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My First Dial Change - And My First Bergeon Tool

WillFly

By WillFly
in Watch Repairs Help & Advice

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WillFly Distinguished Member

WillFly

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I recently acquired a couple of spare Unitas 173 watch heads - the 1939 military A.T.P. watches - which I thought I might need for spares for my existing 173 movement. Sure enough, one of the movements was cannibalised for a mainspring barrel screw, a mainspring, and an arbour. This left me with a spare good movement and a spares/repairs movement. Looking at the dials and hands, it occurred to me that the good movement had good hands and a crappy dial, while the spare movement had a better dial and crappy hands! So I thought I'd have a bash at swapping dial and hands over - which I haven't done before - and got myself a hands staking set, a dial cover, and a pair of hand pullers from a firm in Germany.

 

The kit arrived this morning and, with slight trepidation, I got it all out and swapped everything over. The second hand was a bit of a bugger to get in - it's fairly tiny - but I managed in the end, and the watch is ticking away nicely on my wrist as I type this. Old hat to some of the old hands on the forum, I'm sure, but a first for me!

 

The Bergeon tool is the plastic dial cover, by the way! Here's a pic showing finished watch head, the old dial and the old hands.

 

post-64-0-24250100-1414839508_thumb.jpg

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WillFly Distinguished Member

WillFly

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Cheers! Actually, I had to get the movement out one more time after writing the above as I thought I'd set the hands' vertical clearance OK. It wasn't quite right - the minute hand was binding slightly on the hour hand, so I did a little gentle tweezer work and got them freed up.

 

These dials and hands are old and the lume is quite fragile, so they're in their original condition - there's no question of trying to clean them or the lume will disintegrate. As you can see from the swapped out dial, some lume has been lost and someone's attempted some dial cleaning - to little avail. This watch is 1939 - and stays 1939!

Edited by WillFly
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Geo Distinguished Member

Geo

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Well done Will!

It's good to see that you are starting to widen your bounds of tinkering. There's nothing better than doing something yourself that improves a watch, it is really satisfying and makes you feel good.

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WillFly Distinguished Member

WillFly

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Good work Will, Might I suggest re-luming the hands. I followed Mark,s vid & it was surprisingly easy & makes a real difference.

Cousins was the supplier 

I might consider it at some stage. As you probably know, I'm very conservative about restoration of dials and hands. The problem with this watch face is that, should the hands get a re-lume, then they won't match the age of the lume on the markers. And if the markers are done, then the dial face won't match hands and lume for patination! It's a difficult slope to negotiate. As I look at the watch on my wrist - and large-scale pics always show up the age (!) - it looks just what it is - 1939.

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WillFly Distinguished Member

WillFly

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Just had a thought after watching Mark's 3-part video on re-luming hands. The spare hands have absolutely no lume on whatsoever - completely skeletal - so I might have a crack at doing them. If it doesn't look right, I don't have to put them on...

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Mark Distinguished Member

Mark

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Well done Will.

 

 

I have found this stuff to be just as effective as the Bergeon lume but at a fraction of the cost:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WATCH-LUME-LUMINOUS-PASTE-KIT-GLOW-IN-THE-DARK-DIY-LUME-FOR-WATCH-HANDS-/261028722691?pt=UK_Jewellery_Watches_WatchAccessories_SpareParts_SM&var=&hash=item3cc6863803

 

Hope this helps :)

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