like a baby a little bit more. Mark put a Valjoux (ETA) 7750 movement together using spare parts from the scrap heap, now i am planning to do something similar, if I can spend enough time with watches I am going to try to put a movement together using parts coming from my carpet only. Tonight there is no mistake or complaints i made a few wrist watch display holders still made out of my neighbor cut-down tree. I am planning to make another set where the middle section will be wider. lui

Now I just need to shorten the stem and order a crystal. A flat one will fit but I'm thinking a low dome will look better.

I am very interested in the diameters as well. The mainspring winder I have is an antique set which belongs in a museum in stead of being used. And does not function very well. I also found this set on Ebay. And I even saw it on Aliexpress for around €78 incl shipping. https://a.aliexpress.com/lkEw5Nax1 But nowhere I can find which exact measurements the barrels have.

Another project mechanism from the penny lots. A 1932 Elgin watch mechanism. I may already have a case that this would fit. I have to assume it will most likely need some work on the balance, and it is missing its crown and stem, but otherwise it looks complete, and for well with the 404 rules, I figured it was worth a punt. http://www.elginnumbers.com/elgin_glossary/#grade After all, it also has hands, and a fairly legible dial, so it isn't nearly as bad as some of the basket cases I've looked at.

To start with it is described as vintage (vintage today doesn't mean what it used to be) I have seen clocks made about 10 years ago called vintage. This is a set for E T A movements, it doesn't mean that you should only use them for there movements,but on there movements they will work better and be a better fit. For what its worth I couldn't get along with watch mainspring winders, so always wound them in by hand.

I have a few Camy watches and couldn't resist this Camy 'Silver Cloud' on ebay despite its non running description (it was cheap, £11 inc p&p) On arrival it was soon obvious that the movement was the old faithful FHF96 and balance spring was FUBAR'd I had a quick check around and found that I could get a new balance but couldn't justify paying the £30+ on this watch. What I did find though that I could buy a 'good running' FHF96 equipped, re-cased and dialled 'Oris' from India for £13 inc p&p.... Well the 'Mumbai Special' arrived and I was suitably surprised with the obviously totally rebuilt movement in it (probably a new Indian built copy) Not wanting to 'sully' the Camy with this movement, I settled for just swapping over the balance assemblies. I fitted the Camy with a nice new genuine alligator strap from Vietnam and the result is one nicely running vintage Camy and lots of FHF96 spares, total outlay, including the new strap, less than £35 including all carriage costs

Here is my humble collection of Fob watches over the years as fr Nineteen seventies.

It wasn’t very expensive, not in the grand scheme of things anyway. I paid 215 for it, and it’s running good. Someone’s selling a similar Clebar with a bit more patina that I wanna grab next, though I really want a seamaster, and every other watch I buy just delays that. when I got it I they sent a few extra straps, I’m not a NATO fan so I didn’t own any, but it came with this blue and red one that works perfect with my cubs hoodie and cap, and matches the red in the dial. last night I won a lot of 35 various Swiss movements that are supposedly all together. They’re my practice! This morning was my first ever tear down, a broken Vostok I’ve had for many years now. Turned out the balance spring was broken. Now I’ll try putting it back together. It doesn’t have to work so there’s no pressure lol.

A couple more photos. This first one shows the impulse mechanism. Every swing of the pendulumdrops the gathhering pallet on the end of the gathering wire (Its just above the tooth in what would be the 3 position on the dial) onto the saw shape teeth and rotates the wheel and the hand. When the hand reaches 30 it realeases the impulse leaver (for want of a better word) which drops under gravity causing the impulse wheel to run down the slope on the impulse pallet giving the pendulum a little kit. If enough people are interested I will upload to Youtube a slow motion video of this. The next photo is the master movement that sits on top of the vacuum tube under a glass dome that runs the master movement. It has been cleaned and serviced but cant be installed yet as the impulse carriage which I don't have a photo of has a broken pivot on a wheel and that part was off at another watchmakers being repivotted. (Its a joint effort between 2 watchmakers to restore all of the observatories clocks). The movement is sitting ontop of a basic wiring diagram for Shortt Clocks, which they hadn't been able to figure out why it did not match the clock they were working on, but my reference material solved that mystery as I managed to prove they were for clock number 94 (The other Shortt clock at the observatory) which is a Type B clock (simpler) than the Type A clock number 11 is.

My father in law sent me a Fossil watch my wife and I had given him as a gift. It is a model ME3052 and he told me it was not working. Upon receiving the watch, I immediately noticed the rotor was loose inside and banging around everywhere. Apparently it came loose after the watch fell. I opened it up and the rotor had caught in the escapement, damaging the balance spring and wheel. Since the watch had sentimental value, I decided to fix it. Obviously the movement had no model number or any marking of which I could make out the movement model. I knew it was a Chinese skeleton, of which there are a million models online. After several days of research and almost giving up, out of pure luck I glanced at the backside of the dial and saw TY2723 marked. I typed it online and bingo! That was the movement model. I could only find two places which stocked it and decided to go with Esslinger. After the movement arrived I assembled everything. I was almost done when I placed the crown and it wouldn’t go in. After some tinkering it finally went in. I was happy, but when I flipped the case, the winding gear was loose inside the case. Apparently it dislodged when putting in the crown. I decided to give it a shot and fix it. Mind you I had never taken apart a movement, let alone a skeleton stem assembly. It was difficult and I assembled it wrong several times before finally understanding how everything works. It was good that I had the older movement, cause I lost some tiny screws in the process. I think the hardest part was getting the little spring which drives the clutch lever in place. Anyways, I put it all together and the watch works great. Teaching point: Don’t take on a skeleton movement as your first fix. Hahaha Just wanted to share the experience with you guys, cause I was so happy I was able to fix it. Below are some pictures.

That is what happens when you mix copy&paste and sleep deprivation. And the next day 10,000 dials have been printed already