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Good morning people. I want to share the watches I bought at one auction yesterday. Eight watches, six lots, with little time to spare because I didn’t know about the auction. I think I got really lucky on all of it, but one in particular is unlike any I have seen before. I’ll whip through the first seven watches quickly then on to my unusual one. I hope somebody here can tell me about it. 1 – A Paul Dupree Aquamatic, which I’ve never heard of. Looks early 70s. 2 – A Rensie 14k (so they said), don’t know this one either, but late 40s maybe? Incabloc. 3 – A pair of women’s watches, one Banner and one other. 4 – A Wittnauer 10k. 5 – A 21j Rockford pocket watch, open face gf case. I could not read the serial number in the pix but I am thinking it is a grade 645 model 2. 6 – The doozy: a pair of older pocket watches, one billed as Elgin and the other one – the super cool one – has no indication of maker. Has anyone ever seen a movement like this? I have quite a few ideas about what it all is but hopefully someone can tell me, and if not it will be here soon enough. The second most amazing thing is how little I paid for them all. Waiting to see what postage will be, but most might just make your 404 club.

Well that's weird about Christian, he did (does?) have a paid training set of vids, so I guess I could see how he could see a confilct with Mark, but at the same time Mark shows so much in his excellent free YT vids that's a big whatever. I haven't seen him much in the last decade but he was always very open and kind when we did meet; and do consider him an upright dude, so I'm chalking it up to growing pains while he moved back to Denmark with a couple small kids and started his own watch biz etc. I bet (VWatchie) if you asked again it'd be alright. But maybe not, who knows. Everyone's going through their life and stress at different levels and that affects repsonse, and most of the time we're unaware of it, even if close friends.

That is very understandable. I take back my words regarding childishness. It’s a natural assumption to make on the face of it without context. I wish him all the very best.

Welcome, and congratulations on becoming a new you, it's not everyone who has the courage to reinvent themselves, I don't envy the 7 month ordeal you had, but I am a little envious that you get to reinvent yourself, I guess this is the silver lining on that cloud. Wishing you all the best in your recovery and your journey into watch making. If your journey is anything like mine you will spend the first 3-6 months with frustrating failure after failure, and I was nearly at the point of giving up, but stick with it as your wins slowly start to outnumber your losses, but to be honest there is nothing like the feeling of the first watch you can wear that you serviced/refurbished, if you can beat the odds and get back on your feet, you can master this too.

Zucco Welcome. A fighter you are. This is a great forum. Feel free to ask any question. Like you I began at the very beginning 21 month ago. Not as good as you. I have only worked on mechanical watches. The members here have been so patient with me, offered advice, cajoles, inspiration and most of all, a wealth of experience freely given. You may have a particular problem due to your condition. 'Ping'. learning to hold a set of tweezers for watchmaking takes time. Honestly. Hold an item too tight. 'Ping', its gone. Entered the space programme. Someone needs to search the floor for hours with a magnet. I overcame a lot of this problem with my box. See photograph. When removing springs or the like, use pegwood sticks to hold everything , and rodico to secure. I found this out the hard way. I do lose things, but very rarely now. I wish you well with this hobby. Its brilliant. Regards Ross

Turns out I need a step crystal but able to put it back together after cleaning the case in the ultrasonic with dawn dish soap without messing up the dial. Also able to set the hands and change the day and date after some manipulation. II think rust is in the minute wheel and that may be holding the balance from running more than 4 seconds at a time...some more pictures. The more I look at this dial the more I like the style, probably because it harkens me back to 1975 and my 12 year old self...more pics!

I picked this Timex up on Friday for $5US which at today's exchange rate is £3.85. Was absolutely filthy and not running. Don't have any before pictures, but spent a pleasant Saturday evening cleaning and getting running. Actually not a full disassembly. Took three seperate 15 minute baths in dawn dishwashing soap and an ultrasonic machine to get the gunk out of the bracelet and the case. I like these flex mesh adjustable bracelets. Used a little poly watch on the crystal and the dial is pretty clean. 106 from 1979.

Hello All. I'm a fellow watch enthusiast from the North-East of England. I hope everyone is keeping well. I recently bought myself a cheap watch repair kit, dusted off the old watch storage box and started to giving my watches the attention they required, it's been going quite well so far but do need some guidance with the correct steps of putting the workings and the case back on for my Accurist GMT Grand Complication, hopefully I will do a separate post on this with pics. Anyway hope everyone is having a decent Friday night.

If this hijacked vessel can handle one more stowaway observation, I find it somehow sad and disappointing when people amble through forums like this one asking how much their watch is worth. It's even worse when it was handed down to them from generations gone, especially when it says Quartz on it.

