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An unusual one today, i picked this up a few weeks ago at an antiques fair. A Recoh Astromatic with a Baumgartner movement. It has changing colour dial windows to indicate your luck and mood thoughout the day. Apparently I'm getting my leg over in about half an hour , I think i should go home first

Judging by this, you could get them with whichever sign of the Zodiac seemed appropriate. History does not relate whether the "water signs" were waterproof, but I suspect not. I'm intrigued to see how the "love, luck and business" mechanism works. We have to assume it uses some very advanced gravity sensors to detect the positions of all of the planets and a very intricate arrangement of cams and levers to align those coloured flags (or alternatively it is driven by the hour wheel).

I kind of figured that green on all 3 of the windows meant i would be doing the business and considering i was at a mates house i better go home as she might be getting more than she bargained for during my visit. Maybe give her a break Its probably been a while since her husband has had 3 green lights come up on his watch.

@Neverenoughwatches.Business is also green, are you paying for services rendered?

Well it worked, but took days rather than hours. Not sure all the broken stem is out, but there’s now enough thread to screw onto a new one.

In other news, local man ejected from Waitrose Cafe for laughing like an old goat at that last comment. Apparently my guffaws were scaring the tea cakes. OK that might be a slight exaggeration, but I did get a look that would freezer your coffee from an old lady with a particularly heavy looking handbag sitting a couple of tables away. I felt an explanation might prove long, difficult, and given the size of the handbag, potentially dangerous.

The staff is worn it is blunt. Both ends should have a sharp point just as if you have sharpened a pencil. The other problem you might have is after sharpening the staff you could end up with it being too short in which case you would need a replacement and that will be hard to find. If you have a watchmakers lathe and you feel you could undertake the task you could make one.

I found a very good article about these, so if you don't want to peek behind the curtain to see how the magic works, don't click the link. Those gravity sensors are pretty slick. https://www.fratellowatches.com/tbt-first-astrological-watch-astromatic-x/

Unlike Swatch, who will sell you something if you pass their requirements, or Rolex (who used to be the same, but-) if a pro there's always a friend or friend of a friend who can get it, or at least Ebay, DD has simply never sold parts. If you have the right security clearance with the brand using their module, you might get the entire module, but that's that. I've never had to resort to it so no idea even what the whole module costs, but c'mon, they really are the worst of the whole bunch. A. Lange & Sohne, 50K watch, yeah I get they don't want to sell a winding stem to Joe Schmo. But DD is commodity level mass produced stuff. Which I think is actually the issue- they would have to employ probably several people full time to deal with the logistics of taking orders and filling them for parts. Hmm. Imagine if someone at DD realized they could charge 15 bucks for a spring that they cost out at 0.30CHF in a module... Nah, while the Swiss do like money, they like being stubborn more. They are difficult to work on because of how they are constructed. Which is to the lowest possible price point. Lots of spindly long springs that have to be situated just so, no real logic to it if unfamiliar, and of course the stress of knowing if you can't get it back together you're hosed. I have worked on lots and lots of chronographs, and still see stuff that is new to me, and I would bet that even if presented with a complete unknown chrono completely disassembled, I would get it together in a reasonable amount of time. All bets are off with DD. I know some folks are actually familiar with them so probably not a big deal, but DD makes Seiko and Citizen chronos look like world class Swiss stuff from 1940 in comparison. (And I don't really like those either, haha.)

Haha i like mech explanation 1 but explanation 2 is just a bit more plausible . I'll pul the back off shortly to have a look The seller had 5 zodiac signs all bought as nos last year, mine does have a slight scratch at the bottom of the crystal but yes very good condition

Have patience. I'm waiting for a Levin Lyre Hairspring Truing Caliper to be delivered from the US, but I'll also have other news about that movement. Something I detected when I stripped it the second time but missed on the first. It's going to be slightly embarrassing. Not a rookie mistake, but still.

Made by Mauthe which is German. Date just after the end of the WW1 which ended 1918. Made of Nickel and Brass. Duration 30 hour. Poor movements and case.

The word "clone" caught me out too, I assumed like-for-like, but learned that it's more like "in the spirit of" or "based on". I also learned that you need to be careful also because parts from a clone may superficially look the same as the real deal, but if you try a clone part in a real movement or vice versa there is a good chance it will not fit, I learned this the hard/expensive way. As others above suggest I would measure the pivots with a caliper - you can pick one up on Amazon for not much money <$20 and they will be a useful tool going forward. It's not until you start needing to measure jewel pivot holes etc that you need a super accurate (=$$$) one, which is a wile away yet.

May be not You, but the watch is wrong... Doed the date advance? I mean does it change after 24 hours?

You have to put the parts in place, some force may be needed to fit the spring back. Then You should try to rivet it in staking set.

The cup on mainplate might need a polish too. Pin pallet often refuse to run without oil. How does the balance run without the fork? bent pins pallets can also stop the oscilator. Usually 404 ben club gets folks into this mess.

