horologist

Welcome back,! The beauty of this forum goes beyond the interest of replicas, but more so to the uniqueness of the members that are part of it You have mentioned a few, but there are more that I refrain from doing in case I miss someone! Over the years (now close to decades) ihave communicated with different members here from all walks of life where they have all donated a priceless contribution to making this unique and esoteric interest what it is! You wont find anything like it! It hasn’t just been about timepieces either! I think the noun “replica” does not do true justice to the true value behind what we collect ,build or are just purely interested without even owning one! These “replicas” can range from mass produced economy pieces no different from what you find in a legit watch store, to hand made finished ( aka modded) elaborate works of art! There is an education and skill wealth here that no university nor college can teach ! I doubt whether the best watchmaking schools in the world would elaborate on encouraging to go outside the square as most of the highly skilled artisans do here! Schools in general just parrot the usual dogma and stick to the script without improvising! As for who is still with us has always pondered my mind too, especially with every internet communication , unless a family member would inform us like Nanuq’s son did! These replicas like genuine branded timepieces measure life’s most important currency: “TIME” !, You can buy more gold, more land , more palaces, more diamonds, more oil wells and perhaps even more love! BUT you cannot buy more time! No 100 year old king can buy any young pauper’s years from him to live longer! What measures this precious asset? A timepiece whether genuine or a replica, so we treasure both! Thanks for keeping in touch and updating us with the latest!

Yikes!!!!! The nature of this thread gives me nightmares!! I don't want to be discouraging but this is one of the reasons I kept away from any genuine Omega projects! As much as I love the Omega brand for some of their iconic models,I do not like their inconsistency with how different sizes and shapes of dials exist for the same caliber for slightly different models. You will find that although the 166.002 fits on the caliber 552, it is a different size and slightly different shape from the 166.010 even if they are from the same class of Seamasters!! unlike Rolex where the 1002 1003 1007 etc all have the same shape and size dial for the caliber 1560. You are in the same position as I am, I bought a case kit for the 165.010 minus the dial, I had a dial from a 165.001 thinning that it was going to be a direct fit for it. Wrong !!!! Hundreds of dollars later I noticed that it was too big and did not fit in the case even though it is the same type for the caliber 552. I have been looking for one for nearly 20 years as it is slightly smaller than those normally sold on ebay or on forums. Whenever I have found one, sellers ask for overly ridiculous prices. I should have bought one new at the time when the swatch group still sold omega parts. I recall it was /$150 new just before they pulled the plug on parts policy. It does not have the overlapped lip with the cutouts on the edges. I would not attempt it, but if you dont mind keeping it aside until the right one comes along, then I would just let it be as the prices of these parts will only go up, Sorry to be the messanger of bad news. But at least you know where you stand!!! Good liuck!!!!

This thread is gold! I haven’t posted in quite a while, but I have still been lurking as most of the questions on this forum have great answers and this one is one thread that is no exception! I also had a similar problem with a Felsa 692 automatic movement ( which is one of the first bidynator automatic mvts, -the first that winds in both directions, often also found In some of the high end brands like the vintage Breitlings , Ulysses Nardin and Angelus to mention a few). I did not post my issue here as it has nothing to do with replica watches and did not want to sway from forum rules! I now have some direction with this problem! Great movement! Unfortunately this movement has too many wheels including the barrel under the same bridge , making it a nightmare to align all wheels in their respective pivots! The mainspring is made up of 2 pieces which I have no idea o how it is installed- another story!,, One of my replica explorer has a genuine 2836 with date mechanism removed and it also kept stopping as the mainspring would not wind ! It kept slipping after a few turns! I changed the barrel with a new one with new mainspring installed and same story! Yesterday, after seeing this thread, I pulled it out after it was collecting dust since 2014 and checked to see if any of the wheels have missing teeth etc. have ruled that out! Now I am now going to go with a new barrel bridge with the click and click spring and see if this solves the problem! As Timelord has implied, you would rarely get this sort of deep rooted horological education in some of he mainstream watchmaking courses! It not only helps build unique replicas, but also helps trouble shoot problems in other non replica related timepieces! Will not start mentioning names in case I miss some, but there are a lot of unsung horological geniuses here! Kudos to you! All!!!

