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.... your YouTube homepage suggestions all have pictures of watches ... your wife calls you out for thinking about "why that click spring won't fit under the ratchet wheel" when she is in the middle of a conversation with you about her sisters new curtains ... you see something in a store that you immediately think how to repurpose it for using it in watchmaking ... you find yourself shaking your head and rolling your eyes when you friend expounds on their great new smart watch, and they are confused when you don't share their enthusiasm as they thought you 'like watches' ... you get in trouble for all those little bits of rodico bunging up the washing machine, vacuum cleaner etc... ... your family don't find it unusual to find you on your hands and knees with a magnet swearing at the floor and mumbling about springs/screws ... your family know better than to use those 'little screw drivers' to change the plug on the kettle ... your family know exactly what they are getting for every birthday/christmas gift ... you don't have any idea what time it is, or that 5 hours have elapsed since you started that 30 min quick fix despite being surrounded by watches and clocks ... your family start a conversation with the words "it's ok you don't have to look up..." I'm sure I will think of more as the day goes on!

Just saying members we don't do Politics here. There are many forums for that sort of thing.

Now all we need to do is find a way of hiding the new tools from the wife, all too often I get home from work and Mrs W says through gritted teeth "ANOTHER parcel arrived for you today".... she even made a crack a few weeks ago saying that we were having cat-food for dinner so we would get used to the taste for when we retire - a poke at my watch/tool buying.

I'll tell you what i love about this forum, there is no bullshit, we are all genuine and honest, we say it as we see it, if we dont know we say so, if we get it wrong we apologise, we try to be diplomatic when its called for, and when we criticise its constructive, but we also have a laugh,banter and take the pee out of each other with no hard feelings. I belong to a couple of other groups that specialise in different aspects of repair, tools in particular. One of them has a lot of pretend professionals, its like listening to those youtube bullshitters. They get tetchy when questioned and are often full of excuses, like to argue and rarely admit fault. I think we get along just great.

Went to my local jeweler to ask about repairing a case and this guy followed me home. I couldn't resist the iridescent dial and cool 70s shape. 1975 (my birth year!) DX. Time sets, day and date quickset properly, and it runs after giving it a few spins. Seems like $25 well spent! I also love the inscription on the back. I even found it in the 1975 Seiko USA catalog.

It can work, but you will end up with a shorter than normal pivot, and you may not have enough movement of the jewels (you will almost certainly have to move both) for clearances for the new position of the wheel. If you have a lathe capable of holding the wheel to cut a new pivot, it's not much more work to drill it and insert a new pivot. Eternal Tools sell individual carbide drills, though it's worth learning to make simple spade drills as they are more forgiving if they break during drilling- easier to remove the broken drill.

How I see it is 8200 can be used to grease the spring, not the barrel using a piece of watchmakers tissue lightly loaded with the grease, folded over the spring and drawn along the length to give a very light smear of grease. The wall of the barrel should be greased with braking grease separately with something like 8217. Tom

Seems like ages since I last posted on 404, here is a ladies Seiko 2906A I picked up from Ramon in the Philippines as part of a job lot, so worked out to be $1.60. I did require a new crystal (£10.12) because the original shattered when I tried to remove it and it also needed a new winding stem (£2.00) and crown (from my spares) as it arrived without these, all of the screws for the automatic works were floating around inside the movement and the pawl lever for the auto works had one arm completely broken off so needed replaced (I had one from a donor) but apart from that it's all original. Here are the before and after pictures: Here is how it looked when I first opened the back...... and you get that "it gonna be one of those watches..." feeling And here is the finished watch:

According to Tripadvisor, it seems that you can still do a factory tour of the Petrodvorets Watch Factory. So, in the unlikely event that any of you find yourself in the vicinity of St Petersburg, here is the link. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1207894-d2689172-Reviews-Petrodvorets_Watch_Factory-Peterhof_Petrodvortsovy_District_St_Petersburg_Northw.html#/media-atf/2689172/90343727:p/?albumid=-160&type=0&category=-160 Actually, click the link anyway, there are some interesting pictures on the Tripadvisor pages.

