vlaletom

Not to bee rude ore anything but this topic has been covered a zillion time. basically there is 3 way: 1) Just by hands with platic glove, if it resist solution 2 2) making a ball of Duck tape, the apllying firemly the ball to the casqe back then turning, if it resist solution 3 3) with the apropriate case opener, universal opener with 3 adjustable branch and various heads is quite versatile but for rolies i recommand the real tool (anything like a bergeon 5537) or you will easily scrach the case.

Honestly when i first read the topic title it thought "ho [censored]!" You might not allways realize it but your contribution to this forum is truly apreciated, even by people you never had direct contact with. After reading your post and realising you were not living, but just taking back time for other things in your life, i can only tell yo that you are soooo right. Especially if it was reaching the point it was not fun anymore. Good to hear you will still be around, but without too much preshure ...

yes works fine now I'm in !

i just registred but can't log in with the newly registred info

Yes there is sense in in that .. I don' think what i did is specially an us way. The TZ course part 1 starts with the balance then the palet continuing with wheel train then barrel while lesson 2 is other way : auto winding mechanisme,calendar, keyless work, wheel train, balance, escapement ... But int the course it is allaways reassembled more or less in the reverse order i used to desassemble So i tend to disassemble reversing the reassembly order. But i think you are right with that order as it allow more testing of the movement action. I'll try it on my next work

Thanks guys i can only encourage people to do the TZ course. It's great imho. To clarify, as it as been said u do not need to buy stuff from them. Just make shure you have the studied movement and all the tools listed in the kit. you can just buy the one you don't have from anywere. Then a few extra tools are needed to go further, the most costly bieng the watch cleaner and of course the timer (though there are now cheaper solution then vibrograph or witchi) Actualy it's thank to RWG(1) that i started it, the first few month i found this place i readed all the post i could, and spend my $ in toolz rather then reps. Curiously it's olmost like if there was more true interest in watch in the avreage regular menber in this forum then in classical gen forum. Probably because the quest to the perfect reps push people to learn more then just to have the cash to go to the AD ...

PART 4 reassembling and Oling : Oiling is really the most dificult part of the job And that where true watchmakers really makes the differance It involve lot of patience and dexterity, also good knowledge of the various constraint that each parts recive to choose the acoring oil and amout of oiling. So i just did the best i could :/ But i am so slow! ... it takes me hours and hours with many try (try/fail/clean/oil again)! here is the Oiling set i use from left to right u can see Moebius 9010/8141/D-5/8217 the 9010 being the lighter viscosity one (for hig spped low constraint part) while the 8217 has the higher viscosity (low speed high constraint) Some special PML stem grease is olos used for some part Some more experinced watcmaker olos use 9020 between 9010 and 8141 Olso those oil must be remplaced by other in the moebious line if watch is to be used in extrem weather condition (very low or high) I just did with what i had with my TZ kit .... Now back to assembling First the cleaned plate It really looks good compare to what it was The palet and palet bridge back Corectly oling the palt impulse surface with 9010 is chalinging the lever is NOT oiled, even if it's the most moving part of the movement, it recive very low force and lubrification introduce too much drag The balance [censored] is then puted back The balance jewels are oiled The cap jewel must recive a very precise drop of oil befor being inserted back into the housing jewel Let me tell you tat this is a very small part, and aplying a corect centered drop with the black oiler by hand is a NIGHTMARE for me I always have to try more then 10 time befor acheving a so/so result I am seriously considering buying an bergeon automatic oiler for that task The balance top jewels back in place And the bottom jewels. The mainspring ready to goin a pre-oiled barrel. close up of the mainspring in it's older The mainspring ready in place. The arbor inserted in the center of the spring and oil. The barel is now caped. The new escape wel as recived. Installing the wheel train. The wheel train bridge carfully screwed back on. Puting back the barrel, and remplacing the bridge The bride back on Oiling the reassembled winding bridge Testing the rotor action The new click spring Winding bridge reassembled The plate is flipped to the bottom side to assemble the keyless work Continuing the keyless work Remplacing the crown : old & new Screwing the new crown with a pin vise. Time to sharpen the 120 screwdriver Assembling the canion pinion minuts and hour wheels Assembling the calendar mechanisme the little blue platic part is the new day star driver The date disk back in place Now the day disk And finnaly the rotor is placed back PART 5 recasing : The movement finished i discovered i wasn't done with problems Recasing was more chalenging then expected as part were old/missing and domaged. First i re-lumed the dial and hands with RC tritec C1 the lume dot are not that good, as it was one of my first attempt. Hopfully the dot on those aged watch weren't perfect neither, i can live with it ... Glow in the lite: And in the dark: To put the dial back i had to glue the spacer ring back again I probably should have find a cleaner ring but couldn't wait ... Finnaly the movement back in the case PART 6 The result : It's finally done !!!!!!!! It took me so much time .... Result aren't perfect, but i am still happy The watch is keeping perfect time, about 1 minuts a week That was the very good surprise as i am not familiar with all the adjustig subtility, and don't have a timer machine. Hoever the auto winding is not working perfectly, probably due to the crappy rotor Watch stop ticking when let on my watch winder, but not when on my wrist I just handwind it befor i wear it, i can live with that Now the final pics !!

