Fred's watch

[h4nd]

I have a Tissot dress watch which does. I can look up centre spacing and model number if you need.

[RUNAMUCK]

I've got an antique Ansonia chiming clock. It runs for a bit then stops. Always said I'd get it looked at one day. It was a wedding present to my great grand parents from my great grandmothers brother. He bought the farm at passchendaele. (Suffered a direct hit from artillery, so not even his boots survived)  that looks very basic inside, and is significantly larger than what you're playing with there.

[yoeddynz]

Oooohhhh i like this thread. Cheers for sharing. You might well find this thread here from my friends seth a good interesting read. I love the tiny tools etc. Fucked if I could do any of this work with my shitty eyesight but I love reading about other people doing this work.. 

https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/66976/assorted-diddy-engineering

[SOHC]

My grandmother was showing me a silver fob watch that belonged to her dad, the glass was missing and the minute hand stabbed very deep into my finger, it was like a razor,  

[tortron]

.

[tortron]

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[Yowzer]

I go by many names

[RUNAMUCK]

8 hours ago, tortron said:

Can get new glass/crystals very cheap on eBay

Probably just wants a clean bort. Is it one of those flat based wooden mantle clocks?

Yes.

You can wind the spring for the chiming part separately. It does have a lovely note, but fuck hearing that eight times between bedtime and wake up time.

[tortron]

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[tortron]

I'm driving fancy 90s nissans, drinking henny and got a rolex on my wrist 

 

This is a very early rolex, 1920s or so, just after they changed the name to rolex and moved to Switzerland I'm guessing.  Its actually a ladies watch, has a gold plated dial. It's only slightly smaller than a trench watch, so I might make an adaptor ring to fit it in a silver case. 

Tho I do have a cushion style rolled gold case that would match the date and style as well

 

Currently not quite running, pallet fork isn't releasing the escape wheel. Probably just needs to be cleaned, but might be slightly out of alignment or have a damaged jewel

 

 

Always wanted a rolex

[tortron]

I found a slightly smaller silver case, that "should" fit this movement, about the same age. No one gives the correct measurements when measuring movements or cases, theres a whole french thing and 1/30'th of an inch (size of an english barley corn or some such worse than whitworth measurement system) to get your head around. Mainly the give the outer diameter of the case which is almost of no use, but i digress, its a couple mm smaller than a standard trench watch case, and the rolex is a couple mm smaller than a standard trench watch movement, so i think it will pass. There is a little meat that could be taken out of a case to really anger the watch purists by my vintage watch butchery

 

I might hunt out a trench watch style dial as i prefer the look over the gold one, the offset of the seconds hand is slightly out so cant use one of my existing ones, tho i do have a bag of dials and i think theres a couple of the correct diameter with no seconds dial, that could be modified to have one. They are porcelain coated metal though and il have to think hard about how to drill a hole in that without ruining it, might troll ebay and see what comes up, theres hundreds of thousands of old watches on there.

 

Hasnt arrived yet, coming from the Ukraine, where a lot of old watches and pocket watches ended up for some reason, i tried to get a vintage military leather strap from there twice and they never arrived, so im hoping this one does.

 

so heres a circa 1920, french watch case. Very lovely decorations, and inscribed Marie, So i feel it was a gift from Marie to her husband, rather than a ladies watch case, but who knows with the french

 

 

 

 

Im not in love with the detail on the crystal surround, id prefer it plain, so might polish it out, theres also a second hole below where the crown would go. This is interesting because it was a feature of pilots watches starting from 1917, you have to hold the button down before you can adjust the time (rather than just pull the crown out and twist).  Kind of small for a pilots watch tho

 

on that note, i have a period correct, hand made strap on its way 

 

Bund style so when your plane is on fire the heat doesnt burn the back of your watch into your arm.

This one will go on Freds watch, i will see how it fits this new case when they arrive, but it may be a bit large for the smaller case. Theres several different "correct" styles, but i prefer something a bit fuller looking than a 12mm plain strap

 

[BlownCorona]

I'm just getting into watchmaking now too.

Got myself a Breitling (windrider reserve de marche). have wanted one since forever and always figured if i managed to get one then i must be successful in my endeavors and for that reason it feels so good to wear.  
i plan on being the one to service it for the rest of my life, but am certainly not going to start out working on it so now on the hunt for a cheap non runner of something nice to start out my education. 

watch resto videos on youtube with good narration are so cathartic and relaxing to watch and have always enjoyed this thread. 

[tortron]

I have some 1930s ish ladies watch movements if you want a couple of them to play with. Had a quick look at them and balances look fine, so they should fire up with a deep clean

None of them have winders.

But can get a bag of those off ebay for cheap, or a bag of Russian watches, they sell them by the pound 

 

Very basic, no self winder or subdials. But if you haven't stripped a tiny watch before it's a good confidence builder

 

You will just need a set of screwdrivers and some tweezers to start

[BlownCorona]

ive seen the russian stuff, pretty tempted to be honest! wonder how much radium they soaked into them. some have some pretty cool dials, i saw one with a huge radioactive symbol and the cccp emblem. 

could be tempted on some movements for sure! 

[tortron]

Pm me your address, il dig out some likely ones and might have some suitable cases there

 

[cubastreet]

Cool I love old watches. I was given Major Jennings' WWI pocket watch for my 21st. Not sure where it is right now most my junk is in storage.

 

[h4nd]

I have a couple of watch timing (mic) apps on the phone, haven't got them working yet, but perhaps worth a try for adjusting.

[BlownCorona]

14 hours ago, h4nd said:

I have a couple of watch timing (mic) apps on the phone, haven't got them working yet, but perhaps worth a try for adjusting.

i used one of those to check my breitling and it suggested my watch was slightly slow (id be surprised if it was dead on) but i need to fix a few little things before i wear it and check that over a month or so.

it seemed to work well though, but on a watch with low amplitude it may not hear it too well. 

[tortron]

Here's the strap and a late 1920s watch with no subdial

I'd consider it a shit kicker, nickel is all worn off, I dug out a close enough minute hand, I might blue it and refill the skeleton part to get it matching a bit better. Otherwise I quite like the patina. 

It's quite large as far as the trench watches I have go, likely because Post war and they started making them for style rather than emergency get every one a watch even if its a modified pocket or ladies fob. Americans tended to have the larger watches as well from what I can tell. 

 

Needs a crystal, il order a bunch in. 

Not my preferred style, but looks cool over my brown motorcycle jacket

 

 

 

Really dig the strap backing, they look silly with just a 12mm strap imo, might make/get made a slightly scaled down one for the other ones

[tortron]

On 12/02/2022 at 20:04, h4nd said:

I have a couple of watch timing (mic) apps on the phone, haven't got them working yet, but perhaps worth a try for adjusting.

Doesnt work for Fred's watch due to barely having 180deg amplitude due to the escape design. 

Can get away with just timing it over a couple hours and check the gain/loss, and adjust it near enough for an old watch. More useful if you disassemble the ballance and need to get that part back in time/beat. 

 

 

 

Tho some of the stuff I do would cause someone who knows what they are doing to wince pretty bad