Wow! I learn something new everyday! I was unaware of this as I was not old enough at the time these were sold new for me to have noticed it! I was always under the impression that those older ISO certified 200M dive watches without the screw down crown must have had them replaced at some stage! This now makes sense as I had a 1970 Bulova manual wind divers with a signed crown and I often wondered whether it was originally sold that way or later replaced by a Bulova certified watch smith! I also have a 1960’s Australian Built Swiss “Felicia” brand watch (exclusive to Australian market) somewhere amongst my clutter which is ISO certified with no screw down crown! I picked it up at a pawnbroker for $20 about 10years ago! Great timekeeper housing a bidynator Felsa 4007N movement! So smooth when rotor winds!

This is the biggest flaw I hate about divers watches in general regardless of if they are some high collectible rare Milsub or a cheap pulsar at the local fuel station! I hate the fact that quality stainless steel screw down crowns are hard to get regardless of brand! I have a 1960’s Pronto divers watch with a quality eta 2472 and a stripped stainless steel screw down crown! I have searched years without success to find a quality suitable replacement! I have found chrome plated substitutes which only last a year at maximum and then you have to replace it! Removing the case tube every so often is also fatigue to the case opening as they also come with different thread pitch and both tube and crown need replacing! So there are only two options: (1)give up and store the watch away as a souvenir or (2) do away with the screw down crown and replace case tube and normal crown which is just another watch that looks like a divers watch! I find this a turnoff ! This was also the bigger turn off from my liking of the precision Rolex Oysfer which are manual winding watches! This IMHO makes the watch a inferior quality product as it is a high level maintenance item not properly justifying the price one pays for! The same analogy can be applied to the manual wind. Cosmograph that many collectors pay the same price of a house ! BTW thanks for all the info on the eta eta 2836-2GMT conversion!

This thread and your previous linked threads are GOLD!!! Unique and very helpful in addition to being very educational for those extending beyond just watchmaking!! The custom build of a GMT replica or a modified Franken is one of the toughest challenges that truly separates, both; the skills and brilliance, between mainstream watchmaking and the brave fine artisan in working outside the square of the square. I would have to be very brave and highly skilled to tackle something like this because of all the hidden unknown complexities that are involved in addition to the absurd high costs of trivial obsolete spare parts involved!! This is where you have both the odds and the Gods against you!!! I have had a lust for a BASIC quality GMT build for many years, but have not been game enough to take on the challenge !!! Even then the one I am focusing on is just a sapphire crystal 16610 style that uses a quality replica case with a base eta 2836-2 Why?? Firstly, I would prefer a genuine eta movement in my build for the purpose of parts interchangeability as I have had issues with eta clones when changing over parts. Secondly, to my knowledge Eta have never made a genuine 2836-2 which has the same modification of the GMT like the Asian copy Silver Hangzhou HZ6460 , unless the clone conversion part of it fits well on a genuine eta 2836-2 and I can be done with it!!! One may try the 2893-2 which is the factory genuine modification of the 2892-2 movement which is a lot thinner than both the 2836-2 and the 2824-2. My issue with this movement is ; (a) I don't like this movement ! PERIOD!!! as it is not as easy to service as the 2824-2/2836-2 ( well for me anyway!! especially locating parts availability) (b) it is more expensive than the other eta movements and (c) using it in an eta 2836-2 quality case would present problems (because it is a thinner movement) with stem alignment and the issue of using the right spacers would defeat the purpose of taking on the headache and it is still an eta movement. In my opinion the 2892-2 reminds me of the old Universal movement which brings back lots of bad memories from when I was working on an old watch causing me grief!!! My understanding is that the 2892-2 movement has the same dial feet positioning as the 2824-2 but dials made for the latter will fit well on the 2892-2 but not the other way as dials made for it have shorter feet. My other issue is that buying a Cartel case is not so easy to find either and even so they are getting expensive for what they are!! I was able to buy good quality economy eta cases from YUKI but his website no longer lists cases any more ( well at least when I last looked() One can say that you can get cheap SS cases on eBay for under USD50 which is fair enough but these cases have fixed case tubes that are not easily removable in the event you want to replace a replica crown with replica threaded tube. I have been caught out with this on the economy replica cases which are really disposable when the crown thread wears. They seem to wear very prematurely. Even finding a stainless steel generic screw down crown for any divers watch regardless of brand is a challenge of it's own. I have several near mint condition citizen divers cases which are now absolutely junk as replacement stainless steel screw down crowns are near impossible to find!! I applaud your project as they are a great learning course tutorial for those brave enough to take on the challenge!! Thank you for sharing this new horizon experience!!!

