Bauertime

I prefer not to use your newfangled witchery machines. I just go by looks and sound.

After you have had to deal with this problem, you learn to check the holes on every too good to be true watch price on auction sites. In my book it can render a watch case almost useless.

Well, I pretty much made a mess of it trying to drill it out. That's why I'm asking in case it happens again to another watch. I did try tape and banging on it first.

No I don't have a cleaner, but I do have a tooth bush. I'll give it a try, thanks. I would like to say that I will do everything possible, even snip the band and spring bar in half before I would pry it off, because it can ruin a watch case if it gets stuck in there.

Sometimes a vintage watch will have no room to access the spring bar with a knife edge. And you have no choice but to pry the band off the watch. 99% of the time this is done without bad things happening. But you run the risk off the pin breaking off flush in the case lug hole and it is almost impossible to get out. Does anyone have a neat trick to remove it from the case lug hole?

Do y'all think it's the same as a watch that says Bulova or Elgin Movement on the dial? Being a 3rd party thing.

To answer my own question. I found some black spring bars for over $10.00 a pair. So instead I used shrink wrap and it works perfectly.

I'm building an all black watch and I'm using a black mesh band on it. So I need black spring bars, but can't find any. I tried paint, but didn't last long. I hate to buy gun bluing just for this. Has anyone heard of black spring bars?

The last time I needed to reattached a pallet stone, there was enough shellac left on the fork around the stone, that I just held the fork with my tweezers and put a flame about two inches above the end under the tweezers and it melted the shellac perfectly without needing any more equipment.

I just spent a hour trying to put the bends in a bezel retaining wire to make it look like it did from the factory and found out it was near impossible to get it to go on. So before giving up I just made the wire as round as possible with my hands. The small amount it was out of round made it snap right on the first time I tried it. I just thought I would pass this info on encase someone else has trouble with a bezel retaining wire.

I'm not sure, I've given it back to him. It was a Night Hawk and after more research, some people say that they don't glow very brightly, but they will glow for a very long time. And you need to let your eyes adjust to the darkness first. Anyway thanks for the input.

I did a repair on a friends Luminox watch and when I finished I wanted to see how bright these watches glow. So I shined a flash light at it for a few seconds and walked into a dark room and was shocked to barely be able to see it. I've got one jewel wonders from 1970 that glow ten times brighter. What gives, is it a fake, or the fact that it my be 10 years old be the answer?

That's what I do with plastic crystals. I'm afraid to put any more scratches in a mineral crystal. By the way the ones I have scratched have been sapphire and the Invicta flame-fusion crystals. They scratch very easily, in my opinion. I like plastic but not Russian plastic. They will scratch if you look them wrong.

I hate these so called non scratch modern crystals. I usually scratch them the first few days of ownership. Then you need to almost burn out the dremel motor to polish it out with diamond paste. If they where good quality plastic, I could rub it on a piece of leather with some polish paste and be done with it in under five minutes.

I have a vintage Rocket crystal tool with base in the box from ebay, Got it for under $10.00 and use it all the time.