Starting with watch repairs, what lubricants do I need?

[semmyroundel]

Hi all, after perusing Cousin's website, I've ended up even more confused.

You see, I thought I'd figured out that there were two or three main lubricants that I needed as a start, plus of course the applicators and the grease for a mainspring , but I couldn't find there a "starter lubricant kit" as it were.

First job I have to do is to get my son's Seiko working again.

It appears that the auto winding mechanism counterweght is not moving.

I have in my basket to start a can of Plus Gas in an effort to start the thing loosened, but if you advise against that please feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

[Nucejoe]

 Ref,  your first pic, a screw to winder module had come loose and is somewhere inside the gear works.

Jax case back remover tool is almost universal for  opening  case back. 

Important:

Once you spot the screw, should be careful/ patient  taking it out, specially if its near the hairspring.

Removing the rotor helps and  must be done without letting it move, cuz the screw might be stuck right underneath it .

I don't think your watch needs a service as it looks new. How long has it been in use?

Rgds

 

 

Edited October 18, 2024 by Nucejoe
Typo

[Neverenoughwatches]

7 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

Hi all, after perusing Cousin's website, I've ended up even more confused.

You see, I thought I'd figured out that there were two or three main lubricants that I needed as a start, plus of course the applicators and the grease for a mainspring , but I couldn't find there a "starter lubricant kit" as it were.

First job I have to do is to get my son's Seiko working again.

It appears that the auto winding mechanism counterweght is not moving.

I have in my basket to start a can of Plus Gas in an effort to start the thing loosened, but if you advise against that please feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Do you suspect water ingress ?

If so i would want to start some disassembly to discover the extent. If you are contemplating spraying some kind of release agent to loosen things up without taking anything apart...personally i wouldn't,  you might be tempted to use an amount of force to encourage the process and as Joe has pointed out something other than rust or dried up lubricant may be jamming the autoworks.

[Klassiker]

I agree with @Nucejoe. There is a screw missing. Probably it's this which is jamming the rotor. You definitely need to remove the back, and you may need to remove the rotor to free it. Go slowly and ask before doing something you are unsure of.

[JohnR725]

7 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

but I couldn't find there a "starter lubricant kit"

realistically you'd be very happy if you didn't find the starters kit as people usually like to complain about the cost of lubrication and a starters kit may not actually have what you really want and it would be expensive anyway.

but starter kits do exist for instance at the link below scroll down the page and you will find a starter kit for mechanical and another for quartz watches.

Then the problem with starter kits are you would have to go through in figure out the cost of all individual oils as to whether you're getting a savings by purchasing all is a kit and does it actually have what you want or not. I'm in a skip over that is everybody has a different opinion and mine of course would be different than what's in the kits. So my looking at what they have one of the problems I see is the HP 1300 comes in 5 mL which is a lot of oil. Oh and then technically the oil expires but as a hobbyist is not collecting money personally wouldn't worry about the expiring date of. It is nice though that it's there in case you buy something off of eBay that doesn't have expiring date that tells you was made a long time ago and maybe it's not really what you want have.

But still 5 mL is a heck of a lot of oil it's quite amazing how slowly you go through the oil in a way. Then they have grease 9504 which I really like which I think replaces 9501 which they also have. So as I said you'd have to evaluate your needs as to whether you really need the rest of them for the most part are good.

So in any case of the first link is scroll down and there's the description of the kit. You can download a PDF but I've already done that and attached the message. Then at the second link because cousins didn't seem to have the kit there is the kit. It's only the first one I found conceivably other people have it also but it does give your price and you can evaluate whether it's really what you want or not.

https://www.moebius-lubricants.ch/en/products/specialities

https://www.ofrei.com/page246.html

7 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

It appears that the auto winding mechanism counterweght is not moving.

I have in my basket to start a can of Plus Gas in an effort to start the thing loosened, but if you advise against that please feel free to point me in the right direction.

