Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/01/21 in all areas

  1. I wish everyone a Happy New Year on here. We don't wan't anything like last year. I'm looking forward to being out of the the bloody E U and not having other countries telling my country what we can and can't do.
    6 points
  2. Wishing everyone a happy, healthy New year. Keep safe
    4 points
  3. HAPPY NEW YEAR to all members And well said Oldhippy I second that motion, being run by Beaurocrats and self indulgent politicians with no Idea of reality is no fun. Onwards and Up wards. But not forgetting our friends in the European countries who have no choice, we are still your FRIENDS.
    3 points
  4. I have looked at that vid as I do not own a bushing tool. My only issue is when the guy finishes you can see it has been re-bushed. If possible when I re-bush, when completed I like it to be an invisible repair. I fit a bush that is slightly too long and so I can cut my own oil sink and 9 times out 10 it is invisible.
    2 points
  5. Completed the watch today. Seiko Sportsmatic 411, 7005-8016P, lemon dial, eBay find, originally bought in 1971 in Singapore with original guarantee card, no web sales back then. Fully serviced and running very well. Very happy
    2 points
  6. It is such a momentous turning point in our History to be once again a independent nation, I usually watch the fireworks display on telly but had to turn it off after two minutes it should have been a celebration of red white and blue but sadly chose to feature too much blue and gold for my liking, democracy brought about change that some politicians and media outlets still have great difficulty accepting.
    2 points
  7. Let me introduce the latest 404 club microscope. ? This item came up when I was looking for a collimator for my telescope, and since it was described as spares or repair with no bidders I put the lowest bid on it. So for £2.99 plus p+p I now have yet another microscope. It is what is sometimes described as a "field" or "student" microscope (or perhaps even a toy microscope), but don't let its toy like proportions fool you. The optics may be pretty rudimentary, but the eyepiece, turret, objective lenses, stage, lamp, reflector mirror etc do actually work and I have no reason to doubt the 150x 450x 750x magnification claims on the front. It was made in Japan, probably in the 1950s or 1960s with an all metal construction (die cast pot metal, steel and brass), with a similar finish to my Olympus from the same period. I have no idea who actually manufactured it, but I will say it is way more robustly put together than the plastic lensed injection moulded comparable stuff you get these days. The turret even has a ball bearing click, and there is a grub screw to align the travel of the focuser. This thing was clearly designed by someone who designed real microscopes. Obviously since it is intended to work with light passed through the subject, it is completely unsuitable for watch work, but if you want to see the bugs in puddle water or cross sections of a prepared biological specimen, it can easily do that while still being ultra portable. Just for fun I grabbed an 0603 LED (0.6 mm × 0.3 mm) and popped it on a glass slide and zoomed in on the bond wire on the device, and here it is in all its 150x glory. The image above is not great as it was shot with my camera pressed against the eyepiece, with an LED torch for top illumination in my other hand. Potato vision of the worst sort. In reality the field of view is actually pretty good (although there are still one or two specs of dust on the lenses that I need to attend to). The optics could do with a little more cleaning, and since they are un-coated and there are only three optical elements in the light path, the images are not perfect, but none the less its a pretty neat "toy" for three quid and a half hour of "acetone and air" cleaning of the lenses and a clean and re-grease of the turret and focuser. Here it is next to a "real" microscope for scale.
    2 points
  8. Congrats! Once again Great Britain is leading Europe to freedom!
    2 points
  9. You don't say! ? I do recall 3-4 weeks of hesitation before spending $$$ on Moebius oil "collection" thinking why do i need to spend that much if i only need it for a single watch?!
    2 points
  10. Well here I go. Weasol the 400 day clock book arrived and so did the clock. I'm going for it.
    2 points
  11. Hello all - what a find this forum is with plenty of good threads to get stuck into. I've already digested a long thread on oils and greases which was very helpful. I only recently found that I've got an interest in watches, although I suppose it was only going to take time as I can't help taking things apart - I think it's a bit of a sickness! I started off being given watches of members on both sides of the family who are no longer with us and now I'm keen to keep them going if possible. As my first practice watch away from those of family members I've been messing with a Lorsa 238 installed in a ropey / fake case with fake Omega Seamaster dial given to me by a colleague who never used it as it never kept time - he thought it was a genuine Seamaster until the back was opened and I pointed out the Lorsa symbol. Having looked into it this watch is likely to be what is known as "Autobahngold", possibly sold unscrupulously in the 60's to a naive tourist. It only needed me to buy a new balance and spring worth more than the value of the watch to get it running on time! Happy to say that the job went without any major issues and is keeping very good time for a cheap fake! Not something I'd ever want anyone to be stung with but I quite like the story behind it so strangely I'm quite attached to it now. I'm looking forward to reading plenty more on here and slowly improving my knowledge and then subsequently emptying my wallet on new (hopefully not fake) projects!
