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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/10/24 in Posts

  1. From my experience, 90% of the time, the bend is only in one place and that's at the regulator arm. Whether the bend is caused by dropping the watch or by rough handling by a previous watchmaker, the hairspring usually bends at the fixed point along the hairspring. And that's usually just in front of the regulator pins. So 90% of the time, an off-centred hairspring can be corrected by just tweaking the spring with a thin hairspring tool, just at this single point, as what @nevenbekriev has shown in another post. Do you guys have the same experience?
    4 points
  2. Are you practicing on practice balance wheels or are you practicing on live watches? Ideally should find disposable balance wheels or disposable hairsprings and start with those. Learning watch repair is all about practice and ideally should practice practice things that are disposable. Problem with vintage is even if it was available at one time it probably is not necessarily available now. In other words at one time the factory existed you can look in the catalog you go to your local material house or send a postcard or something and they can order it for you it would show up but the vintage companies don't exist anymore so we only have existing stock for the most part that is a big problem if you're dealing with Breguet Overcoil Hairspring Type hairsprings like found on a lot of pocket watches. Usually those were available as a separate replaceable spring. But because balance wheels have to match very very closely to hairspring that means if you have a premade hairspring which typically is what these were they were premade to exact specifications. Then the balance wheel has to be matched in which case you would've had timing screws of various weights and you would've played with your timing screws to match your balance wheel to your hairspring. Then there were a few Flat hairsprings available at one time but they're not available anymore and of course you'd still need the timing screws to match. Then the other problem with hairsprings would be you can go to schools to learn how to vibrated hairsprings. In fact here's a link is a class you take the class I'm not sure if they're the entrance test to see if you can qualified take the class maybe just happy to take your money and give you the class to learn how to vibrated hairsprings but https://www.wostep.ch/en/training/balance-hairspring-manufacturing Then there is the problem the annoying Swiss consolidating manufacturing for well profitability reasons. So one time hairsprings were made in a generic size range and were available. But somebody figured out it was not profitable to make generic sizes when it would be better if they hairspring company would manufacturer hairsprings specific for the watch your manufacturing. So the company is now either make a hairspring for your watch or supply you with the exact hairspring you need for you to make your watch hairspring. In other words they no longer make generic hairsprings that were available for purchase. So typically the might find them on eBay. Then in addition to hairspring you need the miscellaneous stuff to go with and a heck of a lot of skill. There are hints and rumors that there are still people out there that will make replacement hairsprings but I've only heard it as rumors I have yet to see anyone modern that will actually do this as typically live all retired. So for instance we once had to this So the basic simple answer of our hairsprings available would be no at least for modern watches. It would typically be a balance complete if the watch company would supply parts often times they prefer to sell entire movements and balance completes may or may not be available.
    3 points
  3. Being 1971 and a 6001 a lot of people call this a pre pogue but would still have some value if working even in half decent condition.
    2 points
  4. I would be most interested in what you find if you opened up the barrel lid right now. How much naphtha got in and how much evaporated, and what happened to all the old grease that was in there before. The same trick works okay on a Timex because the barrel is open and the mainspring exposed to drying.
    2 points
  5. I guess it is fun to ponder ways to calibrate a quartz watch down to 0.1ppm, but, I don't know...beyond the fun, what is the point? When I was a senior in college studying EE, my senior project was a precision temperature compensated oscillator for the purpose of calibrating quartz watches. This was back at the beginning of the quartz era (I am old!). My dad was a watchmaker and I was doing this project for him. Anyway, it did not turn out all that well. In my recent estate buy out, I acquired several machines that measure quartz watch frequency. At least one works. No idea how accurate though. You dont pull crystals in modern quartz watches. Instead, the calibration is done digitally. So, for a modern watch the tool is useless. It is 8:23 am here.
    2 points
  6. But not this one. It is ridiculously overpriced and not even a Luthy, but a cheaper variant. Used Luthys are around 600. Frank
    2 points
  7. This dude Bartosz is amazing. Bit of a renaissance man judging from the breadth of topics on his blog... https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/
    1 point
  8. WD 40 is not a oil ,it is a water dispersant , Kroil is another penetrating fluid
    1 point
  9. I was thinking Capn Pogue's was a September '71 anything from Feb 1971 to April 1972 with sieko automatic, water resist 70m and the Suwa on the dial should be a true pogue. But the caseback 6001 is wrong and needs to be 6005...
    1 point
  10. I don't think it will look that bad once the crystal has been swapped but I'd also wear it in whatever condition
    1 point
  11. If the dial is as bad as it looks under that crystal, I would proudly wear this thing.
    1 point
  12. Wow! Congratulation, you own the $2k device
    1 point
  13. Be interesting to see the dial once the crystal has been removed. I've seen worse bezels on watches being sold and the movement doesn't look in too bad a state and NOS parts are still available if not a donor movement. Edit Just realised that looks like the wrong crown.
