1949 Longines Project

[rustycolt]

Good day all. The following will be an account of a restoration I am beginning in the new year. I will be asking for a little guidance here and there, and welcome any advice, whether solicited or not. I expect this to be an extended timeline project, so progress may be erratic, but I will be updating this thread with each turn of the page.

 

Let's begin with a bit of background on the project:

I have a Longines watch from the 1940s which was owned and worn (I believe from new, either for her or a close relation) by the grandmother of Mrs Rustycolt, who passed peacefully about a year ago. The two were quite close, and Mrs RC still misses her everyday. She does not, as of this writing, know of my intention to undertake this project, however I proceed confidently that I know her well enough to understand what is necessary to preserve, and what can be refinished as it were. I intend to surprise her with the watch restored to working and wearable condition so that she may have a memory with her whenever she wishes.  

Here is the watch in its current state, as received:

 

Gma had lost her vision in her later years, and it is my belief that condition is responsible for the missing crystal and condition of the dial/hands. I think she may have had it removed so that she could read the time by feel. Purely speculation, but I think it makes a more interesting tale than the usual, glass fell out and got lost in the bottom of a forgotten junk drawer.

 

I contacted the folks handling the Longines archives in order to gather as much info as possible about the piece. Here's the useful bit of their response:

"Further to your request, we are pleased to provide the information contained in Longines' handwritten registers.

 

Originally, the serial number 7717247 identifies a Longines mechanical manually wound movement, calibre 10.68Z. It was invoiced on 29.10.1949 to the company Longines-Wittnauer Watch, which was at that time our agent for the USA.

 

The other parts of the watch were produced locally under license from Longines. Unfortunately, since the relevant archives are not in our possession, we are unable to provide any further information on your model."

...for which I was grateful, but no further ahead. 

 

I have been able to locate one other instance of this dial/case combination, previously for sale HERE Beautiful, but no technically useful info there either. 

 

The watch winds, sets, and runs well. Service is badly needed, as one can guess from the visual cues of the photo, and the lack of a glass would indicate. Since this watch carries sentimental meaning, I am cautious about my novice skills, and the work to be done. For that reason, I am ensuring that I have a safety net for each stage prior to putting tool to work. In terms of the movement, this meant making sure that replacement parts were available, should any misfortune strike. They are. 

The dial I wish to clean up. Because it was touched and handled by Gma, I'd prefer to maintain the original surface. Should cleaning and fail, or impact the markings, I am prepared to send out the dial for a refinishing.

 

The missing parts will require some help, which I am very much hoping will be available from my friends in the WRT community here. I'll make that the topic of the first sub-post in this thread. 

[rustycolt]

MISSING: CRYSTAL AND HANDS

Since there is no glass at all on the watch, I am in the unfamiliar position of trying to locate a replacement blindly. Any suppliers I know of require a case reference number, which does not appear to be available on this watch. 

 

 

 

This brings us to my first uncertainty, how can I determine which type of crystal is right for this watch. I can measure the diameter, and determine an appropriate dome/height, but I do not know how to tell which type of fitment the case is machined for. Likely, a typical snap in, but how can I tell?

 

 

The hands are incorrect for this watch, and are in poor condition, so I wish to replace them. I posted a link earlier to an example which I believe to have correct hands. Again, a case number is necessary to track down a Longines part reference, so I expect I will need to hunt down bulk hands from somewhere which match as closely as possible. If you have a lead on a supplier with a large selection of bulk hands, I'd be grateful for the lead. The usual suspects all have a pretty generic selection, so I'm moving the hunt to the next level.

 

 

 

[rustycolt]

So my intentions of journalling my progress of this project seemed to have gone awry. It has been complete for some time now, and I was so focussed on the work itself, as well as a few deadline issues, that I failed to record my progress with words or photos. With apologies out of the way, it's better late than never, here's a basic recap of how things went:

 

I decided to send out the case and crown for replacing. The 10K RGP finish on it was in decent condition, with a little bit of honest wear, and more than a few service engravings. I wanted the finished watch to reflect some of the history of itself, so I took care of the preparation and polishing myself, making sure to improve the appearance without buffing out the sentimentality. The replating was a cosmetic decision. Mrs RustyColt dislikes yellow gold, and I was concerned that may discourage her from wearing this watch, regardless of emotional connection. I found a plating service in Vancouver, BC that could do the parts in 18K rose gold, and was fairly pleased with the results. It turns out that the plater I chose does not do a lot of watches, and I think that they are used to much larger parts. In the end, all was well. 

 

The dial also went out for refinishing. It was my first foray into this, so (partly) based on the experiences of others in the WRT forums, I decided to sub out the job to International Dial Co. Having heard that the achilles of them is their often unpredictable and lengthy turnaround time, I was sure to get the dial to them a full 3 months prior to Mrs RC's birthday (when I was hoping to present it to her). Needless to say I did not make that deadline, but I was satisfied with the workmanship of International in the end. As I had changed the case from yellow to rose gold, I had International change the hands and dial indicators to match. All in all, I was pleased with those results as well.

 

Servicing took place while the parts were out. The Longines 10L is one of the nicer movements I have had the pleasure of working on in my brief foray into watch repair, and it was a truly pleasurable experience to have hands on such a finely made piece. On final assembly, it became evident that there was damage to the balance staff pivot which would require a replacement. I was able to source a scrap movement from eBay, which yielded a suitable replacement. This was a rather nerve-wracking part of the process however, as I have had very poor results with any hairspring work I have done thus far, and the replacement balance staff needed to have the original hairspring transferred to it. Patience won the day, and the transplant succeeded. I was able to install and poise the replacement, and at this point, I was still on schedule for the birthday presentation. 

 

I still had to replace the missing crystal and seconds hand, and for this I had taken some measurements and scoured Cousins catalogue for suitable parts. Those arrived around the time I was finishing up the service, and I was, once again, pleased with what was on hand. The crystal was bang on, and the seconds hand (I had ordered a couple different ones to see what would look best in the end) also worked out quite nicely. While it would have been nice to have had the seconds hand prior to sending off the dial and hands for refinishing so that it could have been done to match, I did end up satisfied with that being a contrasting black indicator. 

 

Regrettably, the only internal photos I have from the project are the ones I took during disassembly for reference. Joyfully, and without further ado, I present those, along with the finished product for your enjoyment:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rogart63]

Wow that blow me away when i saw the last picture :) Amazing result :)

[Geo]

That's an excellent job RC, I bet Mrs RC really likes it! :)

[Gary]

Beautiful Work! Thank you for sharing!

[clockboy]

Nice job done Rusty & really nice watch 

[autowind]

WOW.

[rustycolt]

Thanks fellas. It was truly a labour of love. This project was one of the primary drivers for me to take up watch work in the first place. When the wreck landed on my desk, I immediately knew what I wanted to do with it, and from there on out, I knew that I had to practice, learn, build skills and abilities so that I was worthy and capable of the task. It is one (very rewarding and satisfying) thing to learn about troubleshooting and tools from books, vids, and great groups like this one, but this project taught me a lot about the sentimentality and personal connection that we have with objects like this, and watches in particular. It's a wonderful expression of engineering and emotion which I like to think we all share in, whether we realize it or not.

 

Regardless of the future of my watch working, and even if I mature to the point where I am fortunate enough to have the challenge of much more expensive or complicated movements, this one will always be a high water mark for me in terms of accomplishment and meaningfulness.

It will forever be one of my most treasured and valued projects.