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Vintage diver watch

deni2s

By deni2s
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deni2s Member

deni2s

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Bought this vintage MILJONÄR Swiss Made 1970s old diver wrist watch 17 Jewels couple months back from ebay very cheap (like 50 euros with delivery). Just liked the looks of it and thought I might get it back to working shape, so I can use it as my cheap tool watch for rainy days and just to get involved into watchmaking a bit.

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Watch was not running at all, glass broken, unable to unscrew the case back (well, that explained the price).

MILLJONÄR is some Scandinavian market brand, usually they are non-expensive watches with AS movements. There are quite a lot of them around, but I couldn't find online another one divers watch. This one had AS 1686 movement with rotating bezel and claims to be 20 ATM waterproof on case back.  40 mm diameter.

Tried to open case back myself, no luck. Asked local watchmaker in Helsinki - no luck. He suggested oiling the case back for a week using WD-40 and try later - no luck. As last resort he suggested gluing with superglue to watch case some big nut, so I can use some wrench to unscrew the case.

Went to Riga, Latvia, asked watchmaker here to try to open it (they bragged they are best watchmakers in 8000km radius), he glued something to watch case, opened and cleaned reminds of glue with ultrasonic in less than 10 minutes, while we were talking.

After that I disassembled the movement (stripped the lefty screw on crown wheel due to luck of experience), cleaned, oiled, assembled - it started to run pretty well. Ordered new set of screws from ebay, got all of them, except the one I needed (for crown wheel) - seller forgot to add it to package. After finally receiving it, I realised it's not the screw which is stripped, but the bridge over mainspring needs to be replaced. So ordered that from the same seller, replaced and watch was almost completed.

On next trip to Riga got glass replaced and bought some non-expensive nato strap on ebay.

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Quite happy with end result and experience gained during the process!

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deni2s Member

deni2s

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17 hours ago, anilv said:

Great job! I is it a stainless steel case or base metal?

Also does the crown screw-down?

Anilv

It's a base metal, no screw-down crown. Nothing fancy. I would say that's a watch which looks good enough with all the scratches and usage marks to wear it daily, and cheap enough to not worry about it at all :).

Yes, the name means that (that's in Swedish).

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yankeedog Distinguished Member

yankeedog

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For future  reference  there is a significant  amount  of parts interchangeability  between  the 1686 and the 1187/94. I think they are the same movement  actually  with a different  train bridge and balance  cock.

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      A little bit of superglue and you'll be good to go Although maybe if you had a laser welder you can weld the spring back together. Typically I've only seen it on blued steel Springs and on one occasion a modern spring? The modern watch was a Rolex watch that came and that was literally filled with rust including the barrel was filled with rust in the spring was in a whole bunch of little pieces. I have to wonder if that was an aftermarket mainspring . Then I'm attaching a PDF the Elgin watch company as you can see instigated a study in the 30s find out why mainsprings were breaking. I do though wonder if perhaps there may be a flaw in their study? One other things I wonder about is the metallurgy of the early steel Springs versus the later generation of blued steel Springs whether the metallurgy as part of the problem but in a case they did a study and have attaching a PDF. Because of the study any time I do anything with the blued steel spring when I actually cannot get something that's not blued. Once the spring is cleaned I'm very careful to not to touch the spring with my fingers because I don't want to have a problem with the chemicals on your fingers causing rust and I very carefully get lubrication back on the spring as fast as possible just to avoid these unpleasant situations. Then yes it is interesting one minute you of functional spring and the next minute you have lots of little pieces of spring. For my own personal Elgin pocket watch I put a steel spring and in this happened I'm also guessing that when one layer breaks it sends a cascading shockwave through the spring and that's why it breaks all the way across because after all there is a lot of energy in the spring when it breaks. Oh and my theory on the metallurgy is based on things have improved and for the most part I don't think I've seen a shattered spring in quite some time.   Elgin_Mainsprings.PDF
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