Vintage Benrus Square Rigger

[Josephdhemphill]

Hello from Nashville TN!!! I’m new to the watch repair world, but I’m nerdy and loving it! I’m helping a friend out and repairing his old Benrus Square Rigger. Basically the crown was damaged (the internal pipe was bent badly…I tried to straighten it and it broke.)

Anyways, I’ve learned a lot about this watch but I need some help  it’s a split stem system and I was able to source the correct stem.

What I know so far. It’s a split stem, male side screws into the crown. 5mm crown. Tap 9. 2mm tube on the case.

I bought a random lot of vintage crowns and was able to make one of them work. It’s the crown on the left side in the pic. The problem is, I need a gold one!

I need to find a crown with a recessed “pipe.” The gold one on the right, that has a flush pipe will not work…regardless of how much you trim the stem. It’s has to be recessed like the steel one.

I’m just not sure how to search for that!

[Geotex]

As you are looking for a solution, keep in mind that you can order (or salvage from old crowns) male split stems with different length shoulders - the cylindrical section between the threads and the split coupling. The shortest are less than a millimeter, which gives you another variable to exploit since that would seem to be shorter than what you have in the picture. In their repair kit Benrus sold male split stems in Tap 8 or 10, with shoulders from 0.33-0.085 inches.

[Josephdhemphill]

Oh that’s good to know! I thought the shoulder in the NOS ones I picked up looked ever so slightly bigger. It was tricky to find them but I could look around. I either need a recessed pipe crown or much smaller shouldered male split….