Giving A Very Old Movement An Old Case

[cdjswiss]

Giving an very old movement an old case

Some weeks ago I was fortunate in finding in Germany a very early IWC Cal 64 pin-set movement in reasonable good condition. Movement number: 97059, year of construction: 1893, Caliber: Sav. Cal 64,  12 1/2 lignes. It was presumably a left-over from a cash sale of its gold, hunter case. The movement came with a perfect enamel dial marked: E. Sommer, Mexico.

 

 

This was clearly worth some attention and being a savonnet movement could be re-fitted into a period wristwatch case. So, after a dis-assembly and complete clean in an ultrasonic bath the re-assembled movement ran beautifully with reasonably good timekeepin and just a little beat error. One gremlin, as Mark would say, turned out to be that the cleaning solution had removed most of the shellac from the underside of the pallet - the little blobs of shellac that help keep the jewels in place. Fortunately it turned out that the jewels had not moved.

Being an amateur on the wrong side of 70 with not-so-steady hands I had to find a solution. This was as follows: some flakes of shellac were dissoved in high-grade ethyl alcohol. This solution was then left in an open jar until most of the alcohol had evaporated leaving a rich syrup. Using a fine oiler minute blobs of this shellac syrup were applied to the underside of the pallet in the places where the original shellac had been. The syrup dried to a hard shellac layer leaving the pallet looking exactly as it was before the ultrasonic treatment. The pallet went into the movement and behaved perfectly.

 

The plan was to fit the movement into a silver trench case - I had a 1917 case of the right size.The next gremlin was how to fit a crown onto the protruding square end of the stem, and as this stem is permanently assembled in the movement, how to manage the installation into a case. My rather awkward solution was as follows. While out of the movement, the square end of the stem was turned and tapped to 1.2mm for three-quarters of it protruding length. The movement could be slipped into the case by first feeding the stem through the winding stem hole in the case. And then the case screws were fitted. A suitable crown was found that could be screwed onto the stem provided that the stem could be prevented from turning. This was achieved by making the little very thin tool with a rectangular slot. This slips between the movement and the inside of the case gripping the remaining square end of the stem. The crown could then be screwed, and unscrewed as needed,
 

 

A suitable strap was made using a 10mm trench strap supplied by Chris Balm and a little in-house genuine lizard to act as a back pad. Here is the emminently wearable final product.

 

[WillFly]

I'm very impressed - and a warm welcome to the forum! The dial looks lovely, and the whole assembled watch head suits the strap perfectly. Bravo!

[autowind]

Welcome to the forums.  That was a nice piece of work and has made a very useful watch from something which would probably have just sat in a drawer,  well done.

[clockboy]

Welcome to the forum its a great feeling when encountering a gremlin & solving the problem. Lovely looking watch.

[Geo]

Welcome to the forum CDJ.

That is an excellent result, and I liked your ingenious solutions to the problems that you encountered. I eagerly look forward to further contributions from you.

[cdjswiss]

Thanks for the kind words, Here is a full-length example of my design of trench strap. In this case the dial says Patek - but that is another story!

 

[bobm12]

Welcome to the forum CDJ, very impressed with your work and liking your watch immensely! That dial is outstanding!

[Vich]

Yes, lovely bit of work well done and welcome

Vic