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Omega Pocket Watch - Movement identification & Dial removal


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Good evening all,

This is my first question on here since my introduction, and this is also my first vintage pocket watch that I’m attempting to service, so appreciate any assistance you can offer.

I’m looking for some help in identifying which movement this is and how to remove the dial.

I have gotten the movement out of the case, but I’m struggling to see any way of removing the dial. I was expecting to see dial feet screws but don’t see any around the circumference of the movement.

Can anyone point out what I’m missing and help me identify what movement this is?

Thanks in advance, from a complete newbie. 

D06C151C-277B-411D-B9E5-A7A566F10F8D.thumb.jpeg.65f792937c4ad1ab33d7303b196a382e.jpeg7E17641A-62E2-4849-9C41-7BC598C0E3D1.thumb.jpeg.c3b4b85ad38606f8b51260987cb6ef6f.jpeg5697646C-3401-4074-8BEB-4AB933DB1852.thumb.jpeg.ba30f7c376c25f3a0721c7df79df9e31.jpeg7709A2D3-F276-4ED3-A88F-93F414718CF6.thumb.jpeg.ec3fd2b2257cfd718af79d8c33e12aea.jpeg3FD71E41-3117-4812-A825-AE16E39B8950.thumb.jpeg.ba1b7a5e8281ae31c6b5125d644feb60.jpegE18F4F47-B6A4-4017-AA8A-9B0F7A14A7B4.thumb.jpeg.62c0909fe4865c57a17cd9f41562fc35.jpeg

16583A63-A0E6-490B-AD05-AB166115251B.jpeg

Okay never mind. Dial is off now. Turns out it was held on via friction and it came off with a small amount of leverage with my screwdriver.

I’d still appreciate any further advice regarding this movement anyone can give me. 🙂 

image.thumb.jpg.fed5eb19495ccbd919250583f85e9259.jpg

Movement completely disassembled. Now to clean all the parts and reassemble later this week.

 

BDF62945-7136-4EB7-B9FC-B807A328CFCB.jpeg

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From what I can tell, your watch was produced around 1923.

As for the caliber ?

Maybe a 35.5 L ?

I think that many of these earlier Omega's movements were "defined" by the size of the movement,...possibly in Lignes, which is an older European method of measure

Edited by Randy55
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One of the things would help is size. Yes I know it's a pocket watch the pocket watches range and variety of sizes so what's the size measured on the dial side of the main plate. Because otherwise their books that we can look up the setting components but we have to have a size to start with.

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45 minutes ago, Randy55 said:

From what I can tell, your watch was produced around 1923.

As for the caliber ?

Maybe a 35.5 L ?

I think that many of these earlier Omega's movements were "defined" by the size of the movement,...possibly in Lignes, which is an older European method of measure

Thanks for the advice. I assumed 1910's or 1920's myself. 

38 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

One of the things would help is size. Yes I know it's a pocket watch the pocket watches range and variety of sizes so what's the size measured on the dial side of the main plate. Because otherwise their books that we can look up the setting components but we have to have a size to start with.

I've just measured the dial side mainplate diamater and it's 39.2mm.

Thank you both for your replies. 

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for future reference I have a PDF see you can convert it to other measurements used to figure out watches.

like for instance if you're going to the bestfit book you need to have a starting place as I started at 17 and there aren't a lot of Omega pocket watches in the bestfit book that match what you have I can only find one. So I'm attaching the image then in the normal database there are to watches with a slight difference in the letters no idea why

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Omega_40_6L_T1

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Omega_40_6L_T2

in any case this would get you're reasonably close. Omega tended to have lots of variations of pocket watches sometimes it's makes it a little hard to figure out exactly which one you have

Omega 40.6 pocket watch.JPG

watch-ligne-size-chart.pdf

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10 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

for future reference I have a PDF see you can convert it to other measurements used to figure out watches.

like for instance if you're going to the bestfit book you need to have a starting place as I started at 17 and there aren't a lot of Omega pocket watches in the bestfit book that match what you have I can only find one. So I'm attaching the image then in the normal database there are to watches with a slight difference in the letters no idea why

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Omega_40_6L_T1

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Omega_40_6L_T2

in any case this would get you're reasonably close. Omega tended to have lots of variations of pocket watches sometimes it's makes it a little hard to figure out exactly which one you have

Omega 40.6 pocket watch.JPG

watch-ligne-size-chart.pdf 662.48 kB · 4 downloads

Thank you for your help with this. Have saved that Size reference chart, very useful indeed. 
 