PART 2 Disassembling the movement: Dial removed, the calendar disks: Day disk removed, the calendar movement is visible: Note that the day star driver is made of plastic (and happened to be broken) Date disk and calendar plate removed: The keyless work is clearly visible Now the botom wheel train is removed: Startig to remove the keyless work The keyless work is fully removed The bottom plate is naked but very dirty with glue marks Flipping over : Now we see the top face with the rotor in place (puted back for the pics). Because of the movement badly hold in the case, the rotor has obiously started to grind the wheel train bridge. The rotor bloc is now removed The Botom view of the rotor. Opening the rotor block Wheel detail The top plate without rotor Note the missing wheel on the winding bridge. On this shot we see that the screw is broken into the bridge Now the wheel train bridge as been disasenbled And now all the wheel Continuing, with the barrel bridge removal And the bridge The plate with just the balance left .. Now removing the upper balance jewels Hopfully it's a classical incablock shock unit, and not one of those very fragile trischock units The balance removed and stored upside down .. The spring don't look that bad, coils concentricity and evenly space placement semas acceptable ... the palet bridge left on the plate, ready to be removed The plate fliped, botom balance jewel removed Opening the barrel Mainspring removal Spring removed And finnaly All the parts in the baskets PART 3 Evaluating and cleaning: After having disasembled everything i had to build my spare part order at ofrei. Here are what had to be remplaced. barrel bridge 1010.1001 mainspring for barrel 1010.1200 crow whell 1010.1101 crow wheel core 1010.1102 screw for crow wheel core 1010.2485 1010.1305 Escape wheel 1010.1105 Click spring X 2 1020.1571 Day star driver barrel bridge 1010.1001 Genuine Omega Buckle, 16 mm Yellow Gold Plated OME-9451-1601 Genuine Omega gold plated crown. I chose to remplace the Mainspring as it is recomanded while doing a full service for a 30 year old watch. du to the broken screw in the barrel bridge the whole bridge had to be changed. Of course the missing crown wheel and broken screw Unforuntly the escape wheel was domaged probably du to a poor atempt to fix somthing, and screwing back the well train bridge while the escape well was not properly positioned, the pinion was broken. I changed the click spring that was deformed. Olso i had to order a new Day star driver because i discovered later in reassembling that it was domaged. For cosmetic reason i replaced the buckle and the crown. So 2 weeks later i recived my little package. and started back First step was the cleaning Here is what i use, an elmasonic ultraonic cleaner. here in euro elma is the brand for professional watch cleaning, (while L&R is mainly used in the US) Here you can see the 2 solution i use Rubisol is for cleaning while F45 is used for the 2 rinsing bath. Now every parts are put into bergeon cleaning baskets. And the imerged into the solution for 10 minuts. After the ultrasonic cleaning somme parts like the jeweel have to be pegwooded (that is cleaned with a little pegwood stick). And parts manipulated are cleaned with bergeon "rodico" so there is not too much finger prints/grease.