    1 point
  14. OK, here's my next one. Sometime around 2007, I had the opportunity to buy some things from a clock and watch hobbyist who was moving to aged care. Basically there were two cartons of stuff, and he was asking for $100, "take it or leave it." One of the cartons had a number of chiming clock movements and chime blocks with their rods, and these were what interested me at that time, so I handed over the hundred and took the boxes home. On arrival, I unpacked the cartons, and discovered I had also bought a couple of shoe boxes of watch parts, including many crystals, some balances and other things, and a few wristwatches. I put the watch items away in a cabinet, and didn't look at them again until recently. Some of the watches look interesting, including a very lovely Bulova, that seems to have nothing wrong with it except a broken crystal. Another one, a Seiko, looked to be a real basket case. It seems to have spent a number of years in "wristwatch hell." I can't imagine what happened to it to leave it in this condition: Yes, it's a 6139-6001. Not quite a Pogue, since I think this is an earlier model than the watch that the Colonel took to Skylab, but still very interesting. The dial looks corroded, there are no hands, the stem is broken, the bezel ring looks really beat up, and the crystal is badly scuffed. And it gets worse! There is rust. The case ring seems to be wrongly fitted so that it jams the winding weight and also prevents the case back from being screwed on. At least I still have the case back. A 1971 model by the look of it. The watch appears to have been stored in an open box in a garden shed for a number of years before I got it. I now have it stored in a dust proof plastic box, but when I took it out and put it on the mat to take these pictures, I'm fairly sure some body parts of a long-dead cockroach fell out of it. (Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture of those, but I am confident that they were not anything made by Seiko.) Oh yes, one of the pushers is also missing, and the other one is jammed. I have bought a replacement stem, but just the basic one, not the one with the small wheel that operates the inner ring. I know that parts for these are very expensive, and original dials impossible, so what do you think guys? Would you say that this one is too far gone to be worth restoring, or should I give it a try when I have enough experience to work on a chronograph movement?
    1 point
  15. Tis old. I was able to remove the cap side of the barrel by using a small oiler in the smaller of the two holes. I then rotated the capside counterclockwise to unhook the mainspring. All separated nicely. I removed the mainspring carefully by hand.
    1 point
  16. Watch Repair Tool Stainless Steel Crown Tube Correction Tool Shell Tube Adjustment Watchmaker Repairs Watch Parts https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNeimYR There is a tool for straightening the tube. I bought one recently but haven't had the opportunity to use it yet.
    1 point
  17. I just can't beleive my luck. A landeron 48 chrono in working order for $10US or £7.83. Picked it out of a box at a swap meet this morning. Seemed gummed up and not working. Messing with it proceeded to drop it on the ground, lucky it hit my foot first and seems to have survived. Only has 2 lugs, but they are on the top of the watch case. Is plated brass so not sure if new lugs can be added or not. Here is what it looked like out of the box. Then I got it home and started messing with it and changed out the crystal and went through it. Appears to need just a servicing and case work. The best for last is the dial is pretty spectacular! No water damage. Anyone hear of Dorex? Is 33.8mm not including crown and pushers.
    1 point
  18. I don't see why you would have a problem. I have no problem using the microscope wearing glasses. I prefer not to, as the rubber eyepieces fit easier without glasses- same as using binoculars.
    1 point
  19. Typically, you can use a stereo microscope while wearing your glasses or not. I've gone both ways. I imagine you'd be pretty well stuck with wearing them since they're correcting something beyond the usual small differences in power. For an answer with enough confidence to justify throwing down a few hundred dollars, an optometrist would probably be your best bet.
    1 point
  20. The great thing about this place is the diversity of backgrounds and experiences everyone brings which gives us ideas of how to accomplish stuff in a variety of ways. Tom
    1 point
  21. Interesting because? I'm attaching specifications of Omega quartz watches because we have nice specifications for quite a few watches and we can work out a approximation of what a quartz watch can and cannot do. So excluding the best timekeeping and one of the extreme worst the majority of quartz watches keep time within -9 / +15 Seconds per month. Then your timing machine has a problem as well let me give you something that witschi has the commenting on the effect of temperature and did notice when they give a suggestion of rate it's in seconds per day but it is a fraction of a second. You run into several problems first most quartz watches no longer have trimmer capacitors to adjust you cannot adjust the rate at all. Then whatever you're comparing You are quartz watch to has to keep time better than the quartz watch by quite a bit. Then were talking about seconds per month fractions of a second per day and measuring fractions of a second per day is not impossible but in the case of the quartz watch would be impossible. Typically a quartz watch would step once per second which means you cannot break its accuracy down to less than one second. Mechanical watches typically at 18,000 beats per hour there secondhand step five times per second and you can get a fractional seconds. So can you regulate your quartz watch yes if it as a trimmer and if you want to take months to do it. 8641_WI_18_QUARTZ MOVEMENTS - TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS E cousinsuk.pdf
    1 point
  22. then just for reference for the future when you get into the crystal making business. Many of the material houses used to sell optical plateglass specifically designed for cutting watch crystals. As there were material houses out there and some watch shops that would cut custom crystals. The used to even sell crystal cutting machines over the years in various forms for cutting watch crystals then a tip for the future as you get into the crystal cutting business. If you have ever looked at a glass crystal it will always have a very tiny bevel never will have a sharp edge. This is because typically crystals that have sharp edges can drop into the case such as if you are going to epoxy glue the crystal in. so where is your fitting your crystal making sure everything is sized exactly perfect and you push it back out with sharp edges usually it goes out at an angle and will chip.
    1 point
  23. f basically the same name as you would call a device for timing mechanical which would be a timing machine. Witschi makes them not cheap. Often times was some of the machines is an add-on accessory. Can find vintage ones on eBay at a variety of prices although I'm rather curious as to why you would like to adjust your watch? then the link below as a quartz testing machine which will do accuracy. You can download the users guide when you're there. https://www.esslinger.com/horotec-flash-tester-quartz-watch-tester/
    1 point
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