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I am blown away! I happen to be working on pretty much the same exact movement at the moment. I am searching for a seconds hand for it, and a person who can replace a few jewels. I’m going to follow this as well, hopefully we can both learn from each other. Thanks for posting! 
 

PS: so far as I can tell, it’s a 19Ligne

2E4E2A0D-9604-4E4F-BFDE-974D57D5C6FB.jpeg

70335DEA-4EEE-4F69-B940-6E02328FFCDB.jpeg

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11 hours ago, seadwellermike said:

I am blown away! I happen to be working on pretty much the same exact movement at the moment. I am searching for a seconds hand for it, and a person who can replace a few jewels. I’m going to follow this as well, hopefully we can both learn from each other. Thanks for posting! 
 

PS: so far as I can tell, it’s a 19Ligne

Ahh that’s great! Nice to see a fellow newbie with a similar movement.

Luckily for me, mine was in full working order with no missing parts prior to disassembly (hopefully it’s remained that way).

I didn’t want to start with a non runner to begin with, as sourcing parts and making repairs is a bit out of my depth for now.

Im hoping a good service will have it running a lot better and keeping better time.

Anyway all the best, I hope you’re able to source a seconds hand and sort out the jewels.

I’ll post an update on here once I’ve hopefully got it running again. 

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Please do, it’s great to see!  I have the watch running, not GREAT but running. The jewels are certainly going to be an issue. Also, the post above I misspoke, it’s a caliber 19 not 19ligne, I also see your balance is different, and mine looks like the one found on the “19’’’ “ (3 apostrophes after the 19) which was a 125yr anniversary movement that came out recently. 

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1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

if you can't source one there's people out there that can repivot it for you. Although it's probably not going to be cheap

@JohnR725& anyone else who can assist me. I've managed to find a seller on Ebay from Poland who's selling them for US $64.80 (inc postage). Not sure if that sort of price is normal for a single wheel though? Is that a realistic price for NOS on vintage pocket watch parts? 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144047671442

Do you think I'd be better off looking around for whole movements? Would any other similar movements by Omega contain Escape wheels that would also be the same / size fit? Such as the Omega 18" LOB.

Also, I had great difficulty in getting the train wheel bridge back on. This is my first time doing it and I think I may have put too much pressure and broke the pivot myself. Also, this caused out one of the cap stones (the one directly below the 3rd wheel) to be pushed from the mainplate, which I managed to reallign and friction press back in with a piece of pegwood. No idea if this will hold out though as I'm aware it certainly is not the correct technique. 

I've checked all the other staffs on the wheels and the pivots, and those seem to be okay.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow of the other wheels and the jewel in the mainplate that I refitted, I would hugely appreciate another eye / experianced persons opinion if these are still okay to use or need to be replaced too.

Have put everything away for today as I was getting frustrated with that part of the re-assembly and can't do much now with a damaged part. It's a bit disheartening as I was sure I could do it without issue, but clearly inexperiance took over. Nonethelss though, lesson learnt and a project to be resumed in the future if all else. Going to be a nice pocket watch done and I don't want to give up on it.