I make a pair of greasing tweezers with chamois leather on the inside. The chamois is greased with 8200 or 8300 is best in hot climates and the entire length of the spring is lightly greased. You know when enough has been applied as it is the feel of the grease on the spring and how easily those greasing tweezers slide over the spring. If you have greased the spring too much you'll see excess on top of the spring when you use your winder and it is within the barrel. If you haven't greased the spring enough then put a few small drops of grease on the top of the spring like Kalle Slappe does. There are many ways to skin a cat here. I can only say what works best for me. After you've greased a few mainsprings you'll get a feel for what the right amount is on the spring. If it is too much and you see pools of grease on the spring when in the barrel, then mop up the excess with some rodico. The great thing about making these greasing tweezers is you can get into the innermost part of the spring without risk of damage! Moebius 8201 contains Molybdenum bisulfide which improves its lubricity and improves its resistance to pressure well. It is similar in function to graphite and it has a black appearance. Some watch manufacturers use this as standard mainspring grease. When you open a barrel and the remnants of the grease is black then it was probably used. This grease is used only for the mainspring, not braking grease

oftentimes nifty new techniques that we don't normally hear about there's a reason. like whatever your re-pivoting will now be considerably shorter. Moving the jewels that much shorter probably be a challenge. Although it may depend upon the particular watch some watches you might be able to get away with it but. as you're dealing with a wheel not a balance staff I would agree just need a hole and new pivot. versus what you're suggesting that I quoted below you don't need to put an entire plug-in and reshape you just need a pivot. Of course the key to all of this is you need the hole in the location for the old pivot was and not somewhere else..

I get caught digging around in the wife’s ‘beauty ‘ drawer where the makeup and kit are…and she knows exactly what I’m looking for… …The nieces and nephews come for Christmas and instead of favourite Christmas movies want to watch Kalle Slaap watchmaker from the Netherlands and Ed Sheeran on Hodinkee ‘Why can’t you be normal and watch porn and Ozzyman?’ …you have to try and explain to the Brazilian lady that cleans your house why there are magnets on the bottom of the mop…

I dont know why you think it might offend razz. Because its beat up ? No thats just history, not everything on a watch can be made pristine and shouldnt be imo. Dials are renowned for being difficult to restore when they are in bad shape, some are virtually untouchable. Same can go for hands if corrosion has taken hold. And there is only so much that can be done with a case without getting too involved, the aesthetics of a watch still show though its age and are often enhanced, just look at tropical dials. Personally i embrace anything that exibits its history and has lived a life,and extending its life brings me a lot of pleasure. If my dog had lost his leg in an accident i would have loved him even more. The popular concept of marketing and advertising is to have everything perfect and live in a perfect world and we should be and look perfect, sorry but that is complete bullshit in my eyes. If its because it has Russian origin and the meaning of the brand, yes that can be a topical subject. But does that mean folk should have never bought Seiko watches. Its just a watch if you enjoy it then thats the important bit covered.

Pobeda - Победа, Victory, from the Petrodvorets Watch Factory. One of the few watches to appear on a postage stamp. Yours probably has a K-26, with a design that originally came under license from the French Lip factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pobeda_(watch) As to taking offence, the watch has nothing to do with the current regime.

Thats pretty funny waggy, but seriously finance is one of the most argued subjects in a relationship, that and the kids. The only way i found to get around any upset was to make sure everyone in the household didn't miss out, that included the dog. If i bought something for work then everyone else had to get something as well, a cement mixer once cost me £1600.00 with indirect family fees . If everyone is to stay happy then everyone gets a treat, so in actual fact every tool we buy ultimately has a Bergeon price tag . Thats why i go away so much, my watch related packages have a holiday package tagged onto them.

Oh my, I am exactly the same, I have known people for years and still can't remember their names no matter how hard I try, word association , rhymes...nothing works. My wife was a teacher and had her new class of 30 kids memorised in a few days, but I can't even remember the name of the person sitting 3 desks to my left. I'm also the same with kitchen cupboards, I empty the dishwasher after dinner every night and still have to try 2 or 3 cupboards before I find the one where the red plates go. But, I can still recall formulas from physics classes that I haven't used since my A levels, it's strange the way the mind works. My other failing is that I am very messy - I can sit at a clean desk and within seconds it's carnage, it's like the weeping angels in Dr Who, I look away and look back and it has somehow managed to become messy. Finally there is gardening, I just don't get it. I appreciate a nice garden, but I just can't bring myself to cut grass that is going to grow back, or pull weeds that are going to be replaced with new weeds. I am more than happy to take the time and effort to fix things, and go the extra mile to find a permanent fix. I just can't bring myself to do something which will count for nothing in a few days/weeks. I have tried to tell myself that its the journey not the destination and the joy is in the doing , not the result....but I still find myself cursing under my breath "this is such a waste of my time....why can't someone invent grass that stops growing at 2 mm?!?!?!"

