Hello, New Here, New To Watch Repair

[tvcee15]

Hi everyone,

 

I thought I'd say hello and introduce myself a little before flooding the boards with all my newby questions. (I hope that's ok to do here... I've tried other forums but they are very advanced and I got the distinct feeling no one had patience for answering a bunch of basic questions there.... )

 

I'm a hobbyist and quite new at this. I got fascinated with watches after my great aunt, who is Swiss, left me a bunch of old watches, a Zenith PW, a few IWC wrist watches, etc. I had a career in medical research for 10 years, and had to retire early due to health reasons, so watch repair is a good substitute hobby I can do at home to keep me occupied (actually, so far I find watchmaking to be much more challenging than what I was doing in the lab... way tougher... :)

 

I did the TimeZone watch school courses 1 and 2, and then cleaned several old practice movements I got on the bay. (I like to practice on old Bulova movements, because they are inexpensive and many of them have interchangeable parts so if you lose a part you can scavange other movements... ).

 

So far I'm finding this a bit frustrating, because nothing I've cleaned so far keeps time. One of the big mistakes I made was to use small little 2.5oz glass jars for cleaning... the jars had metal lids, but the inside of the lids were lined with plastic, and as the L&R cleaning solution heated up in the ultrasonic it dissolved the plastic liners on the lids, so several of my practice movements ended up contaminated with sticky plastic all over them... I didn't realize what was happening until I noticed all my hairsprings were sticking together even after a dunk in One Dip, and then I noticed that the plastic liner on the bottom of the caps was all eaten away... oooops. Thank goodness they were just practice movements... I've tried re-cleaning some of them several times to try to decontaminate them, but so far no luck. I'll keep trying to salvage whatever I can. At least this keeps me busy, anyway.

 

So that's where I am. I would like to eventually tackle replacing balance staffs, but for now I'd like to clean a movement or two and actually have them keep time. This is a really fascinating hobby and very engrossing, and I'm afraid I've become quite addicted to it all. I'm sure people can relate. I've watched several of Mark's videos and they are fantastic - he makes it look so easy!

 

Anyway looking forward to being able to ask questions here and there. Thanks to Mark for all the great videos.

 

Ali

 

 

[Geo]

Welcome to the forum Ali, and thank you for the comprehensive introduction. There are no questions that are too basic or stupid, if a question is asked it requires an answer, and that is something members of this forum are excellent at giving. I look forward to hearing about your exploits in the future.

PS Hold back on servicing the Zenith and IWC's for a wee while ;)

[tvcee15]

Hi Geo,

 

Haha, yeah, I guess that was a long introduction... I type fast :) - and yeah, don't worry, no expensive movements were injured during my trial runs, and not even that many Bulovas, mostly just junk movements... I won't even go near anything nice like an IWC for a long, long time...

 

Thanks for the welcome

 

A.

[clockboy]

Hi everyone,

 

I thought I'd say hello and introduce myself a little before flooding the boards with all my newby questions. (I hope that's ok to do here... I've tried other forums but they are very advanced and I got the distinct feeling no one had patience for answering a bunch of basic questions there.... )

 

I'm a hobbyist and quite new at this. I got fascinated with watches after my great aunt, who is Swiss, left me a bunch of old watches, a Zenith PW, a few IWC wrist watches, etc. I had a career in medical research for 10 years, and had to retire early due to health reasons, so watch repair is a good substitute hobby I can do at home to keep me occupied (actually, so far I find watchmaking to be much more challenging than what I was doing in the lab... way tougher... :)

 

I did the TimeZone watch school courses 1 and 2, and then cleaned several old practice movements I got on the bay. (I like to practice on old Bulova movements, because they are inexpensive and many of them have interchangeable parts so if you lose a part you can scavange other movements... ).

 

So far I'm finding this a bit frustrating, because nothing I've cleaned so far keeps time. One of the big mistakes I made was to use small little 2.5oz glass jars for cleaning... the jars had metal lids, but the inside of the lids were lined with plastic, and as the L&R cleaning solution heated up in the ultrasonic it dissolved the plastic liners on the lids, so several of my practice movements ended up contaminated with sticky plastic all over them... I didn't realize what was happening until I noticed all my hairsprings were sticking together even after a dunk in One Dip, and then I noticed that the plastic liner on the bottom of the caps was all eaten away... oooops. Thank goodness they were just practice movements... I've tried re-cleaning some of them several times to try to decontaminate them, but so far no luck. I'll keep trying to salvage whatever I can. At least this keeps me busy, anyway.