I just bought a three-piece polishing kit for a drill at the hardware store and put it in my drill press. Works fine. I use "autosol" metal polish I use for auto-body.

Hi there, No, this is not the kind of balance staff that can break. They are shock resist and almost impossible to break. But they do wear, for 2-3 years of work, and need to be resharpened.

Was still right on time this morning.

@VWatchie I am not happy that your spending your time here and not working on your ETA 2763!? Did you ever take it out from your saw dust box?

An interesting question. I refuse to wear designer clothes for two reasons, firstly I don't care less about clothes but more importantly I refuse to pay a premium to advertise someone's clothing. Want me to wear a t shirt with someone's name on it, pay me.

Swatch and many others made this decision and set their stalls out years ago. Even if the ruling was made in Cousins favour I'm sure Swatch and the rest would still make supply difficult. How is anyone to know what suppliers have available, there will be lots of " really sorry we have run out of that item, we dont make that part anymore " i think Cousins are pretty much screwed on parts supply whatever would be the outcome. How does this leave us on the supply of mobius products ? I definitely want to seek out a different manufacturer of lubrication

So after going through dozens of random pictures resulting from a Google search for "vintage chronograph movement", I may have a match. The Landeron 52 is 14.5 ligne= 32.6mm. Which also seems to match the proportions of the pictures I have. https://reference.grail-watch.com/movement/landeron-52/ What do you think? Did I get it right? Do you know anything about this movement?

Well I added two small size (smallest I had) screws of equal weight opposite and removed two timing washers which were on opposite sides and on equal screws. I also cranked the timing screws all the way in. I was able to achieve this result. I'm quite please for a junker movement, it's a Waltham 1894 7 jewel with a grade 220 train bridge so it's a 9 jewel (basically rail grade in my house)

It was me who suggested gluing balance staffs but only when the hole in the balance wheel has been enlarged. It was only a thought, as I said I'm well aware that I could be ostracised for suggesting such heresy.

Haha- I’ll have to go back in this thread to see how I became the guy that glues balance staffs . The staking set works fine and I wouldn’t know where to put the glue….

Glueing... Don't forget htat after staff has been attached to the rim, the next operation is trueing. Will the glued staff stand it? I have seen many glued staffs. This is because I am like the last instance in my country. All important antique movements that has not been made well enough by another watchmakers will come to me. For this reason I usually work almost only on movements with serious problems... Well, all the balances with glued staffs i have seen were ugly and worth to be shown in the 'monster gallery', may be that's why I don't like the idea of glueing. This doesn't mean that glueing can't be made well. But shellac will not hold strong and reliable enough.

Venus 206, super rare.

Heres my watch of today, a Smith 13'" RY . My missus bought me this for this Valentines day a bargain 14.99 with a reduction, the seller has occasional 20% off offers now and then so it was about 15ish with delivery. I love Smiths and i love bulleye dials, this is my first one. The watch arrived non working as stated and i knew what was inside and what would be against me, but i enjoy a challenge, we dont expect a lot if anything from pin pallet movements. A balance pivot was broken and i didnt have another staff but i did have another RY with a battered dial so i robbed the balance and tweaked it around to make it work apart from that mostly just a good clean and relubrication. Keyless works are pretty rough by design and the crown is a bugger to get in and out with the dial on, the setting lever hits the dial before it releases it, so a little mod is needed to help that along. Major problem was the pins on the lever were quite worn which make the old tg have a snow storm fit. Its a similar read for most pin pallets, these were brass as was the escape wheel. But perseverance is me, i didn't change the pins but i did spend some time dressing and polishing the worn areas which improved the trace a lot with some straightish lines and a beat error of .5 . Not sure what the lift angle should be on these and i Wasn't in the mood to work it out and who believes timegraphers anyway, but at the default 52° it runs with 260ish full 210 after 24 hours dial down , the verticals rates were pretty much all over place. So lets just put it in it's superlight aluminium case and see what happens. Been wearing it now for 3 weeks and it's consistently losing around 1.5 minutes a week winding each morning i think pretty good for an old pin pallet watch. I just love this dial, thanks wifey heres my Valentine's gift for yer sweetie x

I got this from CousinsUK just after I started watches, for £63.75 you can't go wrong, link here, and I still use it on almost every watch I do and it's still going strong, I use the 4" (100mm) wheels without any issue. Adjustable speed too. I rigged up an enclosure for it (more about protecting the paintwork behind it) from an IKEA storage box and stuck in a shop vac hose in the back (hidden by the paper towel roll!) and a cheap LED USB light strip above it:

HI folks, I want to change the battery in a omega seamaster polaris chronograph quartz, I purchased a Renata 395 battery for it as I thought this was the correct battery but when I opened the case up it was fitted with a Renata 394. Could someone verify which one is correct please. Cheers. Kev.