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Easter fun with Top Clop

HSL

By HSL
in Your Walkthroughs and Techniques

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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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The other day I got "The feeling" when looking at some what Andy call 404 watches, there was on that just svreamed buy me so I did.
I thought what can go wrong with a superiour watch called Top Clop De Luxe, must for sure be one of the kind and extremely rare.
Said and done i through in a bid for a dollar and won it like a land slide victory.. after a couple of days it magicly appearde on my door step and I brought it in for a royal overhaul.

My first thught was ..wounder what that 21 is? well atleast it got an famous Unbreakable Mainspring ! 
Well when I turned it around and removed the back it felt like something was missing.
It didn't really look like the "High End" BF 866 I'm used too..

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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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So I got into a panic state and thought lots of a lot bad things until I just popped the movement out.

I found an donor movement with the same diameter .. ST974 and measured the diameter of the dial legs..
Found a box with dial legs lying around and picked out the right ones.
With a marker pen I put out the correct positions.
Pulled out the soldering station and the special soldering paste.
 

 

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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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But instead of soldering the dial legs into place I decided the Top Clop needed the state of the art solution and the dial legs got glued into place.

Top3_c.jpg

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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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After a couple of hours the dial was ready to pop into place.. 
It fit like a champ.

So on with the dial hands.

And the movement ring and the winding stem.

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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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And behold the TOP CLOP DE LUXE flies again.
But I still don't know what the 21 stands for but at least it now has a 17 jewel movement..

Tha folks is everything I can contribute with for Easter Fun...

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bsoderling WRT Addict

bsoderling

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I think I had my eyes on this one when it was out for sale on Swedish Tradera...?

Decided someone else needed it better and was obviously correct :-)

Btw, what glue did you use for the dial feets? Have tried epoxy and superglue but find it hard to make them stick.

Nice job!





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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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On 4/19/2019 at 9:26 AM, bsoderling said:

Btw, what glue did you use for the dial feets? Have tried epoxy and superglue but find it hard to make them stick.

Yes it's of course from Tradera, when one gets the urge the shipping time is substansial shorter from there, the finds might vary in quality though it seems to be lots of watchrepairmen leving specimen like these in this shape there..
When putting on the dial feets on cheaper dials where the heat for sure will ruin the paint I only use Loctite glues like this one Locktite 638, one probably could use a 2 component too but on a piece like this it's just a waist of time. 
But since in my experiance the most times glued dial feet pop of is because they are slightly offset, the two component would give you slightly longer time to adjust the feets perfectly. To rough up the surface on both the feet and dial makes it stick harder too.

Sorry for the late responce but as you know it's easter hollidays in Sweden and I went to Copenhagen to sample some other merchandise

in the sun ;)

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bsoderling WRT Addict

bsoderling

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Looks like you found some good stuff there...I found myself a really bad spring cold. No fun when the sun is shining and you want to be out enjoying the nice weather. And watch work with a runny nose isn’t to recommend either...

Tradera is the place where I usually find my cheap objects to tinker with. Ebay too often ends up costing more to get the thing home than what the seller gets.

I guess I need to take a step up on the value ladder to fix that balance but somehow that takes away a bit of the charm for an amateur like myself.






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Nucejoe Distinguished Member

Nucejoe

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On 4/18/2019 at 11:21 PM, HSL said:

But instead of soldering the dial legs into place I decided the Top Clop needed the state of the art solution and the dial legs got glued into place.

Top3_c.jpg

Hi, been looking for dial feet like this, perhaps amazon offers them for sale, What key words for search, returns this dial feet, What to call them, just spare dial feet glue solder?

I noticed you call BF866 a high end piece, I hope you were not kindding. Didn,t know, are they? 

Regards

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HSL Distinguished Member

HSL

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1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

I noticed you call BF866 a high end piece, I hope you were not kindding. Didn,t know, are they? 

lol.. well they got one jewel and that is on the balance cock so one can do the math from that.. of course they are in the extreme cheap segment.. ;)

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Nucejoe Distinguished Member

Nucejoe

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1 hour ago, bsoderling said:

Cousins have them in a wide variety, both assortments and specific sizes, cheap and a bit more pricy.






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Thank you B,  What are they called?  Replacement dial feet?  

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Nucejoe Distinguished Member

Nucejoe

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12 minutes ago, HSL said:

lol.. well they got one jewel and that is on the balance cock so one can do the math from that.. of course they are in the extreme cheap segment.. ;)

I have got bunch of calender pointers with bf866 movement, the brand name is patrius.  

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