PART 1 The early steps: The watch as i recived it. The watch is not ticking. The crown has no action in wahtever position. First the demagnetization: As you can see, the dial is not touching corectly the inner border of the case. The hands painting is falling The lume is dead Opening the case: First thing that can be noticed is that the first wheel of the winding train is missing. While the screw that was holding it is broken into the bridge. Also the rotor is in very bad condition, as it was probably grinding against the case back,because of the movement not roperly holded in place. The movement taken out: The dial and hand are really aged .. Let's take those hands out: Now this was my bigest surprise the dial is not hold by pin inserted in the plate but just glued. Burk ! Okey things werent going that well for the watch industry in the 70's, but i wouldn't have tought omega would produce it's 18k plated day-date with a glued dial ! Dial removed, horrible glue all over, this don't age well at all.

How it started: About a year ago i enroled myself in the Timezone Watch-school. Took the 2 levels and bought myself somme extra tools (like a nice Elmasonic Cleaner). I am still in the learning process, and zillion year away from true watchmaster like The Zigmeister-Master ... I started fooling around with various watch all equiped with ETA2836 like movement... Because it is the kind of movement i had been studying and was familiar with. I also played with some easy manual winding ones (like fontamelon or russian movement). All those movement where fairly new or at least in very good condition and very close to the one i had assembling plan and oiling charts. That was until a friend got me into a more chalanging project. Restoring and old Omega 166.0169 from the early 70's equiped with a 1022 caliber. The watch was non working and in very bad condition. To add to the chalange the 1022 (witch is the day/date version of the base 1010 caliber) was rather different to any movement i had previously worked, And i did not find any assembling schema nor oiling chart. Hopfully i could find a picture on the net of the part list catalogue of the 1022, with a little drawing of each piece and the omega part number, wich made it possible to order replacement ones. So basically i had to work on deduction from what i had learned on ETA. And oil acordingly to this base principe : Low speed high load -> high viscosity. high speed, low load -> lower viscosity. I olso took high res picture picture off every step of the disasembly to help me put everyting back correctly Restoring this watch was a crazy project has the overall cost of replacemen part where around 80$ and the overall condition of the case and dial would still be very damaged. But while frustrating somtime, it was fun and very satisfying to bring a dead object back to life. But enough Talking let's get to the work:

I don't mind spending 150$ 200$ for a great straps on a reps i wear a lot. The combo just add so much credibility to the reps. Here in paris we have a shop called "atelier du bracelet parisien". when you go to the shop you can choose your lather or reptile, ask for coloration shape etc .. and the make it for you. An aligator strap for a PAM is around 200$, which i find okey for a custom order... But dont go there with a pam rep as the owner is a paneresti

Well rolexes are baught "because" they are expensive watch by the average client. they just have to keep making people dreams and be reconised as a "sucess" watch .. and you just can't really compare the values of a gen to a rep, since gens do have a reselling value, that like saying a $100 dollard bill worth 0.1c of paper ... that said it's much cleaver to buy a second hand watch so you don't lose 30% of your investement. And yes our reps regarding to the quality are handsome .. just my 0.2c

RWG1 littlr more then 1 year ago. PAM 196 Josh Several time a week has a new relumed dial by The Zigmeister ...

My new JLC RDM that i just upgraded !!

Nice work ubi ! For the new "El primero" are you starting from a gen case as from the other one ? Finding a movement under the 1000€ mark seams possible, but the case !!!!

hi folks. I am wondering if anybody can explian me what is sepecific to the Vjl 72R ? how does it deffer from the 72/726 so far here is the info i got : 71 Large 15 Ligne version of Valjoux 72 (13 Ligne or just under) 72 Basic ‘Plain Jane’ Valjoux 72. 721 "Seafarer" Tides complication in 9 o'clock sub-dial... 722 Rolex variant with Breguet Overcoil & MicroStella Balance 72c/723 Tri-Date non-moonphase v.72 724 GMT complication 725 I've never seen a movement marked 725, probably skipped. 726 Improved v.72 movement. 727 Rolex version of 726 with Bruget Overcoil & MicroStella* 728 1 Register/Center Pinion Chrono Minute hand varitant. 729 GMT, probably v.726 with GMT complicaton added. 730 Another Triple-Date model, perhaps DDM v.726? 88 Triple-Date Moonphase model (v.723/72c with Moonphase) But i couldn't find info on the 72R. I have seen this movement a few time on the bay, and there is one actually. Would it be correct for a DW case kit (no extra fonction added) ? Thanks

