Broke one of my watches. Back to watch repairs

[Terrinecold]

Rock climbing another passion of mine kept me busy and away from watchmaking/watch repair for a while. 
Now I am back a bit forced. I dropped one of my watches and broke it. 
Attached a couple of pictures of the patient. It is a Chinese watch with a micro rotor. The watch fell and the second hand is now not in its place and moving around in the case. 
The watch is still ticking and as far as I can tell after a couple of hours keeping time correctly (I haven’t but will put it on the timegrapher). 
I hope I just need to put the hand back in place. 
I will likely try next week as this weekend I’ll be away climbing at Cathedral Ledges in New Hampshire. 
I’ll keep you updated and add pics after I open it. 

Edited October 29, 2024 by tomh207
Correct subject heading

[Terrinecold]

There is a typo in the title of the thread, it should read "Broke" not "Brooke" somehow I couldn't find how to correct it.

[AndyGSi]

I can't even see the hole in the dial let alone the pivot to see if it's still intact.

[Terrinecold]

Thanks @AndyGSi. Sorry for that I'll take a better picture today.  With the microscope. 

[Terrinecold]

Attached are pictures taken with the microscope.  I tried to give a view of the pivot by inclining the watch.

I haven't opened the case yet .

The pivot does look intact to me.

[mbwatch]

Unless that is a shadow, the jewel might be cracked. But the pivot looks good and hopefully the floating hand has not marred that fine dial. I have not seen one of Lobinni's watches up close, but they sure look great in photos. I am really impressed with the quality of that gilt numeral 4 under macro.

Edited October 29, 2024 by mbwatch

[AndyGSi]

Pivot looks fine along with the jewel and hand so looks like you've been lucky.

[Terrinecold]

Well I haven't been able to remove the movement and dial from the case yet.

the back of the case is held by some screws and I could remove it.

I also could remove the stem.

There are 2 "screws" which appear to be eccentric with a little cut out which I turned. One is visible in this photo next to the micro rotor and the other one on the other side close to the balance (recessed in a hole in the train bridge).

I expected to then be able to drop both the dial and movement out of the case from the back but couldn't.

I am afraid of breaking it more so I put it back together right now

 

Are they other pictures I could take which could help figuring out how to uncase it.  That is always something I have been having problems with.

[AndyGSi]

5 minutes ago, Terrinecold said:

There are 2 "screws" which appear to be eccentric with a little cut out which I turned. One is visible in this photo next to the micro rotor and the other one on the other side close to the balance (recessed in a hole in the train bridge).

Those are the dial feet screws.

Looking at the size of the dial I expect it's a front loader.

[Terrinecold]

do you think I need to pop the front bezel off with a case knife?

 

[AndyGSi]

28 minutes ago, Terrinecold said:

do you think I need to pop the front bezel off with a case knife?

I expect you'll need something thinner than a case knife, possibly a stanley knife, but you need to be careful not to damage it or yourself.

Photos of the bezel would help confirm this as there may even be a gap to start the process.

This is a Rotary I'm currently working on that has a chamfer opposite the crown.

 

[tomh207]

7 hours ago, Terrinecold said:

There is a typo in the title of the thread, it should read "Broke" not "Brooke" somehow I couldn't find how to correct it.

Fixed it for you

Tom

[Terrinecold]

4 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

Fixed it for you

Tom

thanks

Opened. Indeed a bit scary. I didn’t find any better place to start than another (I was hoping for some kind of divot. So I went between the lugs hoping any mark would be seen less I used a scalpel bit applying force with one is not great as still as a little gap opened I stuck in a case knife and twisted. 

As usual (and not surprisingly considering it is a more complex watch and I have stopped working on watches for a few months) I have messed up things a bit.  I think when I pushed on the setting lever axle to free the stem I must have done so a bit too much as the stem is now not working (it is not winding nor setting the time which it was when I started).  So I now have no other options than to take it apart at least up to the keyless works to fix that.  The part which worries me most is disassembling and reassembling the calendar parts. 

In any case I have done that mostly and now it is time to put it back together. 

But first I must edit the video so I can watch what I did to know how to do it in reverse.

I'll post it here too

[Terrinecold]

Video of the partial disassembly

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

12 hours ago, AndyGSi said:

I expect you'll need something thinner than a case knife, possibly a stanley knife, but you need to be careful not to damage it or yourself.

Photos of the bezel would help confirm this as there may even be a gap to start the process.

This is a Rotary I'm currently working on that has a chamfer opposite the crown.

 

First place i look when opening a back or lifting a bezel, i now always add a chamfer when refitting if it doesn't have one.

[Terrinecold]

OK, I have put the watch almost back together and it is almost working...

What are those two almost you will ask.

First one is that the date is not working.   When I put back the keyless work I tested the date settings and it worked once then stopped. Something must have moved out of place when I was trying to set the date.  I don't know if it is because I tried without the dial which would have kept some of the date works down (the little wheel which moves the date is my main suspect) or something I didn't assemble properly.

The second almost is to put the bezel back.  I guess I need a special tool, some kind of press?  I think I am missing what is needed to put back the bezel and the crystal.

Otherwise, the watch runs and the hands are put back in place.

The two timegrapher pictures are before (-105s) and after (+22s) mostly the lines are clean and I took advantage of having the watch open to adjust a bit.

 

I did run into 2 problems which I managed to resolve:

1) I had a very hard time to reinstall the balance.  The third wheel takes a lot of place and while I was sliding the balance beneath it correctly the balance spring was going above instead of underneath.  Once I realized that was the issue I managed to put it back together correctly and it started beating

2) The dial wouldn't go back on the movement.  It turns out the feet were slightly bent.  It took lots of effort to bring them back to vertical without breaking them.  I guess I need to buy a special dial storage container otherwise if I put it face down I am afraid to damage the dial face and face up, well I just learned the feet tend to bend.  Do any of you have a trick for that.

[AndyGSi]

Yes you'll need a press for the crystal and bezel.

Dial feet can be very precarious and the slightest bend can sometimes cause them to
break and that's a whole new can of worms so you're best as you say getting dial case.

 

[Terrinecold]

ordered!.

2 more questions:

If I go through the work of editing the video to show the part where I work dial side (keyless works and date works).  Is there a chance that one of you would spot what I did wrong and why my date is not working anymore?

Is it safe to work on that part of the movement without having removed the balance.  I was thinking about removing the rotor (so the barrel doesn't get wound) and letting down the power should be enough.

[AndyGSi]

I find it's always best to work on movements without any power so removing the rotor and letting down the spring is best.

I'm not sure how many people will have worked on this type of movement but there maybe something generic that becomes obvious if you can post a video.

[Terrinecold]

I'll edit and post the video.  I don't know if many people have worked on such movement but I haven't found any video with a disassembly or a service of one on youtube.

However I don't think there is anything very original in the way the date works (nothing advertised anyway).  I just haven't dealt with such movements (movement with dates) before.