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Chronos 14k case with no caseback


Harm

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Hi everybody,

 

This watch is driving me crazy!

 

My granddads watch isn’t working properly anymore. The second hand turns normally but the hour and minute hand won’t move along.

 

So I decided to take a look inside. But this case has no caseback!

After some Googling I learned that you probably need to pull the crown and stem out first. I tried this (casefully) but no result until now.

Do I need to use more force?

Any suggestions are more then welcome!

 

Greetings,

 

Harm

 

 

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Nice looking watch.

Seconds hand moving but hour and minute hands not is a classic symptom of a loose canon pinion which in itself could be a fairly easy fix depending on what movement is inside. Another thing to check is how much resistance is there when you try to set the hands with the crown in the out position. If there is little to no resistance then that also suggests the canon pinion.

The watch looks like a front loader, which means that everything comes out the front. This should mean you have a two piece stem, and there are two potential approaches to dealing with this.

The first is to remove the crystal and turn the watch face down, then slowly rotate the crown and at the point where the stem coupling is oriented vertically, with any luck the movement will just drop out of the case. You will need to ensure that it has something soft to land on.

If this fails then the other option is simply to pull the crown out hard. This can take a fair bit of force and if it's tight it will feel like you're going to break the watch, but so long as the force is kept along the axis of the stem you will be ok.

If you Google removing two piece (or split) stem you will find all sorts of suggetions on how other people do this and what sort of tools (dedicated and improvised) they use. One thing I would say though is that it looks like you have a rather nice gold case there. Protect it with tape either side of the crown to avoid damaging or marking it.

Whilst you are Googling have a look for loose canon pinion as well to see how this is adjusted.

This is really only half the story though. In all probability if the canon pinion is loose then that would suggest that the movement probably needs properly servicing to bring it back to its best. Not sure what your level of experience is but with respect, if you're new to this game then you might want to consider either putting your heirloom watch to one side until you have some successful experience under your belt, or find someone with the relevant experience to do the service for you, which will sort out the canon pinion issues too. You don't want to damage an heirloom.

 

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4 hours ago, Marc said:

Not sure what your level of experience is but with respect, if you're new to this game then you might want to consider either putting your heirloom watch to one side until you have some successful experience under your belt, or find someone with the relevant experience to do the service for you, which will sort out the canon pinion issues too. You don't want to damage an heirloom.

This. 

OP, please do not transform this piece in a casualty of your curiosity.

You have been given a lot of relevant information but there is a great difference between theory and practice, which you shall discover by learning first on something of small monetary value and that is not part of your family heritage. 

Edited by jdm
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Thanks Marc, for your explanation!
After removing the crystal the movement just dropped out.

Then I quickly reassembled it.

JDM was right, better leave this to a qualified watchmaker!


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