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Well, it arrived today and I'm over the moon. It's a beautiful little watch in superb condition - especially considering it was made in 1940. I've photographed the movement in all its glory. Note the hack - which works perfectly.

Well, "Breveté" is simply the French for "Patented". When people call a Swiss watch a "Breveté" model - that's all it means! I can't, off the cuff, think why Rolex should put anything other than "Rolex" on a crown. But, if you see another old Rolex with "Breveté Depot International" on the crown, then I'll be proved wrong!

Older than me and in better condition, a nice find Will.

Look at the lugs on that Bulova! (Sounds vaguely rude, doesn't it?) :crazysmile:

So my mom pulls me aside and asked if I could fix my dad's watch that I broke when I was about 4 years old..... Some 36 years ago. It winds and ticks but is all over the place on the timegrapher. Anywhere I could find the tech docs on Jules Jorgensen? Also my mom hands me my grandfather's watch..... I was floored. It hasn't been worn in 40+ years. Sent on the go with barley, water, yeast and hops

Oho Dan - in my garage at the moment are several bottles of Leffe, Chimay and other lovely Belgian beers. And when I come back from France (via Calais) in a month's time, I'll be topping up.

Here's an interesting page (scroll down to see the info) on Rolex crowns... http://www.horologist.com/rolex_crown.htm

Thanks Chaps, I thought it sounded odd. Just in case you are interested here is the link - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Crown-Marked-Brevete-Depot-International-Early-Rolex-5mm-has-CaseFlange-/191007306723?pt=Wristwatches&hash=item2c78ec33e3 I should put mine up for a fiver next to his but with no claims about Rolex and it might go, then I would be £2.00 up on what I paid for the crowns (:-)) Cheers, Vic

Actually Will the large gilt wheel on top of the movement is a feature of pretty well all indirect driven centre seconds designs and is pressed onto the third wheel arbor which is extended through the bridge and from which it transfers the drive to the centre seconds pinion, which is the little wheel right in the centre of the movement with a flat spring on top of it. This design has an inherent amount of slack in it which would show up as jitter in the motion of the seconds hand which is why the flat spring is there; it smooth's out the movement of the hand. Hacking systems usually take the form of a lever or arm that impinges directly on the balance when the crown is pulled out, stopping the whole watch. Stopping a movement by interrupting the hands would not be a good idea as the gearing would mean that the escape wheel could continue to rotate for a short while building up torque within the wheel train. This may not be good for the train and could cause inaccuracies in the synchronisation of the watch when the hack is released and the torque causes the movement to "catch up" a little. I suspect that the hack in your very beautiful Hamilton operates directly on the balance, although I have no experience with this particular movement and would happily stand corrected.

I found this picture of the Hacking mechanism for the 987s. You can see the hacking wire in Wills picture just below the 4th wheel where the center, 3rd and 4th wheel all converge.

Excellent Dan, I hope you had a couple of beers to celebrate!

Horotec make a jig for hollow grinding screwdrivers for about £250. Presumably they do the screwdrivers as well but I haven't found anyone selling them. I did see a set marketed by Cas-Ker, equally expensive though. To be honest if you take a little time to work out what angles best suit your own use, and then carefully maintain them properly, straight sided blades are just as good. There is a lot of debate on the internet about the relative merits of straight versus hollow ground, and I reckon there are as many opinions about it as there are watchmakers. One thing that I have found useful is to keep two sets of screw drivers (at least the most common sizes), one set ground slightly thinner than the other. Not all screw slots are the same width although they tend to be consistent within a given movement. A quick appraisal of the screws before I start work and I can select the screw drivers that best fit the situation. The result is less risk of slipping and less risk of damaging the screw. Add to that making sure that you always use the right size blade for the screw, and of course plenty of practise, and don't rush, and straight ground blades work fine.

Mark, I just joined this site and I am super excited about finding it. I left you a post on one of your you tube videos (Dave Matthews) about how great your videos are and how much I have learned from them. I'm retired and this is such a great hobby for me that takes up some time and keeps me out of trouble, at least until Happy Hour! Thanks Mark!