Hamilton Pacer Accutron Tuning-Fork --the only one?

[Alastair]

Well I finally did it. Dug out the old Hamilton with its demised 500 movement and modified it--just a bit! but not with a 667 Hamilton to make 'Pacermatic' oh no, much more fun with a tuning-fork movement, still 'electric' and still a revolutionary movement, with that graceful seconds hand flow motion. Go Quartz?--You Must be joking!

The original 500 movement had broken trip/contact wires, and try as I did, cant find any anywhere. Looks like they went unobtainium sometime last century!

I recently got hold of a mens Accutron, I had thought was a 2180, but turned out to be the smaller 2301 so-called, ladies movement in the mens case with a substantial brass spacer-ring. This movement is just a fraction bigger than a British penny, runs at 480Hz with 240 tooth Index-wheel but unlike the other ladies Accutron this caliber has a seconds hand.

I dismantled both watches. The coil was dead in the Accutron, so I sourced another complete working watch for £20--Bargain! I serviced the first movement then borrowed the coil from the worker fitted it, where it ran under a glass in its holder for a couple of weeks.

I used the now coil-less worker movement as a template for my experiments. I examined the Hamilton movement ring. This part has two projections that serve to retain the battery overhanging the side of the 500 movement, so these would need to be removed. A small grinder took care of that. I now had a more or less round hole in the Hamilton spacer-ring, into which I hoped to fit the Accutron brass spacer.

The Accutron spacer was just a little too big, so I reduced its external diameter a little until it fitted the Hamilton ring. I lined up the stem slots and roughly held in position with rodico. fitted the template movement in the middle then came the dial.

Here I had a problem. The feet were exactly in line with the outer diameter of the Accutron movement and the inner diameter of Accutron spacer-ring--Bugger, they had to go, which is a shame as I had wanted to retain them, hoped to drill the spacer-ring to accept them, it was not to be!

So,--Off they came and the dial feet stumps ground down flush. Again with Rodico (love that stuff!) held the dial to the combo spacer-ring then offered it all into the front case half. Snapped the back on and checked for position of stem hole in movement to case--Amazingly, it was a straight clear shot right into the movement, so I tried the Accutron stem, all good!

Out it all came again, so cleaned everything and securely soldered both the spacer-rings together, making one solid part. I then fitted the running movement to the spacer combo after flux and excess solder removed, and reattached the dial with a small amount of double-sided tape, that strong very thin stuff.

Only issue now was the hands. The original Hamilton ones are all too big for the Accutron movement, so until I find a solution, I took the original straight gold hands from the mens donor Accutron and cut them to size, fitted them and reassembled back to the case. If you didnt know what a Hamilton Ventura or Pacer is supposed to look like, I guess you wouldnt tell, Its not too bad.

The stem proved a Lot easier than I first thought. I shortened the mens case stem and again surprisingly, the Hamilton crown fitted perfectly. Its running now and will take some pics when I strip it all out again to clean the case and crystal, but its nice to wear this frankenstein love-child of two arch rival American watch makers....

--It even has kept time more or less to the second too!

Anyone any ideas how I can source or modify hands to fit the Accutron movement so to re gain its correct appearance?