Do you replace these parts?

[Stian]

Hi guys,

 

I'm working on a Longines 12.68z, which at some point have gotten some water inside the movement. The ratchet wheel, crown wheel and winding pinion all have some corrosion on them, see pictures.

 

 

Two questions to you: would you replace these parts? And to clean these types of parts, do you only use pegwood and cleaning fluid or also metal like an old screwdriver or such?

 

Thanks,

Stian

 

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[rogart63]

Depends on if you want it to look good or just run good? would probably work okay if you clean it?

Maybe use a glassfiber scratch brush to clean it with? 

[Cad101]

Yep its amazing what you can achieve with pegwood and a fiber brush time and a Bit of hard work.

[RCDesign]

More work to set up, but easy work when once up and running - electrolysis!

[oldhippy]

If the parts are available I would replace.

[clockboy]

I agree with old hippy if you can replace.  if not soak in really strong tea for couple of days and then give them a clean (perhaps with a fibre brush) and see if they are usable. 

[wls1971]

I supose in the days when these movements where in current production it would have been a simple and reliativley cheap option to replace the parts, but with vintage watches it comes down to what parts are and what parts are not available in this case cousins have the ratchet wheel listed at £14.24 and as far as I can see all other parts you need are obsolete there are of course other sources of parts and they may have the parts you need but then it comes down to cost and how much you are willing to pay

The parts are never going to be asthetically good as new but they should clean up very well you have nothing to lose by cleaning them up, as Clockboy has already stated strong cold tea solution works it is a mild tanic acid that works on the rust. A simple way to make a very strong tea solution is place a tea bag in a cup of cold water in the microwave for 3 minutes on high the solution produced is far stronger than brewing alone can produce and works well on rust do not move the cup from the microwave or stir with a spoon until it has cooled down.

I have cleaned up parts far worse than those you have shown by using tea. I had a J.W.Benson watch where the clutch wheel and winding pinnion and winding stem had rusted together and could not be parted I had to soak them in tea and give them a blast in the ultrasonic cleaner they cleaned up better than I could have hoped and got the watch running parts where not available so the only option was to try.

 

[Stian]

I supose in the days when these movements where in current production it would have been a simple and reliativley cheap option to replace the parts, but with vintage watches it comes down to what parts are and what parts are not available in this case cousins have the ratchet wheel listed at £14.24 and as far as I can see all other parts you need are obsolete there are of course other sources of parts and they may have the parts you need but then it comes down to cost and how much you are willing to pay

The parts are never going to be asthetically good as new but they should clean up very well you have nothing to lose by cleaning them up, as Clockboy has already stated strong cold tea solution works it is a mild tanic acid that works on the rust. A simple way to make a very strong tea solution is place a tea bag in a cup of cold water in the microwave for 3 minutes on high the solution produced is far stronger than brewing alone can produce and works well on rust do not move the cup from the microwave or stir with a spoon until it has cooled down.

I have cleaned up parts far worse than those you have shown by using tea. I had a J.W.Benson watch where the clutch wheel and winding pinnion and winding stem had rusted together and could not be parted I had to soak them in tea and give them a blast in the ultrasonic cleaner they cleaned up better than I could have hoped and got the watch running parts where not available so the only option was to try.

Fabulous advice, thanks a lot! I will give it a try and see if I can improve the surface of these parts.

Stian

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[Stian]

More work to set up, but easy work when once up and running - electrolysis!

Thanks for that, interesting thread. The guy mentions that stainless steel shouldn't be put in the bath though, and the wheels might be stainless steel, no?

Stian

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[StuartBaker104]

They won't be stainless... in any case stainless wouldn't have rusted that badly.

They look like they will clean up nicely, but the ratchet wheel is available from Cousins if you have a problem with that

[Stian]

They won't be stainless... in any case stainless wouldn't have rusted that badly.

They look like they will clean up nicely, but the ratchet wheel is available from Cousins if you have a problem with that

Haha, your post made me facepalm from my own question. Indeed stainless wouldn't stain like that

I'll go ahead with the pegwood and fiber brush, thanks for all the help!

Stian

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[szbalogh]

Soft rust is removable with the fiber brush. A bit of diamond paste on the pegwood makes wonders as a next step.

[david]

Whenever I removed rust using mechanical methods I was able to remove the rust to a point where I could no longer detect it on the part. When I put the part under a microscope there were still thousands of microscopic rust pits in the steel. This explained why, over time, the rust would come back. When I removed the rust with electrolysis, and examined the part with a microscope, the small pits where still there but the microscopic bits of rust were gone. Using electrolysis seemed to remove all of the rust. 

david