Sounds great! Any news so far on updates ,,,, new contacts of dealer sites, etc?

This is a copy of the citizen Miyota 8xxx automatic movement! Great timekeeper movement even better than most eta movements I have had! NHX movement is Seiko and my suspiscion is that dial feet position may be differentl! Only drawback is servicing can be a bummer as it has just about every wheel and cog including automatic wheels under the same bridge! This can cause instant insanity as you can either be lucky to get all wheels in their respective pivots before tightening down screws or you could spend all day using the one screw at a time method until all wheels have successfully dropped into their jewel holes! Most watmakers cannot afford to dog around (nor can the customer) unless he pays big £€$, where it would be better to just replace it with a new movement for a fraction of the price! I wonder how they assemble them at the factory in those sweat shops with this type of headache? An eta 2836 -2 will fit that case well if the dg2813 does! Just need to replace movement holder and adjust dial feet!

This is an interesting topic which is rarely discussed . The mechanism of how the lubrication works between the two parts of the cap jewel has never really been explained on any of the sources I know, so kudos for bringing it up! You have a brass spring on the top and another on the bottom ( either an incabloc, novodiac or any other spring used by various manufacturers) which presses down on the 2 joining jewels which are separated just by a drop of oil between them ( oil covers half the circular area of the jewel). Th e two jewels are in a metal capsule pressed by the spring which simultaneously presses onto the outside on the tip of the balance staff on both ends of the balance staff. The theory to my understanding is that upon any shock which the mechanism might endure, is offset by the spring acting like a bouncing action on both ends of the balance staff - theoretically preventing damage! The oil is between the two jewels somehow is meant to migrate below to the top of the balance staff ( and equally from the other end to the bottom) is how I always understood it. I have seen people use automatic oilers by just oiling the capstone from the bottom opening of the metal capsule. I don't see how this is superior to separating the two jewels and properly cleaning and adding the right amount of oil between them! Again, I am self taught tinkerer having learnt through the school of hard knocks and through the pocket from damage caused from not having known what I did prior to learning. what not to do!!!

Web page seems unreacheable

I Have just noticed this topic and it is something that has never crossed my mind as trivial as it may sound! I cannot believe that I also have never done this in my whole entire timeframe of watch tinkering and feel incredibly fortunate that I have never damaged anything as a result of not taking this recently learnt precaution! I will now take it in board! The last expensive movement I serviced was my Explorer caliber 3000 and recall removing balance after 25 turns of ending crown and all went smoothly which I now know could have gone incredibly wrong! Thanks for sharing!

makes perfect sense ! Simple high school physics v= r.w where v is tangential velocity and w is angular velocity with radius r! What puzzled me re: the Longines balance was that there are two nuts with a screw slot which are half cut on the ends! I was wondering if it is a sliding change or a rotational change because of the half cuts in the nuts! Maybe someone who has worked on these may sing out? If it is a sliding change you would have to be incredibly skilled to get them both at the same distance from the centre as any microscopic difference could cause a wobble in the balance wheel or never get the timing right either unless this process also uses a special too too! I totally empathise with you! You are not alone? I also gave up on them myself! It can be a very laborious task! Can you live with the results you have achieved? Wear the watch and see how it goes with your life style movements! You will change positions as you move troughout the day, so the variation will change and hopefully for a better average! If the variation is small I would stop playing around with it as you could make it worse! I would stop playing around with that stud bock rotation as they can break as they are epoxied to th hair spring if it makes you fell better - consider that if professional watchmakers refuse to work on this, then keep up the zeal! If you can get a generic complete bridge and balance replacement, buy a couple of them as they would have been already factory timed and surely you increase the odds by 50% in getting one that will not fall apart! Sorry if this may sound cold comfort! As Freddy has said, getting them properly centred is the aim of proper regulation! In some cases it is also luck like getting beat error to be exactly zero!! Better still - Getting that winning number in your lottery changes your life forever! I would attempt the latter!

