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Hello from Maryland, and my first head scratcher!

boxorox

By boxorox
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boxorox New Member

boxorox

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Hello everyone and hope you all doing well. 

I've always been a tinkerer and love exploring how things work. I'm hoping to dip my toes in the waters of watch service and repair. I have a small mechanical watch collection and my goal is to get to a point where I'm comfortable being able to service them. This is a hobby I've thought about often and was finally motivated to pursue after being laid up with a cold last week and binge watching some Wristwatch Revival on youtube. Motivated! I'm currently in the process of collecting some tools to get started and have picked up two ebay specials to attempt/pratice disassembly and reassembly. 

The first is an Elgin Shockmaster that I actually quite like the style of and would love to get up and running again. 

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The second is a Windsor with a badly cracked crystal, missing seconds hand, and case in overall rough shape. This one already has me stumped on how to remove the movement from the case back. It seams like the movement should drop out the front but I'm not certain what is retaining  the movement at this point.

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Looking forward to the journey, thanks in advance for you patience and assistance! 

 

 

 

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Nucejoe Distinguished Member

Nucejoe

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3 hours ago, boxorox said:

Hello everyone and hope you all doing well. 

 It seams like the movement should drop out the front but I'm not certain what is retaining  the movement at this point.

PXL_20230424_194213835.thumb.jpg.58552ae8242f4feb0d42843a4a4a3b3d.jpg

 

Try inserting a razor blade into the seam between the movemnet and case back, work your way around the seam to widen the gap, the movement will eventually agree to come out peacefully.

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boxorox New Member

boxorox

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15 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Try inserting a razor blade into the seam between the movemnet and case back, work your way around the seam to widen the gap, the movement will eventually agree to come out peacefully.

 

I'll give try this tonight when I get home from the office. It's not always fun learning where the line is between not enough and too much force is! 

 

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boxorox New Member

boxorox

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Well gave the razor blade a try and still no luck.  Worked the blade around the edge several times and while I was able to get under the lip of the movement, but it doesn't want to drop out of the case.  Even with a little prying of the razor no real progress. Head scratching continues... 

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Waggy Distinguished Member

Waggy

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Hmmm.... will probably send some fellow watchmakers screaming, but in situations like this I have sometimes placed the tip of a set of brass tweezers inside the stem hole and used this for leverage and then employ a rocking motion front to back to coax it out - that is of course if you can get the stem out. Another trick I have employed is to double wrap and seal the watch in 2 ziplok bags, then place these in my ultrasonic at 60 oC (without the ultrasonic waves turned on - just heat). Sometimes this is just enough to get the metals expanding enough, without doing any damage, to free up the movement.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

🤞

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