    1 point
  12. Hi Poljot have a read on this link https://www.davewestclocks.co.uk/Bushing.clock.plates.htm This guy hand bushes as I do and if careful attention to detail is observed ther are no problems cheers
    1 point
  13. I don’t know if it is because of their beat rate is remarkably slow, small about spring power required or their build quality but I found very few have had to be re-bushed. The most common fault is the suspension spring either being twisted/ kinked or just broken. If the pivots are polished all parts are spotless and the suspension spring is in good order they run. For the clock to run for several weeks / months they must be bang on in beat.
    1 point
  14. Sadly no, out of all of the obsolete 'high tech' crap that I have held onto over the last 50 or so years, the calculator was not one of them.... (still got an Atari 2600 and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum though......?)
    1 point
  15. The Sometrom was a similar beast to the Frieden again with the full keyboard they were a nightmare when the carriage jammed up could take half a day to fix. A lot longer if it was an internal jam
    1 point
  16. I remember using a mechanical calculator like that back in the late 1960's in a drawing office..prior to spending an arm and a leg a year or two later on a Sinclair pocket calculator......
    1 point
  17. I can't remember what I spent on my antique Jacot pivot lathe, but it was a pretty number of pennies, that I can tell you. And here I was worried that I might never use it. Hheheheh. Yeah. In two of my brother's pocket watches (there are five that I'm working on and will be posting here soon) I already found two that were sluggish and had rough patches, due to slight scoring from grime it seems. The burnishing did the trick. And I'm seeing that I will get use out of a staking set too, so that's on the horizon. I was actually kind of busy this past year. I only advertise by word-of-mouth among friends in social media and the like; imagine if I put money into advertising. I don't think I'm ready yet though. But when I'm ready to retire from my day job, this is what I'll be doing until I die. And I'm more than perfectly fine with that.
    1 point
  18. Sadly its not an Enigma, otherwise it would probably be worth a fortune. It is an "Odhner Arithmometer", a mechanical calculator which works in a similar manner to a "Curta". If you want to know how it works, then the manual is -> here <- I picked it up at a jumble sale many years ago for pennies because I liked the look of it. Apparently they have become quite collectable in recent years.
    1 point
  19. THAT would be a wonderful 2021 present for Denmark too, getting out of the ESSR ! Congrats with your new freedom !
    1 point
  20. I'm now seeing two very different clock movements, which will be confusing to some members. Please keep it to the original which was about the 400 day anniversary clock. Poljot the workings of your clock have nothing to do with the 400 day. What you have posted is a photo of a open spring movement with a strike works and it has lantern pinions.
    1 point
  21. Yes the pleasure is indeed fixing up that which just needs a little helping hand and that most people would jut throw away - we are too much of a throw-away society! Glad I'm in good company with all the guys and girls on here.
    1 point
  22. Hi Johnnie, Healthy, happy new year to you and your family. I stayed home/ flat refused going to dentist hence short of two teeth by the last count. Joe ?
    1 point
  23. Hi the following link is The Elgin site look up for serial numbers. https://www.elginnumbers.com/ Elgin Watches Serial Numbers _ Elgin National Watch Company Serial Number, Elgin pocket watch.html
    1 point
  24. pocketwatchdatabase.com is a good resource for American pocket watches
    1 point
  25. @AndyHull I found these also, heres the document you searched and 1 other.
    1 point
  26. Well now you've peaked my interest... If you don't wish to share the process, are you accepting orders?
    1 point
  27. Make sure you have a good mainspring winder so you can remove the mainspring and to reinstall it. I have to disagree with watchweasol on the comment on the pivots of these clocks the hardness is nothing like French clocks, turning a pivot down on a 400 (anniversary clock) is like knife to butter soft.