I think you really need to take the watch out of the case and evaluate the situation where you can see things better. then it's always nice if you can give us a model number I did notice one on the case but this watch comes in either in three different variations a, B and C but the case number doesn't indicate family can give you a version which is probably the most common.

 

 

blue-starterkit-ts-eng_0.pdf Seiko 7S26A & 7S36A.pdf

[AndyGSi]

I wonder if this is the screw here upside down on top of the first reduction wheel and next to the hole it's come from.

[semmyroundel]

7 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

 Ref,  your first pic, a screw to winder module had come loose and is somewhere inside the gear works.

Jax case back remover tool is almost universal for  opening  case back. 

Important:

Once you spot the screw, should be careful/ patient  taking it out, specially if its near the hairspring.

Removing the rotor helps and  must be done without letting it move, cuz the screw might be stuck right underneath it .

I don't think your watch needs a service as it looks new. How long has it been in use?

Rgds

 

 

Thanks Nucejoe, amazed you could see that! The watch is just over a year old, maybe two. In a way I'm happy that it's not a mechanism that can be manually wound as my son may have made things work by trying to wind it.

I have a decent case back opener, I shall proceed with caution as you say.

2 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Do you suspect water ingress ?

If so i would want to start some disassembly to discover the extent. If you are contemplating spraying some kind of release agent to loosen things up without taking anything apart...personally i wouldn't,  you might be tempted to use an amount of force to encourage the process and as Joe has pointed out something other than rust or dried up lubricant may be jamming the autoworks.

Thank you too Neverenoughwatches. I don't remember him saying that he'd noticed any misting, but will ask. Plus good call on not jumping the gun with a release agent.

I'm often told as a plumbing and heating engineer by a customer that they'd sprayed WD40 on a seized tap or shower valve with absolutely no idea why it has no effect.

I can see why that analogy would apply here.

[Nucejoe]

 All advice here are solid , yet as a begginer you wouldn't want to tear the movement down more than you can clean & safely put back, neither uncase the movement nor spray anything, as any of the above puts the paint on dial plate in harmsway. 

 Just touching the dial with clean finger, leaves a progressively worsening mark on the paint.

Good luck.

 

 

[semmyroundel]

2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

realistically you'd be very happy if you didn't find the starters kit as people usually like to complain about the cost of lubrication and a starters kit may not actually have what you really want and it would be expensive anyway.

but starter kits do exist for instance at the link below scroll down the page and you will find a starter kit for mechanical and another for quartz watches.

Then the problem with starter kits are you would have to go through in figure out the cost of all individual oils as to whether you're getting a savings by purchasing all is a kit and does it actually have what you want or not. I'm in a skip over that is everybody has a different opinion and mine of course would be different than what's in the kits. So my looking at what they have one of the problems I see is the HP 1300 comes in 5 mL which is a lot of oil. Oh and then technically the oil expires but as a hobbyist is not collecting money personally wouldn't worry about the expiring date of. It is nice though that it's there in case you buy something off of eBay that doesn't have expiring date that tells you was made a long time ago and maybe it's not really what you want have.

But still 5 mL is a heck of a lot of oil it's quite amazing how slowly you go through the oil in a way. Then they have grease 9504 which I really like which I think replaces 9501 which they also have. So as I said you'd have to evaluate your needs as to whether you really need the rest of them for the most part are good.

So in any case of the first link is scroll down and there's the description of the kit. You can download a PDF but I've already done that and attached the message. Then at the second link because cousins didn't seem to have the kit there is the kit. It's only the first one I found conceivably other people have it also but it does give your price and you can evaluate whether it's really what you want or not.

https://www.moebius-lubricants.ch/en/products/specialities

https://www.ofrei.com/page246.html

I think you really need to take the watch out of the case and evaluate the situation where you can see things better. then it's always nice if you can give us a model number I did notice one on the case but this watch comes in either in three different variations a, B and C but the case number doesn't indicate family can give you a version which is probably the most common.

JohnR725, many thanks, I will look at those in detail.

I suppose what I should have asked is what lubricants lubricate each part of the watch and then gone from there.