 

So that's where I am. I would like to eventually tackle replacing balance staffs, but for now I'd like to clean a movement or two and actually have them keep time. This is a really fascinating hobby and very engrossing, and I'm afraid I've become quite addicted to it all. I'm sure people can relate. I've watched several of Mark's videos and they are fantastic - he makes it look so easy!

 

Anyway looking forward to being able to ask questions here and there. Thanks to Mark for all the great videos.

 

Ali

Welcome to the forum Ali. It can be a bit frustrating when you start tinkering with watches because as you have found you will make mistakes. For that reason as geo recommends don,t attempt any of the better quality watches until you have a bit more experience. The piece of equipment you will need is a timing machine such as a timographer because you will want to know how well the watch is running, if it is in beat & if the watch is running fast or slow & by how much.

The bottom line is it is a very rewarding hobby & for some career & it is addictive. 

[WillFly]

Hi Ali - welcome - and flood the board!

 

Will

[dadistic]

Greetings! I too am very new at this, and have found this forum to be a wonderful resource. Very friendly and helpful folks here.

 

DavidS

[SeikoWatch]

tvcee15 ... First of all, welcome here ...I have some automatic Bulova and none of them will go on scrap or for pieces ...Okay, for your information, Mark here ( the boss ) has an YouTube account ( lost the link  ) . Concerning the containers for your pieces, never use a metal container or with some metal lids... Most of the time the metal can be

magnetized . I already tried all kinds of small metal pots and each time they were magnetized. Now, I use only plastic containers and no more worries. :)

 

[dadistic]

For my little ultrasonic cleaner, I use beakers that I got here -

 

http://www.sciplus.com/p/BEAKER-250ML-HEAT-RESISTANT-GLASS-78MM-X-124MM_274

 

Parts and cleaner go in the beaker, beakers go in the cleaner with just enough water so that they don't float.  Seems to work well.

 

Cheers!

[oldhippy]

Welcome from me. You starting out and I've been retired for many years. Clocks are more my thing on here but I'll help out with watch repairs when I can.

[tvcee15]

thanks so much for the welcome everyone. i really appreciate it. yup, I promise I won't go near any expensive or rare or even decent movements until I have much more practice. it is a bit frustrating, because I don't know what I'm doing wrong! I don't lose parts much anymore, and I have no trouble taking the movements down and putting them back together, but for some reason everything I clean winds up with really low amplitude, even the ones not contaminated by plastic! I don't know why. I'm very careful not to over -oil anything, as I know that is a common error when just starting out. next time I'll describe exactly how I'm cleaning everything, with pictures, and maybe someone can tell me what I'm messing up. I bet it's something really obvious.

thank you seikowatch, I never considered my cleaning containers could become magnetized... I don't think that's the problem, I have a decent de-magnetizer and it hasn't made a difference so far, but you never know... what kind of plastic containers are you using, it is a polymer that won't react with the cleaning solvents I presume?

dadistic, I'm a little hesitant to use open beakers, the cleaning fluids have quite a bit of fumes really, and I didn't want them sitting out in open containers if I could avoid it... but if things keep going badly I might try it.

thanks again everyone. I'll post my procedure the next time I attempt to clean something and maybe someone can point out the error of my ways :)

[Geo]

Apart from your cleaning process, let us know exactly what you are oiling and what oil you're using.n :)

[Vich]

Hello Ali and welcome,

I am sure you will enjoy it here, I have been helped out on numerous occasions and even manage to pitch in with help occasionally. Ask away and I look forward to your postings.

Cheers, Vic

[clockwatcher]

Hi Ali!

You've spotted just what makes this forum great and sets it apart from some others - the welcome that complete newbies get.

The guys and gals here have some fabulous watches but don't look down their noses at a Timex with a pin-lever movement. The breadth and depth of knowledge and experience here is vast and, whatever your problem or query, someone will offer help and advice.

The thing that we all like is photos! Easy to upload straight from your computer.

Have fun!

John

[GeorgeClarkson]

Welcome from me too! And I second clockwatcher in saying that we all love pics, so you know what is your next step, don't you? Show us your watches !!! :);)

Edited October 26, 2015 by GeorgeClarkson