Identifying Watch Calibers

[Melissalea]

I apologize if there is already a thread explaining this, I did try to find something similar first.

Anyway, I am new to watch repair and I am trying to fix some vintage watches and pocket watches. I am having a difficult time finding what the watch caliber is in order to find parts. With some of them i found the parts on some suppliers sites, which have been discontinued. I looked them up on ebay and I don't know the exact part number for that watch to know if its a compatible piece. How do I find a list of part numbers for each brand of watch? I was told you could google it, but my searches have yet to find anything. 

I know this is a lot, but I appreciate any information.

 

Thank you

[RichardHarris123]

Firstly the brand is very often unimportant, it's the caliber that matters, AS, ETA ect and the the caliber number. Eg AS 984, ETA 2824 etc. Most watch movements will have it stamped somewhere, on one of the bridges, under the balance wheel or under the dial.  Some don't and then we  have to play detective using the movement diameter, the bridges shapes and the keyless works. After that then you might find a parts sheet but not always. 

Edited June 19, 2024 by RichardHarris123

[AndyGSi]

There are sites where with some information as advised by @RichardHarris123 you can narrow down the possibilities.

https://watch-movements-archive.com/

https://ranfft.org/caliber/index

https://17jewels.info/movements/

[Melissalea]

Richard,

Thank you for that information. I guess that is where I get stuck. These vintage pieces do not have any makers marks on them. The pocket watches I have been able to find the calibers on pocketwatchdatabase.com, but the others are harder to narrow down. Where do you go to look at parts shapes? Thanks again

Andy, 

Thank you so much for the websites. I will try those now. 

[RichardHarris123]

Best Fit catalogues, but not everything listed, welcome to the wonderful world of watch repair.  If you supply the movement diameter and photos of the bridges and keyless works, if it's listed someone will find it for you. 

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Firstly the brand is very often unimportant

the reason why the brand the name on the dial possibly the name on the movement is not important is often times they did not make the movement. The reason why companies such as bestfit came into existence was that you could conceivably have 100 companies using the exact same movement all having different numbers on their watches but because it is one common movement they would list out the parts so you could cross reference and find the parts anyone have the stock hundreds of parts for hundreds of different watches when in reality only have one watch.

4 hours ago, Melissalea said:

vintage watches and pocket watches

the problem with vintage and I'm assuming since you differentiated vintage wristwatches and vintage pocket watches his vintage. Watch companies unfortunately do not stock parts for ever and that would be assuming that they ever had parts at all. Depending upon how vintage watch company may have never of had spare parts. So identifying isn't really an issue because you're never going to get parts other than generic parts that you do by measurement such as the mainspring.

here's a website I like to use for looking up parts but you do have to identify the watch.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/

4 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

AS 984

let's use this as an example for parts.

then we come to hear or get a parts listing and you can click on the parts see what cross references to

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=AS_984

one of the things we're looking at the list found above the also see several different escape wheels because the watch came in variations even if you identify the watch you do have to be careful about variations or if the watch was made over a considerable length of time there will be variations because of that so if you order a part you may still find it doesn't fit because it's not the right part for your variation. Like typically escape wheels and pallet fork arbors the pivots can be either conical or straight or a combination of them.

Oh and thinking a pallet fork arbors that actually is a generic component because when you click on the other parts found at the site above you will find a Crofts references to about 20 watches but let's see what happens when you look at the pallet fork arbor it across references to a lot of things because basically pallet fork arbors are generic components. In other words the watch companies themselves typically didn't make the mainsprings the pallet fork arbors and possibly other stuff may be perhaps?

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=[^}D_Ks

4 hours ago, Melissalea said:

pocket watches

I see that you've already been here but the pointed out anyway the pocket watch database is a nice site except it actually has thousands of mistakes for reasons I'm going to skip over. Plus it only has listings if parts were available. Basically wristwatch pocket watch a vintage new no parts are available there is no listing and typically know nothing at all sort of. For instance like modern Swatch group if you have access which you don't you get parts and technical but if you're on the outside you get nothing

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/

3 hours ago, Melissalea said:

Where do you go to look at parts shapes?

oh bestfit book?

