WUSF6 Watchmakers of the World Watch Tour

[Biased&Critical]

This is one of the luckiest watches I know of. This watch may have had a rough life, but what a retirement it's having!

[pithy]

OK, so I now know that Pune is a modern, vibrant version of the "Motor City" and is not just another backdrop for some melodramatic BBC period piece.

[RonP]

Hi folks,

Just to let you know the watch arrived safe and sound March 22 in the Netherlands, Europe.

First inspection showed again problems with the stem and also the amplitude was quite low, around 200 degrees dial up/down.
Also I noticed the watch had picked up some magnetisme, probably due to the safety scanners they use today for parcels traveling by air.


I decided to start with the winding problem. I think I spotted that the combined setting lever-jumper was a bit bent and as such not engaging consistently with the setting lever.
After straightening the setting lever jumper and applying stem grease, the problem was over and now the stem is working fine again (and will continue to do so I hope).

When i did a more deep inspection it was confirmed the watch was never cleaned and actually there was quite some oil were it was not supposed to be or looked dried out.
I decided to give the watch a good cleaning and rinsing in the ultrasonic cleaner.

During the disassembly of the barrel and spring I noticed the spring was set and the V at the end of the spring was bent too in a wrong way. Worse was that the hole in the barrel was worn out to an oval form. As this is the powerhouse of the watch, this is obviously not a desirable state. Luckily I had a spare barrel and spring in my "junk" box and it was donated to this this watch.

At this moment the train, spring, keyless and balance have been assembled again, demagnetised and oiled he is now running on test on the timing machine.
It seems to have worked out well for the amplitude dial up/down is now well over 280 degrees.

I will come back later this weekend with some images of the watch before and during the above activities.

Later I will install the date mechanism and dial etc. so that he will look smart again.

Next Monday I will show the watch the one and only left watch and clock-school in the Netherlands and off course take some pictures too.


Ronald

[Biased&Critical]

Text only with no pics? This is what Playboy magazines must be like in hell.

[RonP]

Hi Folks,

Here the watch arrived ready for first getting to know each other:




Beautiful, In reality the compass is looking very smart.




First test on the timer shows a low amplitude but beat and keeping time are fine (would this picture qualify for the playboy?)





Fully disassembled and ready for inspection.



Here you can see the last oiling was done a significant time ago, the black colour of the oil was due to the set condition of the spring which made the spring run really to the barrel and cover, all silver-plating was scraped off. Also you can see hopefully the unroundness of the whole in the arbor cover.



Cleaned and ready for assembling again. I did show the old spring here so you see the set condition, bent V and on next picture also that he is not flat anymore.





First testrun, Amplitude is in the proper range now. Still need to adjust rate and beat to best average. There are some deviations between dial up/down/ crown up/down etc.




Tonight I will put the date mechanism and dial/hands in place and have him run for another day so the oil can spread properly on the stones/pivots and I can make some final adjustments.

Will be continued.

Kind regards

Ronald

[selfwind]

Wow that mainspring barrel was really nasty! Cleaning that up definitely would increase the power to the train!

[pithy]

RonP, for cleaning machines what is your personal favorite. Do you have any particular choices in cleaning solutions?

Thanks,

pithy

[RonP]

Hi pithy,

I use a Sonorex-Digitec ultrasonic, a bit on the large side, but when cleaning a Comptoise clock it also fits.
For watches I use small metal gaze boxes were I keep the sensitive parts separated from the more robust part like the mainplate and train- or barrel bridges.

As cleaning solution I use two fluids from L&R. One Cleaner and one rinser.
I start 3 - 4 miutes in the cleaner (ammoniated) and then I rinse 2 times, one in used rinser and finnaly in fresh rinser, again 3 - 4 minutes. After that I put the parts on a heated ventilator for drying.

I hope this answers your question.

Br

Ronald

[aditya]

Tonight I will put the date mechanism and dial/hands in place and have him run for another day so the oil can spread properly on the stones/pivots and I can make some final adjustments.

Will be continued.

Kind regards

Ronald

Great work . This is something this watch was crying for. Now if you can sort the crown issue your effort will not go waste.

Aditya

[RonP]

Hi Folks,

Another update from the Netherlands.
The watch is fully assembled again. The date mechanism was easy and no issues. Also the winding and time setting was solved. Flattening the lever did the trick.
The dial and hands were next put back on the watch. Important to be ensure that the hour hand has to be aligned to the 12 o'clock at the moment the date wheel moves to the next day.
After that it is easy to also put the minute hand in such a way that it exactly points at the 12 o’clock position when the hour hand is at the 6 o'clock position.



Next came the case with the strange, large tube. So let's first see if we can push it out. It turned out to be simple. Just pressing with the correct format press.

Now I started paying attention to the case. Unfortunately I noticed a chip was broken away from the top glass. Luckely a colleague from my clockmaking class was able to replace the glass with a new one and now it is perfect again. A big thanks to Nico for this.



Here you can see the old tube pushed out. Relative large size.



Next step is to select a new tube with a more standard size:


......pressed in place in a vice with plastic protective pieces so the case will not be damaged.


In the picture below you can see the largest crown I had in my box with spare parts test fitted. I hope the next "owner" of the watch will have a gold plated, slightly larger crown.
For the time being this works fine. The old stem was protruding millimetres out of the case so a bump would potential damage the stem or more. This cannot happen anymore and I assume the stem with the rubber seal will protect the inside at least when washing your hand against water leaking in via the tube/stem opening.



Now let's fix the crown on the stem. You have to cut and file the length off the stem in such a way the slit between the case and the crown in around 0.1/0.2 mm and then secure the crown firmly, but still removable from the stem. I did this by using some Loctite
medium strength.



So when a golden crown is found the exchange should be a relative easy operation.
For final mounting the stem I use some special grease on the stem itself so it will work smoothly in te keyless mechanism.
For better water tightness I put some silicon grease on/in the tube and the rubber seal in the crown itself.



Final inspection and alignment was done on the tester before the rotor for the autowinding is returned to the movement.



Blowing away the last dustspecs:



And now the watch is ready to be closed.


I intend to take a few picture with the watch in a typical Dutch setting and also give you a list of items that still can/need to be done to the watch.


Kind regards,

Ronald