I also need to know how to accurately size O rings. I can measure them with my digital caliper/micrometer but getting the actual thickness on some of the thinner O rings is a bit hit and miss.

For example, a Steeldive copy of a Seiko 6105 that I bought a couple of years ago with the original Seiko SII NH35 movement had a pinched O ring and after adjustment found that it would steam up after a shower, so I measured the O ring but of course, it had stretched a bit so all I could accurately measure was the place in the case back it needed to go in.

 

blue-starterkit-ts-eng_0.pdf 1.84 MB · 0 downloads Seiko 7S26A & 7S36A.pdf 589.05 kB · 0 downloads

 

JohnR725 that's an excellent guide there, including lubrication indicators.

I will now have to find out what constitutes 'liberal', 'normal'&'extremely small' quantities.

I wonder, are these guides readily available for other movements? I should imagine that for Japanese movements they are.

Again, thanks.

18 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

 All advice here are solid , yet as a begginer you wouldn't want to tear the movement down more than you can clean & safely put back, neither uncase the movement nor spray anything, as any of the above puts the paint on dial plate in harmsway. 

 Just touching the dial with clean finger, leaves a progressively worsening mark on the paint.

Good luck.

 

 

Thanks Nucejoe for that advice. I am equipped with finger cots and some Rodico, but will proceed with extreme caution as you say.

I'm not going to rush it but take care in dismantling.

Nucejoe, AndyGSi, klassiker et al, of course you were all correct, as you can see in attached photo, the screw had lodged in the edge of the rotor and was easily removed and replaced where it needed to go.

Next step is to put the watch on the winder and crank up the timegrapher and see if any adjustments are needed.

I'm guessing due to the young age of the watch that as you say, a service is not needed, just adjustment at this stage.

[JohnR725]

51 minutes ago, semmyroundel said:

I wonder, are these guides readily available for other movements

unfortunately there a way more watches then there are service guides. Even for Seiko they don't currently have or conveniently have PDFs for everything they've ever made it. So yes there are service guides out there are just not for everything.

so basically unlike other things in the world like automobiles where you can probably find quite a few manuals for every car in existence watch repair has a lot of nothing available.

[rehajm]

11 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

plus of course the applicators and the grease for a mainspring

…winders were one of the first big $$$ purchases. I began with common swiss movements and found many old steel mainsprings or broken ends. I could have done without the winders and just purchased new springs. Also, despite the risk of damage, hand winding really isn’t that difficult….

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, semmyroundel said:

I will now have to find out what constitutes 'liberal', 'normal'&'extremely small' quantities

thinking about quantity is of lubrication I have a predefined search at the link below. All sorts of interesting documents to download with number 40 covering lubrication. It's very good for the quantities of lubrication you may not necessarily want to follow their suggestions though for lubrication. As each the watch companies will have variations.

that's unfortunately the watch companies don't like us as there are considerably more working instructions and you see but they're unavailable. Plus you'll notice how paranoid Swatch group is as these ones every single corner of every single pages watermarked with where it came from. Which is why typically anyone who has access will not share it online because knows what Swatch group would do if they found your document floating around in the wilds.

Then the other problem with technical documentation is it was often times scanned solely for the parts list and it's missing all the technical. So often times you'll find something on the website here and there will be no technical because it was never scanned.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/document/search?SearchString=working

[semmyroundel]

3 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

thinking about quantity is of lubrication I have a predefined search at the link below. All sorts of interesting documents to download with number 40 covering lubrication. It's very good for the quantities of lubrication you may not necessarily want to follow their suggestions though for lubrication. As each the watch companies will have variations.

that's unfortunately the watch companies don't like us as there are considerably more working instructions and you see but they're unavailable. Plus you'll notice how paranoid Swatch group is as these ones every single corner of every single pages watermarked with where it came from. Which is why typically anyone who has access will not share it online because knows what Swatch group would do if they found your document floating around in the wilds.