4 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

AS 984

let's use the same example again. Oh and the PDF the bestfit books had earlier versions which are nice because they have vintage some vintage that may have been dropped for the newer one because after all why carry all the references that the parts are available bad for us by the way. The newest or the last volume that was printed is over 800 pages it's well worth looking through your PDF/book from time to time because it's too much to remember in any case

let's work the problem both directions suppose you're looking for parts? Both directions would be if we had a part number or movement number of like a shield 984 in the book. The book existed before the electronic version so if we had a caliber number you can look at up and find out what your part numbers are or suppose you are 100% sure there is the other way

another way is on page 139 we can look at the fingerprint system. This is where you know the dimensions of the movement you can go to the section and providing you can clearly see your setting parts sometimes frustrating in this group when people won't give us pictures the setting parts and identifying becomes really difficult having to guess what they look like in the fuzzy photos

oh and if you're really desperate in the bestfit book and other sites will often times list the staff and stem by size you can measure yours if that's what you're trying to replace and see if anything will match.

But typically on anything really vintage conceivably other than generic there will be no spare parts as there were never spare parts in the first place. Depending upon vintage how vintage they are the spare parts if they did exist no longer exist. So yes repairing watches especially vintage can be a problem because getting parts is definitely an issue often times on eBay a set up active searches and had to wait a whole year for something to materialize.

 

 

[watchweasol]

Hi. The bestfit books one and two were put on the site a while ago by Old Hippy for members to download, as far as I know they still exist. Do a search on the site for reference.

They can also be purchased from. Cas Ker who have the copyright

Correction copyright is 

Wm Macawcompany.

If you search the term. Mediafire it should bring up the original links as posted by old hippy.

[Melissalea]

Wow! Thank you both so much! Good to know about the generic parts. Now I have to do some research on how to properly measure these parts so I can get to fixing these. I also  bought the PDF of the Bestfit catalouge. This has helped me so much. I was close to beating my head against the wall yesterday. (I am sure it won't be the last time. This is not a profession for the faint of heart).

 

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, Melissalea said:

This is not a profession for the faint of heart).

Yes watch repair has lots of interesting unique challenges. One of things you want to do with your bestfit book is scan through and look at it the entire thing from time to time refresh your memory on all the things that are in there that you keep forgetting about.

Oh and in addition to the book they have the online version which brings up something interesting and often under looked. I see in your profile you don't have a location so depending upon where you live on the planet this may or may not be of use to you. You notice at the link below there's a reference to your local material house?

Scattered across a lot of locations on this planet were once local material houses and a lot of them still exist to this day. Everyone gets used to cousins because it's only online. Sometimes it becomes challenging to even find a phone number for them if you have a problem. But one time they were physical local material houses where is a watchmaker you could physically go there and get parts or call them up depending upon how far away you are or that you staff fax machines the days when that was popular so a lot of those material houses arts on line and they still have parts and can order parts for you if they like you? Okay liking isn't quite the right term. At least in the US a lot of material houses will only deal with people in the trade in other words you have to have a business license. Some of this has to do with tax reasons in other words if they sell you a spare part wholesale no sales taxes collected because it's collected on the final repair, just. But some of those material houses could still sell you supplies because typically whoever buys the supplies are the final user.

It would be really nice if on that webpage of the list all of the remaining material houses because yes there very helpful if you need a bestfit part as you can just reach out to them and they will do the hard work and find one for you. Because the other problem is even if they were online not everything is online because as you're beginning to grasp there are heck of a lot of parts out there and they can't really list every single part in existence as it would be very impractical. So basically the only things that get listed online are the things that are sold in any quantity.

http://bestfitmaterial.com/

 

[Melissalea]

Thank you so much! I am in Florida. I will have to take a look at that and see how close I am to one of those places. I am sure they have at least one in Florida.