Watch of Today

[GuillaumeV]

wearing today my rebuilt diver watch with parts from eBay and a used pre-owned dial from an OMEGA Seamaster

[ro63rto]

Seiko Timer on a miserable day. The light looks like just before sunset. Horrible!

 

 

This is the only forum that messes around with Imgur links. It looks like I used a potato to take the pic.

Here's the direct link

https://i.imgur.com/sYMenRf.jpg

[yankeedog]

Frankenvostok? Frankenphibia?

[AndyHull]

The Slava 2414 twin barrel got a bath today. From stone dead and fully wound, to >260 degrees and around -30s/day currently.

I'll let it settle overnight and do the final regulate, adjust and tidy up any remaining fine scratches on the crystal tomorrow.
An interesting movement. One thing worthy of note is this comment on ranfft.de

Quote

Attention! Never, never ever unlock the stem unless you have pulled the crown to setting position. And never insert the stem without pushing the release button, even not if the collar towards the square is conical to lift the set lever. Else you have a high chance to mix up the parts of the setting works, and rearranging them is much more troublesome than in most other movements.

The keyless work is a little fiddly, but not that bad, but in my opinion you are more likely to encounter flying spring action from the date disk than anything else when stripping and cleaning.

[yankeedog]

I think the twin mainspring  set up is pretty  neat. All the more torque  for the watch to grind  itself  to death  with.

[Marc]

34 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

The Slava 2414 twin barrel got a bath today.

You may be interested in this one....

 

I believe it's the day/date version of the 2414.

Great fun

[yankeedog]

Slava powered  leon piradet. About 15 seconds  slow around 280 degrees  and .1ms  beat error.

 

 

 

 

[AndyHull]

Another unique piece. Its got a very appealing  "sad face" thing going with that "unbreakable mainspring" test.

Is it a Wostok 2414A by any chance?

Edited October 22, 2019 by AndyHull

[yankeedog]

Slava. The emoji dial is I am sure a testament  to the non existence  of maintenance  it was shown. 

[yankeedog]

Another  emoji watch by leon piradet. Another  slava with hard to quibble  over numbers. No doubt sad due to the state of it's crystal. 

[balaton]

34mm German-made Anker today. Unhappily, I haven’t yet established which of several Mikrolisk possibles made this particular watch, and probably never will.

Its unlovely 21j movement is a French-made Lorsa 655G.3 and whilst the unidentified anti-shock has every appearance of having been cobbled together in someone’s garden shed, the same device was also used in some of the other 65x examples shown in the good Dr R’s archive.

Regards.

[AndyHull]

Does a brass desk clock count as Watch of Today?

Well this one kind of does, since it is actually a Seiko quartz watch movement, complete with stem and crown.

The "watch" part is held in to the body with a silicone band which allows it to press fit into a recess on the very heavy brass body. 

The whole thing is about 4" high and surprisingly heavy, and no doubt cost a pretty penny when new.

Needless to say, it is yet another member of the 404 club.

Don't forget to put the clocks/watches back tonight if you live in the UK.

Edited October 26, 2019 by AndyHull

[jdm]

13 hours ago, AndyHull said:

Don't forget to put the clocks/watches back tonight if you live in the UK.

And even if you don't 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_time_in_Europe

[AndyHull]

This time, its a "real" watch for Watch of today, sort of.

You may have noticed that I have a fascination for the more quirky stuff.

Strange types of movements, Communist dictators with bad tobacco habits, sausages, tennis playing beagles.. that sort of thing.

Well today's , quirk is plastic. Lots of plastic. Blue acrylic and off white PVC to be precise.

This is a Basis  "Lucerne" watch.  Pprobably, judging by the bizarre design,this is from round about the same time as the first of the Jelly Fish Swatch watches, so around 1983 give or take a few years.

It is a One Jewel Wonder, with the dial held in place by the crystal which in turn is held in place by a metal retaining ring. No dial feet here, so the positioning of the dial is a little hit or miss. 

There is no obvious way in to the watch, and the stem release, while visible  through the rear acrylic is not accessible, therefore you have to attack it from the front, so I grabbed a large lump of blue-tak, jammed it on the crystal and pulled, with dramatic effect. The crystal, crystal ring, dial and hands all parted company from the watch, reveling the gummed up mechanism beneath. 

The crown and stem was extracted by backing off the screw holding the keyless work down, and gently lifting the retaining tab with a sewing needle. This then permitted extraction of the mechanism, which I then tore apart and cleaned.

The only remaining issue is that if I want to do any further adjusting or regulating, I need to repeat the above rigmarole, however since the thing has presumably never been looked at from the moment it left the factory, it may well be another  thirty years or more before anyone else has to figure this out. 

Having said that, I will strip it back down again tomorrow assuming it runs for the next 24hrs without any major issues. I have the beat error, and the rate sorted out, but the amplitude is still a little low but I'm hopeful it will pick up a bit as the lubrication gets to work on all of those long neglected pinions

Edited October 27, 2019 by AndyHull

[balaton]

Looks kinda BFG 844(-ish). Good find, anyway.

Cheers.

