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Rado 17 jewels AS 1187: an attempt at servicing a watch


m0g

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Hello,

 

so instead of posting various questions regarding my current project, I decided that I'm going to post everything here.

 

So I acquired this vintage Rado for 35 euros on eBay. My goal is to service the watch completely. This is my second attempt at taking apart a watch. The caliber is a AS 1187.

 

I am beginner with a couple of tools, I'm here to learn.

 

The watch was working fairly well when I got it.

 

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My previous project was a laco sport with a Durowe 441, I managed to put it back together. It's working albeit not perfect.

 

Anyhow, this one right of the bat, was more difficult. It took me a while to understand that it was a front loader, so I had to pop up the glass & bezel on the front.

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Another issue was that the stem wouldn't come loose, turned you first had to loosen the movement holder ring.

 

Now the movement is out of its casing, but the stem do not want to come back in. I believe somehow the keyless mechanism went out of alignment. While fiddling around with the stem, the watch eventually stopped, not to be started again.

 

After removing hand & dial, I noticed that part of the keyless mechanism was broken. I do not know if it's my doing. In any case I haven't found the missing part. Maybe that could explain my difficulty in getting the stem back in.

 

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Unfortunately the mainspring is still loaded. Moving I'm going to try to dismantle the keyless mechanism to see if I can get the watch going again.

 

That's it for today.

Cheers

 

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Hi It would be prudent with the watch in this state to try and locate the stem to enable you to let down the watch (remove power) as any disruption of the keyless work and or the ratchet wheel and a sudden loss of power may cause other problems within the watch, better safe than sorry.    Which bit is broken not too apparent on the pic  usually its the setting lever spring.          cheers

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Hi,

You'll need to replace the winding stem to be able to let down the power on the mainspring.

The part that is broken is the setting lever spring, which is part of that cover plate over the keyless work. This are the part that will often break and it probably wasn't you who did it. It makes the setting lever have a distinctive 'click' when the winding stem is pulled out into hand setting mode, but won't stop you from putting the winding stem back and have it all the way in to be in 'winding mode'. It also allows the setting lever have two precise positions to be in 'hand setting' or 'mainspring winding' modes. I don't know if you know how to let down the mainspring, as you haven't said, but I assume that you do. Let the mainspring down before disassembling the keyless, otherwise you won't be able to, once the keyless work is apart.

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If you cannot insert the stem then you could try using a screwdriver in the ratchet wheel screw, turn to release the click and slowly allow the ratchet wheel to unwind the mainspring by controlling the turning of the ratchet wheel screw.  Easier to do if the movement is in a movement holder.  Be careful not to apply too much turning (to release the click) as it may over-tighten the ratchet wheel screw.

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59 minutes ago, canthus said:

If you cannot insert the stem then you could try using a screwdriver in the ratchet wheel screw, turn to release the click and slowly allow the ratchet wheel to unwind the mainspring by controlling the turning of the ratchet wheel screw.  Easier to do if the movement is in a movement holder.  Be careful not to apply too much turning (to release the click) as it may over-tighten the ratchet wheel screw.

There should be no reason why the winding stem can't be fitted, regardless of the broken setting lever spring. The way to let down the spring you are suggesting, for someone new to watchmaking seems like a recipe for disaster

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1 hour ago, Jon said:

There should be no reason why the winding stem can't be fitted, regardless of the broken setting lever spring. The way to let down the spring you are suggesting, for someone new to watchmaking seems like a recipe for disaster

Missing from your photographs is the stem we really need a picture of the stem. Excluding important components is not helpful for proper answers.

Then I'm attaching a tech sheet unfortunately it's not for your watch it's here so were all on the same page for terminology. It is one of my amusing things I find in horology is terminology. Depending upon where you are and age of whatever you're looking at parts will have differing names for the same part.

It would also been helpful to have a much closer detailed photographs so I snipped out sections out in your photograph. Looking at the right-hand image the detent which I would call it or the setting lever appears to be that it's associated screw has been unscrewed. This would allow you to remove the stem. We can see that the stem is missing and that the sliding pinion Is in the setting position. The setting lever jumper is holding everything in place where it should be.