Then the other problem with technical documentation is it was often times scanned solely for the parts list and it's missing all the technical. So often times you'll find something on the website here and there will be no technical because it was never scanned.

https://www.cousinsuk.com/document/search?SearchString=working

Thanks for that, a very comprehensive list and one that makes me realise there's no 'rule of thumb' allowed with watch adjustment and repair

 

[Nucejoe]

8 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

 

 Bits of case back gasket has remained, a tiny piece having fell down  in the case, will eventually find its way inside the movement.  

Perhaps the movement best be uncased, blow air to clean, give the case a bath, case the movement back in.

Good  luck.

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

a very comprehensive list and one that makes me realise there's no 'rule of thumb' allowed with watch adjustment and repair

one of the problems that makes things really confusing and watch repair is time? Not timekeeping of the watch but time of? Watch repair spans a considerable quantity of time with technical documentation and recommendations for lubrication cleaning etc. spending a lot of time. So depending upon document you look at recommendations change with time but for anyone not paying attention to the evolution the whole thing becomes a big confusing mess.

Then of course we have the different thoughts that the various watch companies have on things like lubrication. Plus the bonus of lubrication rules don't come with all of the information using epilam to keep the oil from spreading and you get a technical documentation recommending the and Wales that failed to disclose that you're supposed use epilam to keep them from spreading. So basically we never quite get all the documentation in one place and its spans too much time which makes for confusions.

Occasionally people make references to  automobile repair but the problem is in watch repair we don't have as many people as we do people trying to repair the automobiles so there's less people writing service guides for every single watch which typically almost never happens. Whereas you can find literally hundreds of books on various automobiles

[RichardHarris123]

4 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

makes me realise there's no 'rule of thumb' allowed with watch adjustment and repair

Plenty of 'rule of thumb " no definite answers. 

[semmyroundel]

1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

 Bits of case back gasket has remained, a tiny piece having fell down  in the case, will eventually find its way inside the movement.  

Perhaps the movement best be uncased, blow air to clean, give the case a bath, case the movement back in.

Good  luck.

Thanks Nucejoe, I hadn't seen that .

Talking about gaskets, I did ask a question about sizing them earlier (I referred to them as 'O rings') but I also wanted to know if that solution Magic Gasket should be applied in lieu or in addition to a gasket?

Cheers.

1 hour ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Plenty of 'rule of thumb " no definite answers. 

Sorry I meant with regard to the movements themselves.

[JohnR725]

52 minutes ago, semmyroundel said:

Talking about gaskets, I did ask a question about sizing them earlier (I referred to them as 'O rings') but I also wanted to know if that solution Magic Gasket should be applied in lieu or in addition to a gasket?

ideally you should resist from DIY alternatives to gaskets for watches. Fortunately gaskets are used in lots of watches so if you go to a variety of watch material houses they will actually have gaskets. Then if you're doing lots of watches really even have a gasket assortments.

Then if you have a watch like perhaps Seiko for instance there is typically a caseback number on the back of the case. This is where typically have a four digit number which is the movement number and then it separator fall by the actual caseback number. Then for a variety of sources you might be lucky and looked up the part numbers

so for instance at the link below you can enter in a case number and if you can't get your case number to come up usually if you have some of the numbers removes like the last three for instance you are likely end up with a grouping of cases that are similar if you're lucky. Because the other unfortunate problem with caseback numbers is it also depends upon where the watch was supposed to be sold and depending upon like in the US if it's an out of country watch we might not have a listing at all but we might have a listing that's a similar watch that was sold in this country if were lucky.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/

so we do get a listing we just don't get a complete listing unfortunately

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=SEK_CS^7S36-03J0

the other thing of interest to do is to take the caseback number 7S36-03J0 and just search on eBay for which you get a lot of watches and miscellaneous casing parts.

then if you not finding what you desire which I'm not need to go to the Internet and find this now we know your caseback number and a heck of a lot of other numbers to.

https://www.theseikoguy.com/watches/7S36-03J0/

so basically to avoid complications and problems always best to say with the original gasket.