Longines uses a similar setup with a modified eta balance where the two screws on the balance spokes are adjusted with some fine screw driver! I am not sure which direction is for speeding up or slowing down but I believe it works on centripetal forces on the weight of the balance wheel when adjusted!

Ditto ditto ditto! you can definitely say that again!! For the life of me, I do not know why these are not sold as a complete (genuine ) bridge with balance already assembled as they do with the generic ones! Even on the second hand market on eBay, I see that they disassemble them and sell them separately as a separate bridge and a separate balance! Yes they are definitely tricky to time! Even more reason to avoid them as separate components because any watchmaker that would spend an hour to regulate them would have to charge big$$$$ otherwise he would starve! As it has been said in the past, neither the watchmaker nor the customer ca afford it! I have also noticed that professional watchmakers try to avoid this either because of what is involved or that very few actually know how to time them! I love the etachron and yes I agree that if timed correctly, their accuracy is almost flawless! I like it even better than the goofy setup by Rolex that uses the micro stellar complication , where again you would need a special tool to time them and I do not see any special benefit! I have a genuine 16610 that was serviced by Rolex in the past and timing was nothing special! In fact my eta noobmarier runs circles over it in accuracy! Therefore, I have come to my conclusion that if I screwed up a hairspring on any eta movement, I would just replace the movement and keep the other one as a spare! Saves money and sanity! Unless you are bored in a nursing home or in jail, by all means spend the whole day trying to time them! I would rather work an extra day of overtime and end up buying 2 new movements for that effort! yeah, a good learning experience but also a very impractical one too, especially for non professionals such as myself! You might be able to make your own tool to time them but again if you have nothing better to do! if it helps, the following link is the only video link I know that eloquently shows how to remove a balance from a bridge, replace it and time it! This guy is magic and amongst my favourite on YouTube ! He tells you what others don’t tell you! Yet it looks like a hit or a miss to me! Worth watching if this etachron is haunting you!

Great tutorial to say the least! A good step by step exercise for the eager student! Will come handy in future to those wanting to repair a sentimental citizen left to them in a will, or when Miyota ceases production of these movements and parts! As Auto and Freddy have already mentioned, I would just replace the movement! They are so cheap, abundant and reliable! I would avoid the big bridge cramming every pivot and risk damaging a pivot unless it was the last resort! Reason why the old seikos were so cheap and great! Diafix, horrible shock springs, made them more pragmatic to just be replaced! Neither the customer nor the watchmaker can afford it! After this post I might take a double scotch even though I don’t drink!

Accidentally tripped over this interesting site https://www.htsinprecision.com/capability/custom-watch-parts/ might be of some interest or perhaps just good to read?

I could not have put it better myself! Makes perfect sense! If Benetton can have some of their products made in Bangladesh, then why is there such a taboo with other luxury exclusive products? Big brands prey on small minds! -analogous to what has happened in the world in the last 3 Years where the cat has slowly crawled out of the sack !

First it was Rolex that stopped supply of parts some 25 years ago! Then omega followed the same trend about 5 years ago! Yet you could still get parts for Longines when this happened,even though they were still also part of the SMH group, but then most eta parts were also unavailable! One company that still offered parts until recently was Zenith until I enquired with them to nay a dial and they said “No”. This was devastating for me as they had vintage dials in stock going back to the late 1950’s! This is almost game over for me!

You would never guess this has 3 seals in case back

Thanks for sharing your story and for keeping in touch! I could relate to your experience about the watch and of your late dad! Enjoy and wear that watch with pride! I am sure it will also keep your fathers memory alive as it was special to him and now to you! These are not just material items but relics that tell history as well as time! keep us posted from time to time when you have a spare moment!

Thanks! can also happily say that I got to fine tune it and is running well with a good power reserve of more than 30 hours! Mainspring had stood stationary since James Dean still alive! It definitely exceeded my expectation for something I wore while playing in the sand and the mud as 4 year old!