Been a longtime "Collector" in a small, restrained, taste free sort of way. Have finally come to the conclusion that the only way I'm ever going to get the 6139 6005 running properly is to do it myself. last couple of months have involved spending almost as much on tools as I've spent on servicing this year. have some nice tools now, some rubbish ones too, and am choking a little on which oils/greases to get. hence joining here. Am "Almost" retired (Gave up "Working" full time a few years ago, was never any good at it and no one liked me anyway ) Fly Gliders for fun, towplanes for punishment and bend spoons in my garage to get money for toys. (Picture of molested spoons attached, somewhere) Am aiming to give as few springs to the Swiss space programme as possible, but suspect there is time on the floor, on my knees, looking for "Bits" in my near future. The bit of the Frozen North I'm in is NE Scotland, currently not frozen as it's high summer (we define "High" summer to be where we can wear a single, light, jacket)

Oss?

That is what I would call bodged up repairs. You will find all sorts of terrible repairs. Welcome to the world of watchmaking.

Hello everyone, I'm in the process of becoming a new me and learning new skills. After a dreadful 7 months in hospital paralysed from the chest down, I've managed to get myself back on my feet (just) after being told I probably wouldn't walk again. I've always loved electronics engineering and "fixing stuff" and I've always had a real passion for mechanical watches - they fascinate me. When I got home from rehab hospital, I started off cleaning and restoring my own watch bracelets but this has evolved into doing that for all my family and friends' watches including changing batteries and repairing clasps etc. Now after diving in the deep end and taking a mechanical watch apart to "service", I've discovered I have much to learn, so I enrolled on the first 3 levels of Mark's course. Enjoying it so far but I know I'm going to have a million questions so here I am!

you might find these sheets handy when you start on the the watch 6319 and 6318 close cousins. lookmon DrRanff for seiko 6319 6319A.pdf Seiko-6138A-Service-Manual-Colour (1).pdf seiko 6319B.pdf TZIllustratedGlossary.pdf

Yes, and he still has a paid training set of videos and that's how I got in touch with him. And yes, the problem was that he felt I was promoting watchfix.com even though I had not mentioned the site in my introductory post, but I guess the fact that I mentioned WRT as my "main source for watch repairing" and had provided a link to my bio on WRT was enough to make him suspicious, and rightly or wrongly, he took it as me advertising watchfix.com, but that was certainly not my intention. That's certainly my overall impression as well from having taken his excellent "Watchmaking 101, Beginner Course" (https://learnwatchmaking.com/) and having listened to Pods and Youtube videos with him. As we all know, there are as many approaches to repairing as there are repairers so I've taken several courses from various sources including watchfix.com, timezonewatchschool.com, and learnwatchmaking.com. If on a budget I'd personally recommend watchfix.com, but there's a lot to learn from all of these online schools. Sure, there's an overlapping, but still worth it in my opinion. Oh, I should have mentioned it! He didn't kick me out of his Facebook group. We settled the misunderstanding by texting each other in the Messenger app and he didn't seem one bit resentful after that. I can certainly recommend his online training. He has three different courses (and one free) but the only one I've taken, as already mentioned, is the "Watchmaking 101, Beginner Course". That's very true!

Welcome to the forum Zucco done well 7 months, I have just done 7 weeks with Covid that was bad enough. It’s an absorbing and dare I say. Expensive hobby but rewarding. Again welcome

Hello and welcome.

I would be wary about using olive oil (spectre6000), would it not tend to go rancid over time. My preferred wax is a mixture of beeswax, carnauba wax and natural turpentine.

Thank you for your introduction and welcome to this friendly forum. We all look forward to your contributions and continued involvement. You might find this helpful. 704789946_TZIllustratedGlossary(2).pdf

Welcome to the WRT forum.

24W, 1300 Lumens, $17.49, double head. Arrives tomorrow. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B6G2BQJ6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Tommy Jobson he is excellent but very advanced. What he shows is similar to what I did Clock repairs Merseyside is also very good I give my advice a fair bit. He is very good but rabbits on a bit.

I do not recommend Scotties Clock World he is useless I have pulled him up so many times I no longer watch he channel. I would say have a look after 1 hour and judge it from there. It is safe for the type of clock you are cleaning, they are referring more to the cast brass movements that were made hundreds of years ago which I have repaired hundreds I have never had any trouble with the cleaning fluid.

I wish you the best of luck. Watchmaking is a game of patience and perseverance, sometimes frustrating, but after what you've been through, no problem at all. You have come to the right place if you need help and advice. You might find Reuben Schoots' story interesting.

I just added a new watch I am wearing for the first time today in the 404 club, go check it out:

Good day, finally finished this LAMAR which was part of a lot of 16, so worked out at £2.32 and well under the 404 bar. The refurbishment went well once I cleaned away all that rust (probably why it was a non-runner) and I was lucky that the dial was in such good shape, here are the before and after shots: And here is the finished item, I was going to re-plate as the case was pretty beaten up, but the nickle under the original plate came up well so decided to keep it that way as I actually preferred it as silver rather than gold: My only complaint is that it has a very loud tick even for a pin pallet.