I even polished up the case today, fitted a new crystal and cleaned up the dial in anticpation of full assembly today! How naive of me... 😂

Before:

image0.thumb.jpg.36f601efd895b553e159a82ed00feb41.jpg

 

After:

image1.thumb.jpg.8ff1e2279e2c7909e1c1a0327baef6ba.jpg

image3.thumb.jpg.0c3d958736058d7b45b64b40c39777f5.jpg

image0.thumb.jpg.409b04b137241ade2eac0c6ebded4fe6.jpg

image2.jpg

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3 hours ago, Ashes said:

This is my first time doing it and I think I may have put too much pressure and broke the pivot myself.

if you're new to watch repair you're going to break things. If things like plates are hard to go on in other words you took all the wheels out in just put the pieces together they fit tight then you're going to break things. That's because you're not going to have a good feel for what's happening in a be really easy to break things.

this is where he usually the recommendation is to start with the Chinese clone of the 6497 pocket watch and get a good feel for taking it apart and putting it together a whole bunch of times just to get a feel for things rather than jumping in with a watch that you want to keep because you're going to break things.

3 hours ago, Ashes said:

Also, this caused out one of the cap stones (the one directly below the 3rd wheel) to be pushed from the mainplate, which I managed to reallign and friction press back in with a piece of pegwood. No idea if this will hold out though as I'm aware it certainly is not the correct technique. 

we need a better picture of this to see if you did any damage or not. I can't tell from the pictures how the jewels are held in whether they just friction the or whether that's old enough there burnished in and popping those out wouldn't really be a desirable thing to do.

Okay read the rest your message looks like putting it away yes that's a good thing to do. I start getting frustrated things then really bad things can start to happen.

As the costs the replacement escape wheel? The problem when you're dealing with anything of vintage the problem is obtaining the part. At some point in time it comes down to if this is the only part you can get then the price will be good if that's what you're willing to pay if you're not willing to pay than that's bad but you don't have a part you can't make your watch run.

 

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@JohnR725Hey John. Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate all of your help. 

I know that it's inevitable stuff like this will happen whilst learning, it's to be expected. You're right though that I should have practised more on the ETA 6497 clone prior to attempting this on a vintage watch.

I've gotten some pictures under the microscope of the jewel that fell out, that I friction fitted back into the mainplate and the other wheels.

If you could advise if you think they are still useable, then I'll probably go ahead and get that replacement Escape Wheel, as I do want to finish the servicing of this watch. 

Jewel (for 3rd wheel) - Train wheel side

218739497_Jewelfront.png.e20c7ec47599f985cbd38849b36dd810.png

 

Jewel (for 3rd wheel) - Dial Side

220338947_JewelBack.png.b8596136d003a8215bc8f5a403669490.png

 

Escape Wheel - Definitely broken top pivot

731514706_EscapeWheel.png.6bafa9426f4ddbe03a10b3451acafd98.png

 

Centre Wheel

945376380_CentreWheel.png.0138497c36040d4816840da7e2299ce6.png

 

3rd Wheel

95020818_3rdWheel.png.5b737d26acc01cbe4941a5e47886071f.png

 

4th Wheel 

1345389193_4thWheel.png.c944ccf0fc04254b10afeaff9e021e03.png

 

Apologies for the poor picture quality. 

Do these components still look okay to use? I know obviously the Escape wheel is toast, but the others to my untrained eye look okay. 

If you need any other pictures to assist, please just ask. 

Thanks. 

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4 hours ago, Ashes said:

I've gotten some pictures under the microscope of the jewel that fell out, that I friction fitted back into the mainplate and the other wheels.

If you could advise if you think they are still useable, then I'll probably go ahead and get that replacement Escape Wheel, as I do want to finish the servicing of this watch

because the age of the watch that's not a friction jewel at least it doesn't look like it. It's hard to tell from the angle we need a angular review to see better but that looks like a burnished in jewel. As long as you didn't break the burnished in setting you should pollution it in and probably just smooth the burnishing down to hold it in place and if you're lucky you'll be okay.

 

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1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

As long as you didn't break the burnished in setting you should pollution it in and probably just smooth the burnishing down to hold it in place and if you're lucky you'll be okay.

I'll have a look into this and do some research on it. Is it just a matter of smoothing out the metal so it creates a lip around the top of the jewel to hold it in place?

Thanks once again for all your help.

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