Tmuir

I was about to like your post wls1971, until I read the last sentence when you said it was stolen, so instead I will say Ilike the story about how you got the parts for the watch, and to the person that stole it. I lived in Glasgow Scotland from 1997 to 2000 and our flat got broken into and the thief reassembled my mountain bike that I had taken the wheels off to fit it in the cupboard and road off with my Low-Pro camera bag with about £8000 worth of cameras in it and my Waltham pocket watch that I loved and wore most days as I was still getting over a nasty watch allergy I got on my wrist from when I worked in outback Australia. I bought myself a replacement Waltham at the Byzantine markets that used to be in Edinburgh to replace it, but it wasn't as nice as the one stolen. So I have an idea how gutted you must of been to get it stolen.

Has anyone ever used Longines free service to get an extract from their archives on their watch? https://www.longines.com/certificate-of-authenticity See the above link, if you just want the extract they will post it to you for free, obviously if you want a certificate of Authenticity you need to send them your watch and pay for that, but the extract is free. I'm going to ask for the extract on my 30LS Longines.

Try contacting these people http://www.barometerspareparts.co.uk/index.php The supply spare parts for mercury barometers and may be able to put you onto someone that can help. You are correct you cant post mercury and definitely don't try to send it airmail.

Read this page. https://www.medfordclock.com/merc.htm and here you can but the fake ones http://www.m-p.co.uk/muk/parts/pendulums-french.htm

Are you sure its a real mercury pendulum? I've heard of cheaper clocks having fake mercury pendulums, could it be the pendulum was taken apart and put together incorrectly with the pretend mercury parts upside down? The whole point of mercury is it is liquid and flows freely as Old Hippy says

I'm not familiar with the tool you are using, but it looks like it is giving good results. Screwdrivers are more forgiving than knives with shapening, to sharpen my screwdreivers I purchased a 240 grit and 400 grit diamond sharpening plate off ebay for just $3 or $4 each and have one an A&F spring loaded screwdriver holder for sharpening and find that gives me pretty good results. The most important thing is using your Loupe to check you have inserted the screwdriver correctly before sharpening. Also if you are removing a chip on the blade you will normally have to hold the blade at 90 degrees to the diamond plate and take a small amount off the end so they screwdriver blade once sharpened to ensure it doesn't bottom out in the screw.

Did you remove the cap stones on the balance and fully clean out the old oil? If not the old oil could be gumming up the new oil. Have you checked the pivots of the balance for wear? Checked the jewels for any cracks? Does the anchor snap cleanly from side to side if you nudge it with an oiler with the balance removed?

Wow, thats quite a hoard of Military watches, I own several WWII aircraft clocks and a Navy Deck clock, but have yet to get my hands on any military clocks, thats some serious practice you have had.

Anti magnetic tweezers are expensive, most people cant afford to have all their tweezers anti-magnetic. You do not want tweezers or screwdrivers magnetized, magnetism is the bain of mechanical watches and causes all sort of issues, such as causing the coils of the hairspring to stick together making the watch run fast. If your tweezers are not 100% anti magnetic they will eventually becomes slightly magnetic, whether that is from touching magnetized parts of watches, or just them passing through other magnetic fields. If you work on quartz watches you will need atleast 1set of tweezers that is 100% ant-magnetic to pick up the rotor for most people a good set of brass tweezers will do. For everything else rather than have 100% ant-magnetic tweezers having a demagnitizer is more important. You can buy cheap ones off ebay and you will need one as its quite regular to find that a watch you are working on is slightly magnetized that you will need to demagnetize and so will your tweezers or screwdrivers after touching the watch. Bottom line you don't want any of your tools magnetized and the only part of a watch you want to be magnetized is the rotor in quartz watches.

1 and 2 look like part of a tool to remove roller tables as does part 4. 6 are home made tools used to straighten bent balance wheels. 6 are used in conjunction with truing calipers and allow you to grab the outer rim to the balance wheel and bend it to straighten it.

I agree with what eezy says, although there are some exceptions to the rules. If military timepieces interest you there are a number of useful books. Military Timepieces by Z.M. Wesolowski reasonable price consider it a starting book to get you interested Waltham Trench watches of the great War Elgin Trench watches of the great war, both by Stan Czubernat medium priced good books if you are interested in WWI Elgin or Waltham watches Military Timepieces by Marvin E Whitney, pricey but the best reference on military timepieces from the USA Military Timepieces by Konrad Knirim and British Military Timepieces by the same author. Both hideously expensive, written in German and English, fantastic colour photos and brilliant reference books, first one on German and obviously the second on British Timepieces, but it also has a small bit on British allies military timepieces. The first book is easy to get as are the Waltham and Elgin books, Marvin's book can be found is you search, but you are very unlikely to find a cheap second hand copy. The last 2 books are still in print and available from Amazon, you have more chance in winning lotto than finding a second hand copy of this book as anyone who has bought it is very unlikely to let it go.

Good quality loupes. I bought 2 cheap ones at first, one real cheap off ebay and the other Anchor brand. The ebay one was so bad that I had dropped it in the bin within 2 minutes on taking it out of its packing. The anchor one sits besides my computer now and is sometimes used to magnify non watch related items. All 3 loupes I now use are Bergeon ones. I recommend getting the ones with the slot in them to stop them fogging up.

Fixadrop helps oil stay where you put it, stops it running flowing, but is very expensive.

You see it all the time on ebay, any wristlet style watch called a 'Trench Watch', usually its a ladies watch too. Civilian versions of a watch used by the military listed as 'Military Watches' or my favorite 'WWII Era watch'. Am I being too critical on this watch, is it genuine and maybe someone just touched up the writing stamped on the back of the case freehand due to heavy wear,or does it look like its been added to a civilian version of this watch so it sells for more? https://www.ebay.com/itm/M1-VINTAGE-WWII-WALTHAM-TYPE-A-11-MILITARY-WRISTWATCH-US-ARMY-AIR-FORCE-6-0/293116287049?hash=item443f179849:g:sv4AAOSw9ydc~R~f What are your thoughts?

Yes mine are genuine, the one I use the most was my grandfathers and is probably from the 1960s or 1970s, the other 2 I bought new from Cousins.