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Restoring Lost Brass - Vintage Watch Case Repair


Dpastl

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Hi there,

I've been obsessing over trying to figure out how to restore some vintage watch cases I've picked up.  Not because they're valuable mind you, but just because I enjoy pre 50's watches.  What I've found is that many of these older swiss watch cases were built with Brass as the base metal and then plated.  Through normal wear this plating is abraded away until the brass shows, which is "easily" dissolved by the various chemicals (for lack of a better description) on our skin.  Often this results in misshapen lugs or missing features.

From researching it seems like there are a number of different ways to restore this lost brass:

  • Welding (pulsed or laser) (expensive but what professionals use)
  • Welding (resistive)
  • Soldering/brazing with lower melting temp material
  • Electroforming / Electroplating (Copper seems like the only good option)

The first seems to be the state of the art for stainless at least, but it waay out of my price range.  The second seems possible, just adding a sheet of brass by spot welding it and then filing/sanding away.  The third didn't work for me using electrical solder (yeah, I know, not the right stuff).  That and any retouching melts the previous work you did.  The last one seems super cool and very accessible but I'm not sure how well copper will stand up over time, even if plated with a thick layer of nickle.

-- I might make this thread a log of my trials in figuring this out so perhaps others can learn from my failures. --

Has anyone had any experience with restoring lost brass to a watch case?  What method did you use?

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Electroplating is a science into itself, I've only ever dabbled in it by making my own Nickle Chloride solution and nickle plating some brass straps for a toy steam engine, but it is very much possible to use copper plating to fill uneven surfaces.

The book 'Electroplating' by Dan Hanson and David Hanson goes through the process of showing that with a heavily rusted and pitted axe head that is cleaned up given a thick plating of copper and then sanded back to give a smooth surface for the final plating.

You can actually get brass plating solutions too, but copper would probably be more cheaper to use just to fill the pitting.

Your biggest issue would be making sure you properly mask the areas that you don't want a big thick layer of copper on when you fill in the pitting on the watch case.

You do also need to prepare the surface correctly before you apply the final plating of nickle for it to give a good result though.

 

I do also know someone that uses a micro laser welder to fix stainless steel cases.

This article was written by a member of my watch association showing what he could do with a very rough Doxa divers watch and from this one article it has brought him so much work how now just refinishes high end watch cases full time.

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-inside-and-outside-restoration-of-a-doxa-300t-searambler

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   " brass at sea";      bronze and brass make very good watch cased EXCEPT when they are plated over.  I have several  watches that are badly pitted as menchend above,   at sea,  brass "is sead to"  " de  zinkafy "   as those watch cased.  All I can say is Bronze dose not.  vin

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Hi

My mum gave me a gold plating kit years ago, Not sure if I still have it (Or where it is if I still do have it!)

She bought it from QVC, It was a solution in a plastic screw topped jar that non ferrous items were soaked in, The only trouble was that leaving that part in for longer would build up the thickness for better wear but it also darkened the gold too making it like rose gold!

It did actually work too!

 

John :)

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  • 1 month later...

I have some experience with a few of the techniques you mention, albeit not for the task of repairing a watch case. You can use low temperature brass or copper solder but there are plenty of risks involved. The solder might not want to flow in the gap you have, or it might flow to some other part of the watch case. Or you might melt something you won't want to melt. So it takes quite a bit of skill to get right.

Electroforming is pretty incredible. It is really cool to get a large hunk of solid copper out of a acid solution. Yeah masking is critical as is making sure the area you want to form is clean. You'd likely have to form larger than the are you want to fill and file and polish to shape. Copper polishes and plates quite well but it is softer than brass. I wouldn't really worry about that unless you have very large gaps to fill though. There is also nickel electroforming, but copper is much more accessible.

Electroforming is pretty accessible to pick up. You just have to use the right solution, and go very slowly. Plating, however requires much more skill. The basics of plating are easy but getting really good results requires experience. I can do basic plating from a guidebook but often get unreliable results. I wouldn't recommend you try to plate yourself unless that is as skill you are looking to learn. If you get it wrong, you will have to polish the plate off which could damage the watch case. There is also the hazardous chemicals and disposal to deal with.

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