Then on the left-hand image it appears to be that the detent/setting lever screw is firmly in place. This is a very bad place to be if you're trying to remove a stem or inserting a stem. I'm not saying you can't do it it just wouldn't be good. Then because the setting lever jumper is broken the sliding pinion appears to be not quite where it should be. But this gives us an opportunity? It is really fuzzy but it appears to be that part of your stem is still in place the square part?

A lot of this will depend upon the watch, if you attempt to release the power by holding on to the ratchet wheel screw sometimes it will break off. Another common method is to remove the balance wheel. Then the bridge holding the pallet fork in and be very careful when removing the pallet fork that you don't drop it back in the spinning train. There is no problem with letting the gear train spin down providing nothing is blocking when it's spinning. Unfortunately your options of safely removing the power without a stem does not give you a lot of choices.

 

screw in place stems still in.JPG

screw is out.JPG

ETA 6497-2 Technical Communication.pdf

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I've done one AS movement calibre 1203. Not sure how useful it would be, but here's a link to my disassembly and assembly pictures. You will have to order them by name in ascending order for the pictures to make sense: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnVrKJ9agkNWjP4jpSmGasdUQRc6tw?e=qQ6aPe

Good luck!

Edited by VWatchie
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Thank you all for your interest.

Eventually I removed what I believe to be the minute wheel, which was enough to set the movement back into motion. So now, I'll wait until the power is completely depleted.

 

 

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7 hours ago, m0g said:

so instead of posting various questions regarding my current project, I decided that I'm going to post everything here

Sorry, that was the wrong decision. The idea is that this section collect completed, detailed project that are to be used or just browsed by other needing help.

Instead the aptly named section "Watch Repairs Help & Advice" is exactly where such topics should go.

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7 hours ago, Jon said:

There should be no reason why the winding stem can't be fitted, regardless of the broken setting lever spring. The way to let down the spring you are suggesting, for someone new to watchmaking seems like a recipe for disaster

Jon, I agree and take your point, was meant as a last resort solution, hence my comment to take great care.

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On 3/26/2020 at 3:35 PM, JohnR725 said:

A lot of this will depend upon the watch, if you attempt to release the power by holding on to the ratchet wheel screw sometimes it will break off. Another common method is to remove the balance wheel. Then the bridge holding the pallet fork in and be very careful when removing the pallet fork that you don't drop it back in the spinning train. There is no problem with letting the gear train spin down providing nothing is blocking when it's spinning. Unfortunately your options of safely removing the power without a stem does not give you a lot of choices.

Hello,

 

some updates regarding my project:

 

After waiting a couple of days to receive my Bergeon 080 screwdriver, I managed to strip down the movement.

 

Since my stem issue, I waited for the power to be completely depleted before attempting to take it apart. Unfortunately upon removing the pallet fork, I noticed that the movement still had some power and the pallet fork got caught into gear train. Exactly what I was not supposed to do. I believe I haven't damaged anything.

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Otherwise, the movement is now bare and ready to be cleaned. You'll notice that I left the mainspring in its barrel and the ratchet click hasn't been touched.

 

I'm planning on cleaning everything with Zippo fluid. I do not have an ultrasonic cleaning machine at the moment.

 

I'll keep you posted on any new progress.

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Edited by m0g
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  • 2 months later...

Hello,

Here is an update on my project.

I finally completed the cleaning an reassembly of the watch. It is now running, I have been wearing for a week and it's accurate enough. I do not own a timegrapher so I can't give you an accurate reading.

The missing setting lever spring has been scavenged from a second AS 1187 watch I purchased of eBay.

I also noticed some corrosion on the pallet fork. I did not replace it.

I ordered a new crystal, but somehow never managed to install it. So I put back the old one.

The watch was cleaned using zippo fluid. I have oiled it with Moebius 9010 and D5.

Thank you all for your help and advices.

 

 

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