Service of a shipwrecked ETA 2472

[marc_wl]

To upgrade a bit my wachmaking training, I had in mind to service a vintage automatic caliber with dato of a shipwrecked French Yema watch, found for 10 Euros in an antic shop of Lyon, France, by a cold winter saturday afternoon. The watch was terribly worn. The shiny steel dial suffered from likely repeated floods...but the stainless steel case and especially the case back were still attracting.

http://img310.imageshack.us/img310/6900/eta247202r0ln.jpg

Clearly, the watch is functionnal because it started upon winding for a while. I had no difficulty to open the case and I realized that the whole caliber is impregnated of a huge amount of regular oil everywhere including the date wheel (:-S). A closer inspection under the balance wheel indicated that the caliber is an ETA 2472. After the removal of the rotor system (2 blued screws), I uncased the movement, removed the hands and the dial, and proceeded to the complete umount, before a thorough benzine wash (twice with new benzine due to this oil everywhere) and drying. The case and caseback stayed overnight in a solution of powerful detergent (I use a detergent used to renew the painting - I don't have any ultrasound machine). The acrylic crystal was polished too. As usual nothing could be done for the dial. I just passed gently a pieces of Rodico to degrease it.

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/3664/eta247203r4xo.jpg


The remount was not apparently difficult. After a proper oiling (using this time state-of-the-art Moebius 9010 and 9020 watch oils and oil picks!), the caliber started after a turn an half of rewind. I proceeded to the recasing but something clearly went wrong and the movement did not worked with a right amplitude of the balance wheel. I removed the palet lever to see a bit. Clearly the wheel train is not correctly working.

http://img310.imageshack.us/img310/3982/eta247206r5ln.jpg


Since I was a bit lazzy and did not dismounted the mainspring from the barrel (:-X said mandatory for automatic watch), I believed it was the origin of the problem. I cleaned the mainspring, greased the barrel. I am not equipped to roll the springs and I sadly broke it while remounting in its barrel O|O|

I left the caliber in a safe place while finding the time to go my preferred watch furniture store. ETA 2472 was still referenced in the mainspring manufacturer booklet. The mainsprings are sold by 2 for about 10 Euros.

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2927/eta247204r9qq.jpg


The spring is in a ring and the transfer is straighforward, just by pushing it with a "skin cabron " (a flat wood stick covered with a soft leather). Pictures are really helpful to remember the original positions of the watch parts and I did not confused the spiral sense!

http://img310.imageshack.us/img310/3525/eta247205r9fs.jpg


I remounted the caliber as previously, but I realized that the wheel train is really not so easy to positionate while the last deck is presented. My problems, came from this, not the mainspring. I had to test that each wheels are freely engined from the barrel. Finally every wheels were correctly positionned.

http://img310.imageshack.us/img310/5291/eta247207r9ve.jpg


The ETA caliber has a very nice balance wheel beautifuly equilibrated with small brass masses. Seeing a vintage caliber starting again is really an authentic pleasure!!:-p

http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/5199/eta247208r0lx.jpg


I changed the central second hand for a chrome-plated one I had in my spare boxes, recased the watch, and ound some new spring bars (19mm interlugs).

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5882/eta247209r3ua.jpg

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/3241/eta247210r2jd.jpg


The watch is 35.0 mm diameter (37.15 including the crown), 42.5 mm lug to lug, 10.2mm thick. Due to the "heavy-duty" past wearing, I found that a military NATO strap would better fit to this watch style :

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/929/eta247215r2ax.jpg

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5425/eta247212r21kr.jpg

http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/1936/eta247213r2rb.jpg


The watch gained 3s within its 5 first hours (on my wrist). I hope it will possible to get a nice regulation once the oils stabilized.

Cheers,

Marc

[rfrazier]

Very informative. Thanks. It now looks a decent watch. (Perhaps the previous owner thought that if a little oil is good, a whole lot of it is even better. ;))

Best wishes,
Bob

[Hartmut Richter]

Lovely! I would have been tempted to keep the red seconds hand and just paint it with some modelling paint (the type you use for your plastic aircraft - or in my case, home-made tin soldiers!). I have a question, though, since I have a vintage Provita with exactly the same movement (ETA 2472) which is in rather better shape than your watch but has no amplitude on the balance wheel and therefore gains time enormously, so it awaits my attention at an appropriate moment. How do you get the rotor off the rest of the winding system? I notice that you may well not have done - in this case, can you get the grime out without removing the rotor?

