New to watches

[EelDahc]

Hello everyone. I've always been a tinkerer, mostly fixing electronics.  But I acquired my fathers watch and my grandpas pocket watch. I started on the PW, an Elgin grade 211 Model 7 7j 16s.  Was missing the crystal and I could tell it needed a mainspring.  So, I ordered those and while I waited for those I started practice on some junk watches. Luckily I had two, BFG 866 to make one working one. That one was a booger and I had to pick parts that were not too rusted between the two, lost some from tweezers snaps...  But I got one working, even straightened the hairspring after wrecking the other trying to do it to it too.  Even figured out a trick when putting the top plate on by lifting the wheels' top pivots into the holes with the tweezers because I could not line them up by just nudging them towards the holes. That's probably common practice. Working on those allowed me to figure out that the balance shaft on the Elgin is broken and the hairspring is really bent. I got a parts watch on ebay and of course it's balance shaft is broken too, but the spring is good. So now I want to get one of those staking sets, the cheap ones.  The oil that I am using at the moment is PAG 150 because I already had it for doing my cars ac and it has similar viscosity as 9010 which is recommended, that may come back to bite me.  My screwdrivers are phone repair ones that come with screen kits that I ground down for the tiny screws. I'll upgrade over time. I'm working my way up to getting into my dads old Sears watch which I didn't want to screw up yet.  Just got another 866 going, a Webster dive watch with date wheel that doesn't want to work right, it's crooked and the dates not line up right, it keeps wanting to stay between the numbers, I also need to figure out how to sync the date and the time correctly.  But anyway, so far it's been fun and frustrating at the same time.

[Nucejoe]

Welcome to the WRT forum.

[watchweasol]

Hello and welcome to the forum   sounds like a baptism of fire,  good luck.

[Shane]

2 hours ago, EelDahc said:

That's probably common practice.

Welcome to the forum.

I would say, the only thing that is common, IS practice.

Just an FYI, that Sears watch of your father's, some of them can be difficult.  I would give that one a try after a few more success with more repair oriented designs.

Shane 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Shane