The forum management may ask what has this to do with replicas and in all fairness i would not contest their decision if they were to remove this post. Yet, I feel the need to declare that this post has an indirect relevance to why this forum has had a significant impact on my achievements to fulfill a long life dream of a horology hobby which no doubt would not have been achieved without being a member here. Before I joined this forum many years ago, all I could do was just change a battery on a quartz watch and remove a stem in some movements. I am now able to service my own movements (apart from chronographs and complicated ones) and even do minor modifications to some timepieces which I could not buy nor employ others in the mainstream profession to do for me apart from some of the highly skilled members here! This has been mostly thanks to this forum and the countless help I have received from the altruism of the artisan genius hobbyists/professionals here!!. I always refer to them as my masters!!! I will not start mentioning names to avoid overlooking anyone deserving equal credit. Now to my story!!! This may have been the seed of my first love for watches which dates back to 1969 when I was just over 4 years old. I recall at the time my late father removing the leather band on his watch to replace it with a fixoflex steel band. I cried my eyes out as I also wanted something around my arm like dad had.. My late mother asked dad if he had any broken watch which he could give me to console my cry. My father was annoyed as he was unable to help me that evening. The next day he returned from work with another fixo flex band and put it on a broken watch which he pulled out of the back shed in a junk box. He then put it on my wrist with a smile. That was the very first watch I ever touched! I played while wearing it until I moved onto something else. Back then I vaguely remember seeing a character in Hogans Heros wearing a monocole and dad took the bezel off It with the surrounding crystal still n place for me to pretend it was a monocole, Many years later, as a mid teenager, I later found the watch again in an old tool box without a band and with a missing lug that had broken off, as it is a very thin brass case covered in chrome! Out of curiosity I opened the back to see inside I was surprised that it still had a shiny unmolested movement. I kept it as a memento of having had it for all those years before and also my love for timepieces helped my decision to keep it. I had asked my late father about its origin and said it was given to him as a gift from his brother when leaving for Australia in early 1950 which stopped working in September 1955 when the winding stem got stripped from rust and no longer wound! In the last 3 years during the Covid break I decided to pull it apart and had the dial restored with the family name and the initials of both my sons on it. I don’t remember what brand it was but it is powered by a 15 jewel FHF 26! I was able to locate on ebay an identical donor mid case with a complete lug, bezel hands, winding stem and a crystal. I tried to keep as many of the original parts of it as possible! I managed to pull the movement apart and gave it a home amateur service. I was disappointed that the balance staff was broken so I managed to find a new complete balance from a donor movement which is the only part of the movement that is not original in the movement, Sadly I was unable to change the balance staff due to lack of tools and also no watchmaker was interested in replacing the balance staff due to the economics of finding a complete balance already working. I wanted to keep it as close as to the originality of the movement. It is running but not accurately and sometimes stops after a few hours which is good enough for me as it was just a piece of junk in a tool box once used as a toy by a 4 year old and now a working watch again!!!!. It may need a new mainspring as it had been stagnant and half wound in 68 years possibly taking shape to remain this way What is it worth? Most likely nothing as a similar one sells on ebay between $60 to $150. For me it's a piece of history which goes back to my earliest recollection of my love for wristwatches! Thanks to skills acquired here, I was able to resurrect it. Maybe I should have also had Lazzarus printed on the dial!! LOL!!. Thanks for lending me an ear to this long read! photo of original and final amateur restoration

I am not fussy as I wouldn’t say no to a Rolex as a gift - even a non working one! But anyone who would insist on offering, then I would not let them down and immediately these are my three on my list, submariner nipple dial in gold, my blue dial railway track and Presidential,and the pre explorer 6098

I believe this is from eta as they are the only company apart from the cloning mob that use this sort of stud on the bridge and the goofy flower shock novodiac spring! However I find the balance wheel to be different from most I have seen! Anyone know or have seen this type before and how to regulate? Rolex uses micro stellar screw adjustments with a special tool! Is this similar? Thanks!

That rules out a broken mainspring. As Freddy333 has suggested to check the teeth on wheels of your gears of the trainwheels, which I believe you must have done from your comment All seemed to be ok upon assembly ( all wheels spinning freely.,etc.etc). but just make sure that all the teeth are fine in case you may have just overlooked one of the wheels.. My only other gut feeling from all this is possibly a worn jewel where the mainspring sits or where the great wheel sits ( or even both). There is nothing worse than not having an answer so it is not about the movement, but the satisfaction of getting a result. Therefore, if you are disassembling another similar movement that does not have these problems it would be an nice learning experiment to interchange the bridges on both and try each wheel one at the time until you get the same result and this will certainly pin point the issue and give you a bullet proof answer. For me this forum has been better than any technical school I have been to. See how you go!!! Good luck!!!