Donor watch that can take thick dials?

[skoochy]

You can get the hand fitting heights off movement manufacturer's sites:

http://www.isaswiss.com/en/technical-info.html

http://www.eta.ch/

http://www.ronda.ch/

Movements from normal suppliers usually are the standard heights, but I've purchased movements from these places which had different heights but without warning from the supplier (often times to my detriment). You'll usually need to purchase the special parts and fit them yourself.

Beware not all movements are modifiable in this manner.

The 1198 series is available in different stem heights, but most of them are higher and won't make a good candidate to try and fit a thicker dial.

Most Chinese 11.5L movements (in my experience, which is very limited) have a stem height of 2.5mm. Guarantees of any kind are somewhat nonexistent when purchasing from a street vendor.

Also, movement clamps generally aren't used very often, movement spacer rings are more common. That's a positive thing because it allows any size movement (within the confines of the case) to fit, but they may need adjustment depending how much "give" the spacer ring has and how much thicker your dial will be.

I think your project is going to be predicated on a lot of experimentation and buying a lot of parts, many of which will not work for what you want to do. But in the end with enough determination, you should be able to come up with something that will work.

-s-

[proxrb]

Thanks for the resources, I will take a look, pop some emails around, and see if I cant pick up a 1198 w/ low stem height and long pinion.

I guess I'll start off buying a cheapo, biggish automatic from a street vendor so I can be sure that an 11.5 and otherwise the majority of quartz movements should fit. Looks like this is going to be a lot harder than I expected?

[stuffler,mike]

Threads merged.

[stuffler,mike]

eta.ch does not deliver parts to private customers.

[skoochy]

eta.ch does not deliver parts to private customers.

That was not implied, the post stated:

"You can get the hand fitting heights off movement manufacturer's sites:"

The sites do in fact deliver technical documents to private customers, and those docs include the hand fitting heights and various options of those.

-s-

[stuffler,mike]

Thanks for correcting me, he may have a look into the technical drafts. What I added - and please see it as an additional remark - is still correct: He will not get parts directly from ETA.

[skoochy]

Thanks for correcting me, he may have a look into the technical drafts. What I added - and please see it as an additional remark - is still correct: He will not get parts directly from ETA.

Sorry, my mistake. This of course would be pertinent if he is looking for longer pinion parts.

-s-

[Roland Ranfft]

Hi there

pretty strange discussion - still without any figures.
A normal dial is 0.4mm thick, but how thick is a thick dial? 1mm? 10mm?

Anyway, take any watch (quartz, manual wind, automatic...) with day/date
feature and remove the day/date parts and the dial spacer. This will give
about 0.5mm extra space for a thicker dial, and regarding the clearance of
the hour hand will allow a 1mm thick dial.

Regards, Roland Ranfft

[sixties.nut]

Thanks for correcting me, he may have a look into the technical drafts. What I added - and please see it as an additional remark - is still correct: He will not get parts directly from ETA.

Mike, where would one need to go to order ETA parts then? I see Otto's site has a limited selection of movements but to get something else as mentioned here. How can one get those movements?

Regards,
Mike

[louis]

Mike, where would one need to go to order ETA parts then? I see Otto's site has a limited selection of movements but to get something else as mentioned here. How can one get those movements?

Regards,
Mike

See my answer