I am a big fan of JLC. Unfortunatly this brand is underestimated by reps factory. Maybe they dont see a strong selling power unlike pam or rolies. But i am shure the first one than can produce a decent case for the compressor series (with screwed crown guard) would sells very very well around here. Anyway i picked up the Master reserve de marche as it is one of the best reps around (simple case). Got it from trusty and it quicly arrived home in a nice children toy package The one i got is the older rep version with the see-thrue back (flow) and and only the 9 and 12 marker writen, as opsed to the 2006 series with 3-6-9-12. The rep of the new series doesn't have a see thrue case, but the bottom is still wrong anyway (should be gold color not steel). The RDM reps is really good looking, the case looks credible (heavy strong steel) contrast between polished bezel,crown and brushed case i very good. The dial is just gorgeous. The date hands move with a pushed like the gen. Exept the see thrue back that nobody can see when you wear it, the only flow was that the second hands tip is painted in red (as some other watch in the compressor series), but the RDM should be plain black. So i painted it black. Next step was to had a nice aligator strap and voila!

It would help if you told what mod you need. If it's movement work you should definitively take a slot in The Zigmeister waiting list. for luming finepics, palpatine and of course The Zigmeister again (just recived a superb 196 dial from him) he is in canada so that should be without any probs from u.s. For case work palpatine or finepics depending on what you whant, but are in e.u. RBJ may not be the best choice at the moment from what it seems from various post ...

I say wow. the case gold bezel go perfectly with the skeleton color, dunno if it's lightning but it seams the movement is gold too. Not always a big fan of skeletonize watch, but this one is quite nice, and very original based on a more sportive design, than the usual dressy watch on aligator straps ... nice work

To stick to the subject i would like my reps to look like aged ones, after all we try very much to be as clause as possibl with every other little detail. For my old Oysterdate that i will have to get serviced one day, i dunno what i will do, it's not like if it was a rolex that can take values among colector in aging. I Have a friends who have an early GMT 1 the lume on the hands are really aged, like almost cracking, he had to get the watch serviced once 3 years ago. Rolex whanted to change the hands an corect the dial, but he was able to say no, and they ony did the movement, he was still pisseded because they changed the clasp on the riveted bracelet though, and it wasn't the same model than the old one.

Does rolex even use superluminova ? i was on the impression gen weren't glowing "that" much. I olny have a vintage T swiss T oysterdate, that of course only has a very little glow (eyes gotta be used to the dark to see it) But looking at somes of my friends newer model (mid 90's) it don't glow like a torch.

As it is said an image worth 1000 words ...

Well it's very simple i never deleted the PM from Hewois. any admin can select the DB to read it. (plus various email exchange with him) Olso i am wiling to forward all my email exchange with the fake "DW". For my it's very simple: I got a bogus email from hewhois an that can be proved 100%. that email lead me to somone playing "DW" making me send money to rosevil CA. I can only make one logical conclusion.

@Nanuq Thks again for your support, you allready have been very helpful. Thanks to you the real DW contacted me and i could sort it all out. Well i wouldn't acept anything. As i have said i think it is realy my mistake, i am very happy with the support i feel here from various menber, but if i had used more cleaverly the info that this forum allready provide i wouldn't be where i am. But many thks for the proposal. @chieftang the ip that loged in hotmail was: 66.60.175.6 wich resolve to: 006.175-60-66-fuji-dsl.static.surewest.net netflow:~ # whois 66.60.175.6 OrgName: Surewest Internet OrgID: SURW Address: P.O. Box 969 City: Roseville StateProv: CA PostalCode: 95678 Country: US NetRange: 66.60.128.0 - 66.60.191.255 CIDR: 66.60.128.0/18 NetName: SUREWEST-INTERNET NetHandle: NET-66-60-128-0-1 Parent: NET-66-0-0-0-0 NetType: Direct Allocation NameServer: NS1.SUREWEST.NET NameServer: NS2.SUREWEST.NET Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE RegDate: 2001-01-03 Updated: 2002-10-24 Definityvely in roseville. So if anybody can track other email from hewhois.. from there, let me know it would start to make serious proof.

@archibal i still have is PM in my mail box. I don't consider pursuing, i will get over it, but my only action is to expose it to the whole forum wich i waited long befor doing .. beside here in france it's against the low to buy reps @linder thks i might go for a bmw in the near futur, but i WILL have to get a 6263 and a V72 first cause i am certainly not going to stay on an echec like this .. so m next $$ will go into it.