Took 12 days but finally got my Timex lot. The telephone dial is in near mint condition. The case and back is in the ultrasonic and I have the correct size crystal. Bad news is not a runner and I am a novice with Timex watches. Dial indicates 027 movement from 1975. Could be original crown and the stem seems different. Fully wound but the balance seems like it wants to go...

Here's the service manual from Benrus. BEN_BEL_SOV_EL.pdf

Miracle of miracles, I was able to find a compatible case for my Elgin 996 on eBay and for only 14 euros, including shipping. It is an Elgin case and fortunately, the seller listed the inside diameter of the case, which matched the movement, so I took the risk. The case needs a new crystal and the back is rather scratched up, but I can live with that. I test fitted the movement and it fits nicely. So, I have two nice Elgin 996 movements (one gold and one copper) and two stainless steel cases. If it wasn't for the movement being so nice on the one with the buggered up case, I'd have just serviced the movement for the learning experience and kept it around for parts. I'll keep the case around to practice on, if I want to learn how to replate down the line.

Yeah, looks like it. The crown wheel glides back and forth (see picture) and performs the click function. Below the bridge that holds it is the thing it screws in to (see my picture). When you take the watch apart, unknowingly, you unscrew the crown wheel screw and the other piece just disengages. Was not clear how it want back together. Once I figured it out, you have to assemble the bridge, crown wheel and this floating piece before attaching to the main plate. The ACTUAL click that interfaces to the crown wheel has a spring under it and it is tricky to get the spring and the click assembled.

Showoff Nice work!

Maybe it is a pressure release type, you would need to remove the back to access and remove the winding stem, the replace the back and pressure up on the watch, see below: I've never done this myself, so don't take my word for it, hopefully some other members can chime in and confirm if this is the right course of action or not Here is a link to these pumps: https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/glass-removing-pump?code=G52921

I was really horrified when I saw this and even more so when I tried it myself and that's how I came up with the idea of my "cap jewel tool". When I asked to join Christian's Facebook group it was requested (as I remember it) that you would introduce yourself. Being a bit lazy I just wrote a short sentence about being excited to join the group, that I usually and mostly would hang out on WRT for learning and exchanging ideas, and then included a link to my bio here on WRT. This made Christian go, sort of, ballistic on me and deleted my intro. He then got in touch with me through Messenger and more or less accused me of being a mole for @Mark. This took me completely by surprise and really shocked me, and I told him nothing could be more wrong - I'm basically kind-hearted but also a little naive and think that everyone else is too - but I still apologised for being a bit thoughtless. The apology was accepted and Christian even admitted he might have overreacted and explained to me that he had previously been subjected to people who tried to take a free ride on his hard work. So, very understandable! Yes, Christan is truly impressive. Here's an interesting interview with him in English. And if you happen to speak Danish (or Swedish as I do - a similar language) here's another pod with Christian:

How about lift angle as a field? Maybe if it was a runner or non runner at aqcuisition. If a runner the timegrapher readings in the 6 positions at acquisition and after service?

Here is what I worked on this weekend. Wittnauer ESA 9150 Timex - Marlin "Red Dot" Diver, Mercury, Viscount, Electric, SSQ. Two still need crystal replacement and those should be in this week. Most fun was the ESA9150. Needed a new electric coil and a donor balance assembly. What did you work on?

I worked on this 1975 Caravelle. I picked this up as a non runner a couple of months ago and could not get it open. I doubt the last owner could either. The back was chewed up a bit and I admit that I probably added 1 or 2 markes to the caseback trying as well. Even though it is not a screw caseback I had to revert to the super glue nut to finally get this open. It has a Bulova 11DP movement which is a Citizen 0241. It is only 7 jewels. So last night I glued the nut on and this morning got it open. Striped it down and then reassembled, oiling as well. Not a lot of amplitude but I did get it running. Once my 8200 gets here this week I will go back in and clean and oil the mainspring to see if I can get more amplitude. I really like the wet dial look on this one. I had an extra crystal of the correct size to install, and cleaned up the case from the requisite DNA. I am reluctant to close the back as I had so much trouble getting it open in the first place. The balance shock system on this one was not that bad to navigate to oil the endstones and reinstall.

My 5 years long project finally finished... sort of... a few things still need to be sorted, but we did our test drive last night. The meter is a Smiths and there is a quartz watch built in. Next thing is the horn (ordered but not received yet) and a Nokia N95 sound system.

The hammer sequence looks OK so I don't think Eric Morecambe is in there (all the right notes but...!). Have tapped the chimes in descending order and they play rather like E D C B-flat (not G as it should be).

I have the eTimer escapement analyzer software and do understand the basics. However, I would like Mark, who I know has this software as I saw it in his shop review, to do an instructional video on how to properly use it for diagnostics of watch problems. A big “Please” is in order here. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro