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Waltham Stopwatch Disassembly Help


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I am new to the hobby and looking for some advice. This Waltham stopwatch has these 3 'barrelnuts'  They must be removed for full disassembly. There is no wrenching feature, so I had to remove them with pliers, which scuffed them up a bit (shown).  They are still fully functional, I am just wondering if there is a clever removal method I may have overlooked. They are internally threaded, a jam nut would be my usual solution, but I have never tried that on such a small scale.

Thanks!

Twisty

Waltham.jpg

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2 hours ago, TwistyHairspring said:

Waltham stopwatch

does this watch have a model number?

2 hours ago, TwistyHairspring said:

This Waltham stopwatch has these 3 'barrelnuts'  They must be removed for full disassembly. There is no wrenching feature, so I had to remove them with pliers, which scuffed them up a bit (shown).  They are still fully functional, I am just wondering if there is a clever removal method I may have overlooked. They are internally threaded, a jam nut would be my usual solution, but I have never tried that on such a small scale.

okay so they must be removed but there doesn't seem to be in a practical removal method? How do you know that they must be removed?

Then did you think about taking the movement out of the case?

 

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I can't imagine a reason that these need to come out, is it just to be "complete" about the disassembly? If they really do have to come out, I would grip them in a lathe in a collet and twist the mainplate to coax them out. In the case they were scarred up like yours I would again use a lathe to resurface them.

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11 hours ago, nickelsilver said:

I can't imagine a reason that these need to come out,

the other mystery here is the movement is still in the case? Usually people servicing a watch remove it from the case with some minor exceptions. Then I don't know how many stopwatches somebodies done but usually the dial comes off with the hands the hands are not removed separately the dial the hands in the heart-shaped cams underneath all come off as one unit otherwise are a pain to put that back together again especially if you're really enthusiastic taking the hands of

so we still have the watch in the case that still seems odd to me?

 

 

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tiny bit of information on your movement below. From the 1948 parts catalog a little bit on stop watch repair. That I have another book that does show this movement unfortunately it's a book so I'll have to get around to scanning at a couple of days if you would like to see it.

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/waltham/31793867

W-S2.jpg

W-S3.jpg

W-S1.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/16/2022 at 6:44 AM, TwistyHairspring said:

without removing the barrel nuts

did remember to scan the book made it into a PDF. You notice the watch goes by several numbers but it is the same number on your watch so this is the right watch. Choose disassembly and the parts list. You'll notice the so-called barrel nuts do not come off in the disassembly and are part of the main plate in the parts list. At least I'm not seeing him as a separate component so you can leave them on.

Waltham timer.PDF

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On 9/14/2022 at 12:15 AM, TwistyHairspring said:

I am new to the hobby and looking for some advice. This Waltham stopwatch has these 3 'barrelnuts'  They must be removed for full disassembly. There is no wrenching feature, so I had to remove them with pliers, which scuffed them up a bit (shown).  They are still fully functional, I am just wondering if there is a clever removal method I may have overlooked. They are internally threaded, a jam nut would be my usual solution, but I have never tried that on such a small scale.

Thanks!

Twisty

Waltham.jpg

Hmm. It looks like a rat has chewed and spat them out ( not particularly helpful i know  ) . I dont think they were designed to be removed. The screws dont have a home now 🤔

On 9/16/2022 at 2:44 PM, TwistyHairspring said:

I am going back together with the watch, but here it is outside the case. This is about as much disassembly as you can do without removing the barrel nuts.

Thanks for the help!

T

Bare movement.jpg

I still dont understand why they needed to be removed.  They were there to hold screws from both sides, hence their use 🤔

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