Jenny Caribbean Shown Some Love

[jaycey]

This was a rather unexpected purchase for me a few weeks back, a Jenny Caribbean 1500 dating from around 1969.

The Jenny Caribbean 1000 is (arguably) the first watch rated to a depth of 1000 metres, this is the slightly larger by 2mm, 42mm Caribbean 1500
It was offered to me by a friend and at the time I knew nothing about Jenny's. Luckily there is plenty of information regarding their history here and on the Internet and I really liked the look of this watch (I love vintage divers)
My friend sent me the watch to look over and at the price I got it for, couldn't refuse!
Although it was running it wasn't in the best of health, gaining around 10-15minutes a day and randomly stopping. Hand setting, date changing were all fine and being an ETA movement I knew it shouldn't be a problem to put right.
The case, bezel, hands & dial were all in good condition apart from a small mark on the dial from a previous service I presume.

So, after handing over the cash I set about making her ship shape.
I bought a new barrel/mainspring and a new set of gaskets, 4 in total & into Jenny I dived

The bezel clipped off nice and easy, revealing the screw down retaining ring.

Now I had to make a tool to unscrew the retaining ring. I had a couple of spare bits for my Jaxa wrench and set about grinding them down with my Dremmel. Crude but perfectly effective.

The ring was unscrewed with no drama and revealed the first gasket that was a perished mess.

With the ring removed I was able to lift the 5mm thick acrylic crystal revealing the next 2 gaskets that were in good condition.
To release the movement you have to separate the stem which is a split stem. This was done by inserting a pair of side cutters between the case and crown and slowly closing the jaws allowing the bevel of the side cutters to safely separate the 2 halves.

At this point I encountered a problem, the movement wouldn't budge. It was jammed solid into the case. This was rather unexpected as every bit of information I had about the Jenny's suggested the movement ring on these dries out and shrinks...Not this one, it was solid!
So I put a new blade in my scalpel and started cutting around the edge of the movement ring. It is a metal ring encapsulated in a rubber type material. After half an hour or so, there was movement. Finally I had the movement out and realised by the remnants of goo stuck to the case, the movement ring had bonded itself to the case. Maybe through heat, I have no idea?
Here you can see where it was attached to the case.

With the hard part out of the way I continued to disassemble everything including the ETA 2724 movement. The ETA 2724 was ETA's first high beat (28k) movement and this is indicated on the dial by the words "Hi Swing"
It was bone dry and plenty of dirt flowing around. This hadn't seen a service for a long time!

Everything ready for cleaning.

Dial cleaned using cotton bud a mild soapy water. Really difficult to capture the beauty of this dial, it has little reflective speckles in it and reflects wonderfully.

Everything cleaned and ready for assembly. I stripped all the rubber material from the movement ring and replaced it with tape.

New gaskets fitted

And here she is. The movement has been regulated and is running superbly accurate. I will pick up a nicer strap for it when I get a chance. It's been pressure tested to 100 metres as the machine I use only go's that that. I will take it for the 1000 metre test though, I'm confident it will pass

It's a shame I cant capture the real beauty of this watch. Such a lovely dial and the bezel compliments it perfectly
I love my Jenny!

[Geo]

Excellent watch, excellent write up, very well done!

[szbalogh]

This is really one beautyful watch! Great job you did there

[Tmuir]

Nice thanks for sharing

[jaycey]

Thanks for the great comments guys.

Today I set about sorting the horrendous strap out. The Caribbean has flared lugs so I had to adapt a bracelet I had in the cupboard. I took a file to the end pieces and although they ain't Rolex spec I think it looks pretty damn good!




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[atimegoneby]

Nice job jaycey, 1000 metres is a long way down    

[RyMoeller]

Great write-up!  That dial is in excellent condition considering the age of the watch.  The methods used to make a watch water tight to such a depth are quite interesting too.  Was it difficult sourcing such an odd sized crystal though?

[jaycey]

On 29/10/2016 at 9:35 AM, RyMoeller said:

Great write-up!  That dial is in excellent condition considering the age of the watch.  The methods used to make a watch water tight to such a depth are quite interesting too.  Was it difficult sourcing such an odd sized crystal though?

 

Thanks!

The crystal wasn't replaced, it's original

[anilv]

Love these acrylic bezel.

[jdm]

Very nice watch and work. When I saw the monocoque case and the name Carribean it immediately reminded me of the Philip Watch that my dad recently found again and gave to me.
So I checked and the relationship is documented on the very home page of Jenny [emoji6]

[MilTimeCan]

I had never heard of this watch before this forum page.

Amazing, 1000 meters.

Fantastic work !!!!!

On 10/27/2016 at 0:44 PM, jaycey said:

This was a rather unexpected purchase for me a few weeks back, a Jenny Caribbean 1500 dating from around 1969.

The Jenny Caribbean 1000 is (arguably) the first watch rated to a depth of 1000 metres, this is the slightly larger by 2mm, 42mm Caribbean 1500
It was offered to me by a friend and at the time I knew nothing about Jenny's. Luckily there is plenty of information regarding their history here and on the Internet and I really liked the look of this watch (I love vintage divers)
My friend sent me the watch to look over and at the price I got it for, couldn't refuse!
Although it was running it wasn't in the best of health, gaining around 10-15minutes a day and randomly stopping. Hand setting, date changing were all fine and being an ETA movement I knew it shouldn't be a problem to put right.
The case, bezel, hands & dial were all in good condition apart from a small mark on the dial from a previous service I presume.

So, after handing over the cash I set about making her ship shape.
I bought a new barrel/mainspring and a new set of gaskets, 4 in total & into Jenny I dived