 

 

[semmyroundel]

UPDATE ON THIS:

Having located the screw that jammed the mechanism, put it back in place, I put the watch back on the timegrapher.

Mysteriously I'm only getting about 140-150 amplitude with 0.2 BE and +2-10 s/d depending on attitude.

Do I have it wrong that I shoulkd be getting closer to 250-270 amplitude?

My son is doing a post-doc at UC Davis near Sacramento, so once he takes the watch with him back to California at the end of the week, I'll have no possibility to carry out any other work on it until I see him again in 10 months, so I'm trying to get it right.

TIA.

Edited January 1 by semmyroundel

[AndyGSi]

What timegrapher have you got and what's the lift angle set too?

How do the figures compare to what the balance is doing?

If need be then record a slow motion video with your phone to view it better.

[semmyroundel]

Interstingly again, further to an adjustment to 0.3ms BE and +7 s/d I'm getting 216 amplitude.

What can I learn from this that can help me in the future?

[AndyGSi]

2 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

Interstingly again, further to an adjustment to 0.3ms BE and +7 s/d I'm getting 216 amplitude.

What can I learn from this that can help me in the future?

So either the first figures weren't correct or you've changed something with the balance when making the adjustment.

Without seeing the timegraoher and how the balance looks and oscillates it's difficult to say.

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

I'm only getting about 140-150 amplitude with 0.2 BE and +2-10 s/d depending on attitude.

I don't suppose we can get pictures of the timing machine with its results? Then out of curiosity did you try to wind the watch up in any of fashion?

2 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

What can I learn from this that can help me in the future?

On 10/17/2024 at 3:23 PM, semmyroundel said:

First job I have to do is to get my son's Seiko working again.

I would I combined the quotes here. So what can you learn for the future? Let's see we started a conversation with lubrication and did any of our lubrication answers help with your problem? Then you're going to do something with your sons watch what exactly did you do? That would help to give an answer for the future.

 

On 10/18/2024 at 1:59 AM, semmyroundel said:

'm guessing due to the young age of the watch that as you say, a service is not needed, just adjustment at this stage.

How can you tell that this watch has a young age?

[Knebo]

4 hours ago, semmyroundel said:

Interstingly again, further to an adjustment to 0.3ms BE and +7 s/d I'm getting 216 amplitude.

What can I learn from this that can help me in the future?

There's a chance that your watch is simply not fully wound. As no hand-winding is possible with this calibre, you'd ideally wear it for a full (and active) day. Then measure again. 

On 10/18/2024 at 8:18 AM, JohnR725 said:

But still 5 mL is a heck of a lot of oil it's quite amazing how slowly you go through the oil in a way. Then they have grease 9504 which I really like which I think replaces 9501 which they also have. So as I said you'd have to evaluate your needs as to whether you really need the rest of them for the most part are good.

Haha, yes, I had seen this starter kit as well and it baffles me that they'd but the 5ml of HP1300 instead of 2ml, and that they'd put 9501 AND 9504. Makes no sense to me. They could have added a breaking grease for automatics or Fixodrop instead. 

[semmyroundel]

Thanks to all. I will answer all your questions here:

Knowing that they can't be wound by hand, I have a winding mechanism and it was put on that a full month before he came over for Christmas, not only that, I put it not on the "maintenance movement" but the "winding movement" setting to get the maximum.

I bought the watch brand new about 3 years ago.

Lubrication-wise, as you know I'm relatively new to this and being a plumbing and heating engineer I like to have all the tools to hand and don't have to leave things out strewn on the dining room table (albeit in one corner, but my wife doesn't like things hanging around) because I have to order something to continue.

If I had the lube to hand, I could do any work in one sitting, hopefully!

These photos are just before we went out for the evening, this morning he reported it had lost time overnight and the next photo shows the loss, thank heaven the beat arror is as good as I'm going to get on this movement-that hadn't cahnged!

This morning I put it back on the Weishi and this is what I see.

What could be going on, could the 'speed adjuster' have moved, is it tightenable?