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I understand. Using a FedEx envelope to ship is fast and in my experience, so far, very reliable. My Rolex 6605 dial, before (it was an old redial to start with) and after, with Bill & Sons:

Before taking everything out again, varify that the amplitude is actually that low, the case might be interfering with readings.

Well that is a result: Now to decide what to do with it - it's my brother's birth year, hmmm... Edit: easy decision - my bro doesn't want it 'because of his apple watch' the heathen!

I will support John's note about originality, sale value, and collectibility. Once you refinish, there's no going back. Why do you want to get rid of the radium and refinish the dial? Aesthetically, it looks pretty decent. I saw you want to go with a US based dial refinisher but I think that's a mistake. I recommend you send it off to Bill and Sons in the UK. With them you have two options, they can use the vintage cliches they have on hand to best replicate the dial you have. It won't be the same but it will be an excellent dial and they will work with you to customize the colors, shade of lume, etc. On one of my dials they helped select a white that was an off white so it didn't feel/look glaringly like a redial. You have a second option in which they develop a custom cliche based on your dial. Basically, they take a high resolution photo of the existing dial, create a vector artwork out of it, and create a custom cliche to reprint the dial. I did this a few dials (Patek, Breitling, Rolex, and a sentimental off-brand skin diver). Again, the work is excellent AND you get a dial that is the same as the original. They will remove radium. Can't recommend them highly enough. After experience with so many others, I only go to Bill and Sons now.

Last year I worked on a Seiko 6105-8110 that used as its bezel click a spring-loaded ball peened into the case. The ball would not move at all. I eventually got it out by working my smallest screwdriver round and round the ball to open up the part of the case that had been peened to hold the ball in. Eventually the ball came out, revealing a spring that had turned to rust. With much patience and repeated visits to the ultrasonic I got the rusted spring out. The top half of the spring had essentially disintegrated although the bottom half was largely unaffected. Once I had all the pieces of spring out and the hole cleaned up I was able to replace spring and ball.

@AndyGSiUpdate… watch is up and running, no issues. I reassembled the new movement and installed new movement in watch case. All is good, I’ll remove the battery if it’s lightly that I’m not going to use the watch for a while, so much pollution/corrosion in the watch from the coin battery leaking. thanks

I concur with keeping the original dial and hands but respect you are concerned about the radium. Is this a cal 59? 700? If so there are replacement dials and hands around. Find something in poor condition to send to the restorer and keep these original since they are in excellent condition, not only because of value but because of the artifact value. You are not only the owner but a custodian of a piece of history, imo… …that said, I’ve used Kirk Rich they did excellent work… …feel free to note my hypocrisy . In the case of this watch the movement was in nearly flawless condition after service and I’m a fan of the idea of coherence, so now the dial matches the other elements…

You can remind him of that every six months when Apple Corp. takes yet another dip into his wallet for the next wizbang version. On this same topic, someone asked me to try to fix her watch today. It was a genuine fit bit, and was showing the wrong time. What can you not actually set on the watch? You guessed it... you can't actually set the time. You need the App. ... and a suitable phone to run the app ... and most important of all, you need the app account, and the app password. Did she have the phone and know all of these... of course she did. However the app complained that she needed to change her password, and when we did that, it complained that changing the password had failed, no matter what we changed it to. In fairness, there are some things you *CAN* set in the "Settings" widget of the watch. The brightness for example, you can make the display much dimmer. And the "theme". You can change the way it displays the wrong time. You can't however, actually set the time. So if you don't want to see what a bad decision you made by purchasing a "smart" watch, I guess you simply set the brightness so low you aren't reminded that it doesn't actually tell the correct time. Ever. Its not even correct twice a day. It is always absolutely correctly at the wrong time 24hrs per day.

Watch is together and I’m going to wear it for a bit before I get stuck in to getting the hairspring properly sorted. It’s not 100% as the coils near the terminal curve are a bit squashed up and I have no doubts it’s robbing some amplitude. I had a bit of a go at sorting it but I think I was being a bit too gentle as I wasn’t really getting much change. But thought better to go slow than damage something. So here it is at the moment. I’m very pleased! I did have a stuttering seconds hand, but a little tweak of the tension spring (adding a bit of tension) sorted that.

"Diddly squat" is not a term of art in the watchmakers lexicon, but accurately conveys the fact that a change in staff has an infinitesimal effect on resonant frequency of the balance/hairspring oscillator. Assuming the pivots are properly dressed. It is a common term here in Texas. "I don't give a diddly squat about your bob wire fence, those are my cows and I am commin to get them."