    1 point
  28. Hello and welcome to the forum enjoy
    1 point
  29. Welcome to the forum! Yeah, watches are kind of like cars (and other devices) that way. If you had an old Yugo or Trabant, and the sub-frame was cracked through and a ball joint gave out, you might just get a trumpet and begin playing "Taps". But when it's a favorite car, regardless of collectability or rarity, we want to keep it running no matter what. We want to save it. You'll see guys here in the states dumping over 100k into restoration work on an old Packard sedan from the '20s that may not sell on the open market for even 80k. But they don't care. They love the car and want it to run. So I wouldn't sweat it with the watches too much. If it's yours and you want it to run, it's your money and your watch, so who are we to question. Likewise with working on the watches of others. I'm doing commission work right now on some of my brother's pocket watch collection (which I have to get around to posting here) and with a few of them, if you added up all the regular services they've had along with sundry repairs, it would still likely be more than what the watch would sell for. It's just like that: if you want to keep a watch, you have to service the watch. Even with the old Elgin 241 that he has, the repairs it's going to need to get it running again are definitely going to cost more than the watch might sell for, maybe even at auction. (Even with me secretly discounting a couple things for him.) And my brother knows that. But they are his, and this is what he wants. So I'm doing all I can for them. And then there are my daughters who bring me their cheapo Disney Princess watches, and slap-strap watches, with dead batteries and dirt inside and all signs of a hard life. And they'll say in the sweetest voice, "Can you fix it, Daddy?". So you just fix it. The cost isn't a concern there. The value of the watch is priceless to the child. It could be some little quartz from a crane game. They don't care. It's theirs. When you're a dad, or a brother, or a good friend, it's what you do; you fix things like they're yours. Enjoy your time here. There are brilliant folks in this forum. Ask questions. Have fun!
    1 point
  30. what in the....it's Pallet Fork man! ?
    1 point
  31. I’ve just bought a Timex Sprite 1975 and would love to replace the hands but having difficulty in finding parts. Any suggestions?
    1 point
  32. Hooked is right. All they had to do was show me...there are several editions of the book. Any difference besides cost, between them? It really looks like fun those visible parts are so inviting I can't believe how big the screws are!? The broken torsion spring looks like it could be trouble...parts easy to find or is the usual detective work in order? Yeah I'm already hooked...
    1 point
  33. The Metamec synchronous mains clock arrived, so I stripped down the case and the brass work and cleaned it up. Its a hefty beast, and scrubbed up very nicely. I didn't appreciate from the auction pictures how it should look without all the grime and filth. The brass was black. Maybe it spent its life over a coal fire mantlepiece. I'll tackle the mechanism tomorrow, check it for electrical safety and fit a new cord and plug if I have the time, but here is a quick before and after shot. The plinth and the pillars need a quick kiss with some shellac button polish, and I'll strip and lacquer the brass properly when I have it running, but I must admit its actually a very attractive little clock, and they certainly didn't skimp on the brass, it weighs a ton.
    1 point
  34. Hi Lee, That looks like a nice piece of kit, albeit somewhat over specified. I have been using a Wild Heergrugg M5 now for about 4 years courtesy of an amazing car boot sale find and I wouldn't be without it. For me the advantages are a much better view of proceedings (obviously) and a much more comfortable working position as it allows a more upright seating stance, not so hunched up. Proper stereo is important for judging distance. My setup gives me 6, 12, 25, & 50 times mag as standard but it came with an attachment which allows control over depth of focus and increases mag by a factor of 1.25. I use 6 & 12 for most stuff, 25 for hair spring work, and 50 for inspecting jewels and pivots. More than that is of little or no use. One very important factor is working distance (how much room between the watch and the object lens when in focus) as you have to be able to get your tools in there. Mine varies from 12-15cm if I remember rightly which is fine. The one you're looking at states 10cm but that may well change with different magnification, and if that is the max then it's worth asking exactly how it changes as this may well restrict its usefulness. One other word of warning; cleanliness takes on a whole new meaning under 50x mag. Be prepared to get a bit obsessive about it (not a bad thing in a watchmaker). It's quite a lot of money to shell out though so worth asking about the working distance. And if restricting the mag to 50 - 75x saves money then that's worth considering as you won't miss the higher mag in practice. Have fun.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...