I may have shown this one before but put a new crystal on it. The bezel is beat up and the case has wear. The dial is a little damaged where the sub seconds hand must have scraped. But I really like the green numerals and looks decent on a light tan nato strap. I hope this post does not offend anyone and appologize if it does. I can't even remember where I picked this example up. It even could have been from someone in Ukraine.

Prints dials?

Hi Razz on this forum we do watches regardless less of its history or who made it @spectre6000 mentioned the nazi watches, it wasn’t the watches fault where it ended up. If we were going to get political over them we wouldn’t handle that many. Neven would know about the iron curtain and the time pieces made then in the Eastern bloc and Russia. As @oldhippy SAID Politics belong somewhere else.

I have a couple of these movement holders for 218 Accutrons. In order to mount the movement, the holder must be splayed ever so slightly and then released when the movement is in place. I have been splaying with a screwdriver, but this morning, I made an add-on tool that does the work for me. I turned a slight conical profile with the initial diameter equal to the hole in the holder in rest position. I turned to a larger diameter enough to open the holder enough for the movement to drop in. Then I tapped the small end and made a threaded button. The tool is mounted in the holder in a semi-permanent way. When you want to insert the movement, press the pin from the inside of the holder and it splays out. Once the movement is inserted, the outside butt is pressed so that the holder collapses on the movement. I made two of these. One is mounted on the holder with a brass button. The other I show sitting alone so that the structure is obvious. The second one uses the brass button--easier to turn and thread.

I tried putting the chaton and cap jewel in a small basket with other parts in the ultrasonic, but it can be very hard to find the cap jewels after. So I use old contact lens cases to clean the balance jewels separately. With two compartments there's no chance of mixing the jewels. I add a drop of cleaner or naphtha to each, 2 mins in ultrasonic, then switch solution to IPA and another minute. Check they are clean, then epilame and oil.

Well here is the movement. A Zim 2602 I think. Adding a better camera shot.

I recently found this product while browsing in a hardware store. It's a phosphoric acid based formula. I just dig through my box of junk movements and found one with a lot of rust in the keyless works. So I followed the instructions and made a 1:5 solution and tested it by soaking the clutch wheel and winding pinion. To my amazement, the parts could actually start bubbling in the solution. I took them out after 15 mins, rinsed and dried them, then wire brushed them. The remaining rust just crumbled away into a fine power, leaving the bare metal. So, @Nucejoe, if you can get this product in your neck of the woods, I would strongly recommend it. It's industrial strength coca cola. Just don't drink it.

Your 1st and 4th options have a built-in dust extractor. That is good feature to have. Don't get the Foredom. It looks like a Chinese made motor that should sell for less than a $100.

Haha i bet loads of us do that, mine gets worried when she sees me looking at brushes, tweezers and sponges in the make-up aisle. " do you have something to tell me hun "

I think I am lucky with my bride. Never whinges or rolls eyes. "Parcel for you". I buy what I need when I can. I get £10 weekly spends from my bride when she has been to the ATM. Goes into my wallet. When I see an item on ebay I want, and when I have the cash equivalent, I order. I place the money from my wallet into our savings wallet. I win, we win. Not quick, but tools mount up. Been at this hobby for 2 years now. I estimate at least 1/2 is tools, the other watches and parts. Good system for me.

That's why this forum is so brilliant. I posted a question, @Jonreplied and @oldhippywho knows more than I ever will, leant something and so did I. Brilliant, just Brilliant. I think what connects us is we love learning.

