My Wittnauer Diver watch has not been serviced in 40 years

[LittleWatchShop]

The watch that is my avatar is the one I am talking about.  I am wearing it now and it keeps excellent time.  Note, however, it sat in a drawer for perhaps 30 of those years but I have been wearing it off an on for the last two years.

Pretty sure it was serviced using Elgin M56-B.

My dad would always recommend servicing once per year.  Of course he was motivated to generate business...lol...and I ate a lot of groceries!

I will probably service it this year.  The movement is a C11KAS and I have serviced one before, so it should be straightforward.

[RichardHarris123]

Not serviced for 40 years, you'll get shot.  Hehe. 

[JohnR725]

On 4/12/2023 at 8:16 AM, LittleWatchShop said:

My dad would always recommend servicing once per year.  Of course he was motivated to generate business.

the one year service interval used to be the recommendation. It's not until you get the modern sealed up cases and synthetic oils tJulie go longer than one year.

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

the one year service interval used to be the recommendation. It's not until you get the modern sealed up cases and synthetic oils tJulie go longer than one year.

 

an example of this was my sisters 21st birthday watch that she gave me to look at that stopped working many years ago. She is now 65, the watch was a tiny Everite that had a large beat error that wouldnt allow it to start up on its own, so an easy fix. It had never been serviced and the oil was still fluid sat in the jewel wells over 40 years after it was manufactured.

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

oil was still fluid sat in the jewel wells over 40 years after it was manufactured

40 years it would mean that about 1983. That would be or should have been synthetic oils.  I'm not sure when in the 50s the later 50s probably do you get 9010 and 9020 synthetic oils. Although they still make their organic oils even to this day which of course would limit how long those watches are going to run.

Like for instance in this discussion

https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/25884-my-watchmaker-uses-only-one-oil/

 

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

58 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

40 years it would mean that about 1983. That would be or should have been synthetic oils.  I'm not sure when in the 50s the later 50s probably do you get 9010 and 9020 synthetic oils. Although they still make their organic oils even to this day which of course would limit how long those watches are going to run.

Like for instance in this discussion

https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/25884-my-watchmaker-uses-only-one-oil/

 

 

 

My post about my sister's watch was something of a query. I've always read and seen other people's posts that organic oils gunked up over time and synthetic oils evaporate. And then follows the big discussion over which version is best. I was surprised to see that neither had happened to my sister's watch and wondered if that was due to the case being well sealed and the watch unused for many years.

[JohnR725]

27 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

synthetic oils evaporate

evaporates or abducted by aliens? I once had a Rolex watch that I hadn't service for 25 years. I knew exactly how I had oil that before it was 9020 for the entire gear train and 9010 for the balance and probably the escapement. I really wasn't worried about it because I only ward a couple of times a year. Then 25 years later it's time to service it again. This is because I have a fancy new witschi timing machine like it do a before and after and this was at a time when the cheap Chinese machines didn't exist. So when I went the service my watch I notice that the 9020 a synthetic oil was still visibly there I assume it was still functional. The 9010 was long since missing. Under the dial the PML stem grease that I used at that time if I didn't know better I would've thought I was assembling the watch because everything looked perfect degrees was exactly were supposed to be it looks very functional.

Then as far as the 90 10th of that operating the indication is that it spreads with time. All lubricants at some point in time will spread it just how fast. This is why if you look at anything today it talks about 9010 they've epilam the balance staff the jewel assemblies whatever to keep it from spreading.

Then if you work on vintage watches like I do you will see the effect of organic oils they typically just harden up with time the watch doesn't run. This is why classically at least up until now cleaning a watch would fix the problem is because the oil was just bad and it just needed cleaning. But now with modern synthetic oils were they don't go bad or they get abducted by aliens and no longer do their job you can literally run your watch right into the ground until it disintegrates and you won't notice until it stops. Considerably more common on automatic watches especially early ones with a lot of metal on metal bearings.