Hartmut Richter

[marc_wl]

Lovely! I would have been tempted to keep the red seconds hand and just paint it with some modelling paint (the type you use for your plastic aircraft - or in my case, home-made tin soldiers!). I have a question, though, since I have a vintage Provita with exactly the same movement (ETA 2472) which is in rather better shape than your watch but has no amplitude on the balance wheel and therefore gains time enormously, so it awaits my attention at an appropriate moment. How do you get the rotor off the rest of the winding system? I notice that you may well not have done - in this case, can you get the grime out without removing the rotor?

Hartmut Richter

Hi Harmut,

Yes, at first I just removed the whole automatic block from the caliber. I dismounted it completely in another "session" after the movement. Underneath the rotor there is a screwed axis that should be unscrewed and liberates the rotor. After this, the pignons could be dismounted easily for washing. There are no apparent traps... I oiled pivots followed the advice of a watchmaking notebook about a generic automatic block (FH? I should check). I find the rewind still a bit hard however once the block mounted ( :-S ), but it works.

I had some problem with the click (I lost the spring O| ) and all the click springs I had were a bit too thick. I find a more or less acceptable solution that stands for now. The rotor also ratlle a little on the click screw and the cock screw that are strangely a bit thick (may be I mixed some screws when remounting the caliber :roll: should check the pictures). I diminished their height by hand. Still not perfect...

http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/5199/eta247208r0lx.jpg

Kind regards,

[aldo]

Marc :

-after removing of automatic bridge screws, before raise the bridge keep the watch a bit wound by the crown, it will help to take away the automatic device.
-do not assemble barrel and its bridge before train wheels, it will be simpler check the wheels on their positions.

Btw do you need a click spring ?

Cheers, Aldo.;-)

[marc_wl]

Marc :

-after removing of automatic bridge screws, before raise the bridge keep the watch a bit wound by the crown, it will help to take away the automatic device.
-do not assemble barrel and its bridge before train wheels, it will be simpler check the wheels on their positions.

Btw do you need a click spring ?

Cheers, Aldo.;-)

Thanks for the advices Aldo. I did an adaptation with a generic click spring found in an enveloppe of Bergeon spare parts I got in a vintage lot. I choose the thiner one, but still a bit thick so that the click was strangled if I screwed to the maximum. I was forced to install a little drop of glue ( :-X ) in the screw hole to block it ( :-X ).

I had also a trouble with a small lever of the dato (lost O|). I arraged something with another but I should change it. My furniture retailer may have one. I had it on my list...

Thank you again anyway and kind regards

[marc_wl]

Lovely! I would have been tempted to keep the red seconds hand and just paint it with some modelling paint (the type you use for your plastic aircraft - or in my case, home-made tin soldiers!). I have a question, though, since I have a vintage Provita with exactly the same movement (ETA 2472) which is in rather better shape than your watch but has no amplitude on the balance wheel and therefore gains time enormously, so it awaits my attention at an appropriate moment. How do you get the rotor off the rest of the winding system? I notice that you may well not have done - in this case, can you get the grime out without removing the rotor?

Hartmut Richter

Hi Hartmut,

Your comment make me think about the second hand again :think:...It's always better to keep the original things on a vintage watch (if this hand is original). The red painting was too damaged to be re-used like this. With the tip of the brucelle I removed the painted rests from the original hand.

I thought to paint it again with a brush, but I decided finally to try a painting in spray. With two little pieces of Rodico on a paper sheet, I blocked the hand and passed a single touch of spray.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/5553/pict0031r4kw.jpg

I could not expected better! A single touch is more than enough. I remounted that hand on the watch :

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/3523/pict0030r6im.jpg

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8416/pict0032r0pl.jpg


You was right |>! it's really MUCH MORE BETTER than the chrome-plated!!

Many :thanks

Marc