Undergreasing the actual spring, not the barrel wall. So, when the mainspring has been cleaned it is greased. If the entire length of the mainspring hasn't been greased enough or not at all, (the spring has to be able to slide coil over coil) then when winding the watch manually there might be a scratchy feeling with the coils not sliding over each other because of the lack of grease and too much friction of the coils over coils. The scratchy feeling may also be because the spring has a slight helix and scrapes on the barrel and/or cover when winding, which can also fluctuate power output, therefore a loss of amplitude. There are generally three types of braking grease for the barrel walls depending on what the barrel is made of. Moebius 8212 is meant to be used on aluminum barrels. This grease has a moderate braking effect. Moebius 8213 is meant for brass barrel walls and isn't quite as thixotropic as 8212, but is more viscous than all of them so provides slightly more braking. The goldilocks of them all is Moebius 8217 which can be used on all barrel types, This grease is the least viscous but still has a fairly good thixotropic effect. The thixotropic effect is when the grease is under load or pressure it changes from a viscous grease to more fluid like an oil. Moebius 9415 is a thixotropic grease for pallet stones because of this effect; it is better than 9010 which used to be used. Oils and greases have developed a lot in the last decade On old-style automatics, the 'slipping bridle' was a separate piece of spring that had to have the correct springiness to dictate when the bridle slipped and therefore the mainspring. This still had to have braking grease on the barrel wall. The mainspring looked like any manual spring with a hook on the end that caught the hook of the slipping bridle. It was more the shape of the bridle that determined when the bridle and spring slipped rather than relying on how much braking grease was on the barrel wall. The flatter the spring (when out of the barrel) the slip will happen later, also creating the most amplitude, the more curved the slipping bridle, the spring will slip earlier which may result in not enough torque being generated and a loss of amplitude. On modern automatic mainsprings, it is the bridle that pushes the mainspring against the barrel wall and creates that force so the end of the spring will jump from indentation to indentation in the barrel wall. On old-style automatics, a lot of the time the slipping bridle has been removed and a modern spring has been used, but there aren't any indentations on the barrel wall, just a smooth wall. Depending on how much and which type of grease is used on the barrel wall, as well as the state of the wall will determine when the spring will slip. Also, some older automatics will look like having quite a low amplitude fully wound and after 48 hours after oiling and greasing, let's say 250 degrees, once the auto module and rotor are replaced and the watch is fully wound and the rotor is spun a little, because the spring has total full torque now you can see the amplitude increase as much as 30 or so degrees. Here are some slides from a lesson I wrote for my students. As you can see the slipping bridle was set incorrectly which I found when taking the movement apart. It is important the bridle has room to close up properly, which highlights the point that "just because you found it that way doesn't make it the correct way" So, don't ever assume how you found it is how it should be!

I have a Pivofix, where you can burnish straight and conical (balance) pivots. I think you can do the same with this, by turn around the wheels.

Haha- there's maybe no winning with that one- best answer is she got him a new watch and rid of the wedding watch?, second best-they separated. Let's not go to third- haha

I'm pretty sure they are "pad printers", sometimes called tampon printers, used to accurately print fine details on dials, but to be absolutely certain, you would need to take the factory tour.

Would be no good for me, i say how i feeI, sorry for you in the US, no i haven't been for 6 years, New york seemed quite relaxed then , i walked down 5th Avenue from Times square up to Madison Garden at 4 am on my own, sat at the pond on a bench contemplating life with a coffee. Felt very safe. Fortunately i have very little interest in politics.

Always good advice...but if you haven't been to the United States lately it is difficult to appreciate how polarized politically we are at the moment. Every public utterance is risky- socially...physically... Saying this is risky... ...anyways here's a 404 for you. I think. Free. I changed the battery. Judges?

Yes, it does exactly what it meant to do. As long as you set up the Jacot tool so the wheel comes down parallel to the runner it'll work a treat. I bought my orange (rougher cut) wheel from him separately once I'd realised that the smooth wheel that originally came with the tool wasn't going to take out the scratches on the arbors. It's really well made as well. You won't be disappointed!

Razz, it doesn't matter what you do mate, you are always going to upset someone if life and you can't cater for everyone. What matters is good intentions and if folk cant spot good from bad well thats just not your problem.

I do get side eye when the coupons from Sephora come in the mail…addressed to me.

I always try to stay one step ahead of the game in family life. Tbh it never bothered me at the time if they were happy then so was i . I'm quite lucky now, all mine are grown up with great jobs, even the missus earns more than me these days, so I've been let out of my cage.

From what I’ve seen Scott it varies depending on who you watch, some it’s no grease, some 8200 and some maybe 3 drops of HP 1300 on top of the coiled spring. I don’t know if any of it is best practice except don’t have to oil a brand new spring. It does make sense to me that a spring that has been through a watch cleaning machine would need lubrication. I suspect that it would also help when using bergeon style spring winders to ease friction. Maybe one of our esteemed pros could help us out with their experience. Tom

Haha only 2 days into the new year and I'm drooling at a new tool....must resist.........

