RWG Technical

I would say the safest way would be to install it in a collet on the lathe, then with a drill in the tailstock you can drill it and control the feed rate. High speed and cutting fluid should prevent any damage from the drill catching. I fabricated a new casetube for a genuine PAM crown, and drilled a solid piece of steel this way without any problems or grabbing. RG

Not really...from the stopped position, the hammer is holding the seconds gear fixed in place, when you press the button to start the chrono, the hammer releases, and at the same time the tilting pinion engages into the center seconds gear. If your tilting pinion isn't adjusted correctly, there could be a slight movement of the seconds gear before the tilting pinion engages. Remember that the seconds gear is free to spin around, it is only stopped by a brake lever, the reset hammer, or the tilting pinion, anytime you switch modes, one of these has to disengage and the other engage to prevent the hand from moving, any slight misadjustment between any of these 3 items and the hand can swing freely. RG

Not a problem...you know her name and email address... RG

The small tab spring that is attached to the seconds gear is bent and not engaging into the minute counter gear as it rotates around the dial. With the tab not engaging into the minute gear, there is nothing to advance the minute gear each minute...has to be opened up and repaired, not a DIY project. RG

Yes, the ETA7750 starts to tick over at 12, not before. If it was adjustable on the Asian 7750 I would modify it, but for some reason they got the alignments of the gears slightly wrong, and because of this and the precise alignment required to get the seconds gear to switch over the minute gear, there is no way to fix it...it's just one of those things we have to live with. RG

It can't be fixed, it's a design issue. The tolerances are in the fractions of a mm for the tab and gears that make up the minute counter, and there is a precise alignment of all the part if you want it to work. Even with all the parts lined up and adjusted perfectly, the minute counter starts to flip over before 12, nothing can be done to change it... RG

Your best value is to buy a complete watch with the movement inside, or to buy a 7753 from a watch supply house. Anything else and the risk outweighs the cost savings. Are you certain that the 7753 will fit your case? Keep in mind all 7750 series are the same thickness but the Asian 7753 is thicker than the ETA 7753 (think sunken datewheel...)... RG

With 6 months of darkness...it's probably true RG

Vaccum is a good fellow, he's not active on this site, but you can find him on the Geek site. RG

It's unfortunate that we don't have anyone here on RWG who does lume work... RG

It looks amazing, what a great way to finish off this project. Well done. RG

It's all an illusion, that's all...I just tend to post everything at once when I have spare time, reality is very different and much much less work is actually going on that it appears to be... Thanks for the feedback. That is the one advantage of reps, you can do most anything and have fun, whereas buying a gen...well it's a done deal as soon as you open the package... I struggled for a long time on buying a lathe or not, at close to $1K for the lathe alone, then add Levin collets ($100 each) and gravers and diamond sharpening stones and teaching yourself to use it, well it wasn't an easy decision. But now that I have had the lathe for close to a year, I use it almost daily, and find new uses for it all the time. RG

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Ok, I am getting educated on these so called GMT movements... All I had for reference is the rolex movement technical data sheets, so I figured a 1575 should...well be stamped with "1575"...duh... As for the serial number, it's 56 Million, so that should clear up some things. I'll post more pics tomorrow when I have time, the coronet is nothing like those shown here, it's really quite strange looking. More to come when I have time. Thanks again for the feedback, very much appreciated. RG

I have also done some reading and it appears that the older models DIDN'T have adjustable hands...which is really weird since it seems to defeat the purpose of a fixed 24-hour bezel. So the movement may be correct, but I think it should be stamped "1575" instead of "1570". Don't know a lot of the history, I believe that this is a heirloom or piece that the owner has had for many years... EDIT, not a member of this board... RG

In the shop for full restoration, this is the first part of the work I carried out. First impression is fine, looks simply in need of some TLC... Engraving looks good to my eyes... So far so good, nothing unusual, lets take her down and see what's inside... OH-OH, something doesn't look right...do you see the problem?? Dial is quite damaged and stained...maybe from water? Looks genuine though... Seems as if someone simply added a GMT gear to the non-GMT 1570 to turn this into a sort-of GMT. Obviously the GMT hand is not adjustable, it just stays fixed and moves around the dial with the time. The other "weird" thing I found that I have never seen before, if you look at the picture below, note the numbers "237" on the movement, strangly enough the case is also marked with hand etched "237", as if there was a need to number these parts so they wouldn't get mixed up?? Why would anyone number these parts...especially when this isn't even the correct movement for this model... I think I know what happened to the original movement, this may be a clue...needs a new stem and crown, this one doesn't have much life left in it... Even more odd was the rust I found on the great wheel pinion of the 1570, it's sort of hard to see, here are a couple of shots...how come this pinion is rusted and nothing else is? Movement was completely dry and in dire need of servicing,and other than the rust on the great wheel, the rest of the movement was fine. The other weird thing I noted was that after I finished the servicing and installed the hands, as I removed the watch from under my desk lamp, the GMT hand stood out like a sore thumb...it's Super Lumed, where as the rest of the hands are Tritium... So we have a dial, movement, case, caseback, bracelet and hands, some of which are genuine, some aren't, some are old, some are new, overall it's very odd to say the least... Wonder what the story is on this one...your thoughts? More to come as I finish the restoration. Thanks for looking, RG

Nice box and collection. RG

My pleasure, wear it in good health. RG

Normal, due to all the gears and the play between the teeth, worse on some models than others, ETA 7750 is much less play but it's still there. RG

Great story, it just proves once again what makes our hobby so fun and interesting, and how the community comes together. RG

Great story and wonderful watch, enjoy. RG

Some fine sandpaper and a blow torch will get it taken care of...just remember to remove the gears first. RG

There was nothing wrong with your seconds hand to start with, it was already the correct colour. The genuine watch doesnt' have a hand painted in the colour you used, it has a normal blued hand, just like your hand was originally. The lighting in the genuine picture is causing an illusion and making the hand look a different colour of blue. If you moved the genuine watch so that the light was not reflecting off the seconds hand, you would clearly see that it is a dark blue, not a robin egg blue. Not to mention that the lume has been painted over and the hand is all lumpy and uneven. All blued hands exibit this feature, if you look at them flat on, they tend to look almost black, if you tilt them the correct way, and the light catches the hand just right, it looks like a bright blue, it's an illusion that's all. RG

Looks great. I would polish the winding wheels and blue them, that would look much better. RG

The question could apply to any movement caliber, the principles are the same. If you never run the watch, it will never wear out. If you have a watch in need of servicing (either not done initially, or overdue for service), as long as it's running, it will wear out. If you have a clean, correctly serviced watch, and you get it serviced every 5 or so years, it shouldn't make any difference if the watch is running contantly or once in a while when it comes to wear inside the movement. Wear comes from friction, a clean and oiled watch has no friction, once the oil dries up, wear starts. As for the risk of damage while setting the watch, change the date/day at 6 o'clock and you will never risk damage, and remember the golden rule "never force anything", if it's not doing what it normally does, twisting the crown harder isn't going to make it fix itself... RG