[toptime810]

Wearing one of these today

[ro63rto]

https://i.imgur.com/b6CXBsr.jpg

 

 

 

[yankeedog]

On 10/26/2019 at 7:36 PM, AndyHull said:

Does a brass desk clock count as Watch of Today?

Well this one kind of does, since it is actually a Seiko quartz watch movement, complete with stem and crown.

The "watch" part is held in to the body with a silicone band which allows it to press fit into a recess on the very heavy brass body. 

The whole thing is about 4" high and surprisingly heavy, and no doubt cost a pretty penny when new.

Needless to say, it is yet another member of the 404 club.

Don't forget to put the clocks/watches back tonight if you live in the UK.

I don't  know...take it off the stand...put a strap on it...add a few rhinestones..and it would look perfectly  at home at the Walmart  watch counter. 

[yankeedog]

On 10/27/2019 at 4:51 PM, AndyHull said:

This time, its a "real" watch for Watch of today, sort of.

You may have noticed that I have a fascination for the more quirky stuff 

Strange types of movements, Communist dictators with bad tobacco habits, sausages, tennis playing beagles.. that sort of thing.

Well today's , quirk is plastic. Lots of plastic. Blue acrylic and off white PVC to be precise.

This is a Basis  "Lucerne" watch.  Pprobably, judging by the bizarre design,this is from round about the same time as the first of the Jelly Fish Swatch watches, so around 1983 give or take a few years.

It is a One Jewel Wonder, with the dial held in place by the crystal which in turn is held in place by a metal retaining ring. No dial feet here, so the positioning of the dial is a little hit or miss. 

There is no obvious way in to the watch, and the stem release, while visible  through the rear acrylic is not accessible, therefore you have to attack it from the front, so I grabbed a large lump of blue-tak, jammed it on the crystal and pulled, with dramatic effect. The crystal, crystal ring, dial and hands all parted company from the watch, reveling the gummed up mechanism beneath. 

The crown and stem was extracted by backing off the screw holding the keyless work down, and gently lifting the retaining tab with a sewing needle. This then permitted extraction of the mechanism, which I then tore apart and cleaned.

The only remaining issue is that if I want to do any further adjusting or regulating, I need to repeat the above rigmarole, however since the thing has presumably never been looked at from the moment it left the factory, it may well be another  thirty years or more before anyone else has to figure this out. 

Having said that, I will strip it back down again tomorrow assuming it runs for the next 24hrs without any major issues. I have the beat error, and the rate sorted out, but the amplitude is still a little low but I'm hopeful it will pick up a bit as the lubrication gets to work on all of those long neglected pinions

Quirky? Now that you mention  it....

[thierry]

My Yema chronograph with a Venus 150 column wheel caliber.

[m1ks]

Tara alarm, cheap ebay watch, (I like alarm  watches ever since I picked up a Poljot).

Ronda 17 jewel movement which is a bit of an oddity in that, unlike the Poljot all the alarm functions including the separate mainspring are on the dial side. 

Just finished a clean, rebuild and oiling. 

Missing a seconds hand. 

[balaton]

Today, this all-steel 218D hummer from 1965.

You all know the outline of how these things work  -  vibrations of its tuning fork are converted into rotary motion by the 2.4mm diameter index wheel with its 320 microscopic teeth (each 0.01mm high and 0.02mm wide) cut round the circumference and once considered by Robert Berkavicius to have been “the most technically difficult and highest precision watch part ever made”.

It’s also said that the machinery on which these wheels were made was deliberately destroyed by the company which eventually purchased Bulova (you know who you are) and that, even nearly 60 years on, the engineering behind their manufacture is either lost or remains a secret.

Regards.

[Nucejoe]

Any sensible designer has to call it a bad idea. I don,t believe the technology had any military use ether. Which is always a force behind anything with remote chance of  use in so called defence.

Repair is a pain making repairman run away. Good percentage don,t keep time especially if repaired. Perfect as a museum piece.

I have got couple omega 720 megasonic, have had limited success selling parts off of em. 

I like the humming sound.

[AndyHull]

1 hour ago, balaton said:

vibrations of its tuning fork are converted into rotary motion by the 2.4mm diameter index wheel with its 320 microscopic teeth (each 0.01mm high and 0.02mm wide) cut round the circumference and once considered by Robert Berkavicius to have been “the most technically difficult and highest precision watch part ever made”.

Interestingly, it would now theoretically be possible to 3D print objects with sub 10 micron resolution, so if you know anyone with a high end 3D  printer, then you might be able to fabricate these disks. If my recent experience of examining quartz chronographs is anything to go by, you may even be able to fabricate them in nylon or other similar polymers, rather than metal.

Furthermore high quality laser cutters can in theory cut to sub 1/1200 of an inch (0.0021166582mm) so if there is a market for these spares, and you can find some way to fabricate them, then you may be able to produce and sell them.

Edited October 30, 2019 by AndyHull

[yankeedog]

On 10/29/2019 at 7:28 PM, thierry said:

My Yema chronograph with a Venus 150 column wheel caliber.

Love it...but could  you zoom  in just a bit?