Quick update, I have been using the Copaslip on my last 10-15 watches, just a tiny amount (1-2 mm^2) applied evenly to the threads of the case back with a tooth pick. And it is making even damaged threads smooth and effortless for closing and re-opening, applying Copaslip is now part of my standard practice for all watches. I decanted a small amount (50 ml) into a small jar, which will last me forever, so the other remaining 450ml in the paint can size tin will be passed on to my son and his son.......

If you have a crown (button) and the tap size is right and the colour also, but the crown doesn't fit over the pendant tube, these tools are to make the inside diameter of the crown fit the pendant tube. You could also, reduce the size of the pendant tube on your lathe after pressing it out

Thats really funny Jon, i bought that same one this morning from the same guy in Hungary. Are you pleased with it Jon ? I was hesitant with it being out of the UK but i had some xmas money from family so I just went for it. The guy seems fair and accepted an offer i made him, received a message shortly afterwards to say he will post tomorrow.

I found that the barrel was tilted and occasionally rubbing against the centre seconds wheel as the clearance there is so small. I made the barrel upright again by using a smoothing broach on one side of the hole in the barrel bridge. This made the hole oval. I then used a small domed punch to make four or five indents on the other side of the hole to take away the ovalness and make more round. In effect I moved the barrel arbor bush in the barrel bridge towards the centre of the watch and made the barrel upright again. This has solved the issue fingers crossed.

I know this is an old necro-thread, but just for the record this would have me looking very closely at the teeth on the wheels. It suggests to me that there's some small bit of damage on one or two teeth that the mainspring can overcome with a full wind, but can't as power winds down.

Hi, just wondered if you got to the bottom of this as I seem to have an identical issue also with ETA 1256. I think the barrel is tilted and rubbing against the centre seconds wheel but need to confirm it. Just waiting for the watch to stop.

D5 would be too thick. I recommend a tiny amount of Moebius 9010. And, of course, 9010 for the pivot once you have mounted the train wheel bridge. Thanks, you're welcome! I don't know what differences there might be between the 781 and 781-1 versions, but as you say it's probably just something minor.

Here is a picture of the two dial screws for the archives. Thanks again for the help. Darren

Hi Roland, It can be difficult to measuspring height from the barrel parts. According to the GR catalogue, the range of Omega 18 ligne movements has spring heights between 1.9 and 2.6, and typically there would be 0.1 to 0.2 clearance. Does the barrel lid have a recess which would add to the available space? You could try refitting the original spring then holding the barrel between finger and thumb and the arbour with a pin vice to see if it winds and unwinds freely. This would tell you if you have sufficient space for it. You should also be able to see if there's enough space for a 2.5 which would seem unlikely - I usually work on the basis that whoever worked on a watch before me had some good reason for doing what they did and probably more experience. For what it’s worth I repaired a 19ligne Omega last year which had a standard spring fitted in a DBH barrel. The spring had broken so I had no choice but to replace it and I managed to find an appropriate DBH spring, but have no doubt that it must have worked fine for some significant time until the spring broke. The barrel size of my watch didn’t appear in the GR catalogue. The barrel diameter is easier to measure and with that and the height using the calculator on David Boetcher’s watch stap site you should be able to find a good fit. I spent hours searching on line for details of the different variants of 19 ligne Omegas and concluded that there were many more variants than were apparent from many parts catalogues. I decided I was better off working from analysis of the parts in front of me than expecting to find the answer served up on a plate for me...

Cousins has scans of the GR book and this section has the 18ligne Omegas https://www.cousinsuk.com/PDF/categories/7810_GR Pages 141 - 150.pdf, they also have the 18SPB spring in stock. The 18SPB has a standard end spring like the one you have removed, but the barrel you show looks like it should have a DBH end spring. Other 18ligne Omegas do use DBH springs. Are you sure this is an 18SPB? It’s not unlikely that the watch has the wrong spring fitted, so if you can’t be sure about the calibre, your best bet is to measure the barrel diameter and work from the calculator on this page http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/mainsprings.php With regard to oiling, see here http://www.nawcc-index.net/Articles/BTI-The_Practical_Lubrication_of_Clocks_and_Watches.pdf

Update on the mainspring repair done, de Carle's method. Cheers. [emoji3]