Yes it is a "bubbleback" and the story i was told was that my great grandfather bought it new in 1944. You are right most of them do not have sub dials. Searching on eBay I found 6 dials that are 2940s and only one of them has a sub dial. They all seem to be 25 millimetres in diameter. I need to pull mine out of the case and measure it to see if the one ebay dial might fit.

Even one or two evenings out per year is enough to exercise a fine restoration piece. Doesn't have to be a daily driver.

Ironically that's the first company that I mentioned in my opening post but I also made a mistake and transposed the names; I put rich Kirk and it should be Kirk rich as you indicated. That is the outfit in California. That is good to know that you had a good experience with them. Thanks again.

No movable stud arm there, what force... The regulator arm is movable against the fine regulation screw arm.

@rehajm that looks amazing. I couldn't find kirk curry online. do you have a link or the web address? I'm not sure of the caliber, rolex seems to go by refererence numbers and it's a 2940.

Well I have ordered a set of male and female stems, plus I found an identical movement, with case on eBay, which is on the way. I’ll keep everyone updated once it arrives. Thanks for all the responses!

Welcome to the forum. Some do and some don't, normally if it's the square then it doesn't.

The hairspring being replaced is not a problem sort of. If you look at the Elgin parts list it will list a hairspring and strength for this watch as they were meant to be replaceable. So an image off the parts list hopefully ordered this spring with this strength Now the problem is in the case of American pocket watches the hairspring's were pre-made. This allows them to be made to very exacting specifications. Then the balance wheel is matched to the hairspring because the factory has a huge supply of timing screws. So once the watch is running all have to see how dramatically off your timekeeping is and you'll have to either add some weight or conceivably remove some weight. We won't know how big the problem is until the watch is completed and running. then ideally you're supposed to note where the roller is because It will cause a poising error if it's in the wrong place. Usually because nobody's going to see that's on the bottom side you would put a small scratch on the balance rim so you know where it goes. Then it looks like you might have cracked your safety roller and it isn't exactly where it's supposed to be it's off by a tiny Bit in addition to the part that it's 90° where it's supposed to be Then to be honest when I remove the hairspring I never notice where it is because I assume that it's in the wrong place anyway. So putting it where it's supposed to be as easy to do except I'm going to wait and see whether you're trying to straighten out the mangle hairspring or whether you want to proceed with what you have?

I’ve used the three sided punch method. Used a light tap or two and it was fine.

From one of your earlier photos, the roller jewel is situated 90° to the balance arms (usually it's either 90 or in line with the balance arms). To situate the hairspring close to correct from where you will need to further adjust it, place the balance wheel without spring into the movement and align the impulse jewel with the center of the banking pins. Then lay the hairspring on top of the balance cock so that the stud is over its hole and the collet is over the jewel. note this position in relation to the balance rim and then you can install the spring close to where it needs to be. But as @nevenbekriev is implying about your NOS hairspring, it probably is not going to work for you. The balance wheel and hairspring left the factory as a married pair and if you try to install a different hairspring to that balance wheel it will probably not come anywhere close to running at the correct rate afterward. It could be out by several minutes per hour even if it is a hairspring from the exact same grade and made in the same production run. The balance wheel and hairspring ("balance complete") must be kept as a matched pair.

Took a punt on a 'broken' 7005-8160 off a terribly photographed eBay auction in the hope that the dial was OK... Well the dial is lovely, it works and (for now) I've put the old crystal in from it's 7025-8099 cousin. I'm very pleased!

I also purchased a Bergeon press (the 8250) after finally deciding on not getting a Robur. The Robur was significantly less expensive, but the dies are significantly more expensive than M6 dies that can be found on ebay/Aliexpress. But then I also couldn't find any of the M6 domed dies, at least on ebay/Aliexpress where I was looking. But then I saw that Bergeon actually makes Bakelite domed dies, the Bergeon 5500-E. I didn't need the whole set and Ofrei sells them individually so I picked up the three that I thought I would use the most. They have worked great so far.

I don't agree with that, crystal lifts have their cons, and the good Swiss or American ones are expensive. My recommendation is to use a a press with proper dies. Attached the relevant section from a STK catalog, note they recommend using a claw type tool in order to save time and labor, but that's not an issue for the hobbyist. There is another section which details their very complete line of presses and dies, I'm not including that as they are very expensive and hard to find. 8836_Sternkreuz R19 Snap In Glasses Pages 12 to 29.pdf