My Most Chalenging Project So Far

[vlaletom]

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:

[vlaletom]

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.

[vlaletom]

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.

[vlaletom]

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 !!

[chris5264]

Very cool post, great work.

[hank7502]

Very cool post, great work.

I would say you are well on your way to being a fine watchmaker. Thanks

[Finepics]

Superb - well done.

[ubiquitous]

WOW!! Incredible work!!

[Heywood]

That's a great post. Loved the detailed photos. Congrats on a job well done!

[310jag]

WOW. All the time, effort, and care put into the process really shows in the final product. Beautiful job, beautiful work.

[supermanx]

WOW. All the time, effort, and care put into the process really shows in the final product. Beautiful job, beautiful work.

That really is amazing. So I take it you would recommend the timezone courses? I noticed now they require you to buy the movement and all your tools through their store, but I do not think that was the case 3 months ago when I was first looking. I would sign up now, because I have a spare 2836 and more then enough tools and parts.... but wife would kill me if I have to buy everything again.

[TK471]

Thank you for your post. It was a very informative read.

[NRG]

Excellent work, great effort!

I too have done the TZ courses very worth while IMHO

Supermanx wrote: That really is amazing. So I take it you would recommend the timezone courses? I noticed now they require you to buy the movement and all your tools through their store, but I do not think that was the case 3 months ago when I was first looking. I would sign up now, because I have a spare 2836 and more then enough tools and parts.... but wife would kill me if I have to buy everything again.

You don't need to buy all the stuff through OFREI/TZ, if you have the tools/oils etc then just enroll for the tutorials....$50 per course...

[supermanx]

Excellent work, great effort!

I too have done the TZ courses very worth while IMHO

Supermanx wrote: That really is amazing. So I take it you would recommend the timezone courses? I noticed now they require you to buy the movement and all your tools through their store, but I do not think that was the case 3 months ago when I was first looking. I would sign up now, because I have a spare 2836 and more then enough tools and parts.... but wife would kill me if I have to buy everything again.

You don't need to buy all the stuff through OFREI/TZ, if you have the tools/oils etc then just enroll for the tutorials....$50 per course...

Maybe I misinterpreted their site, but this portion was not there when I was looking last time (at least I didnt think it was), 2nd level kit is $270.00:

"Enrollment for Level 1 and Level 2 classes is currently open. Each level requires registration, a US$50.00 tuition fee paid via credit card, and the purchase of a toolkit. Please read the registration and ordering procedures below."

"A tool kit is required and must be purchased for each Level. After you have registered and paid the tuition fee, you may go to the Tool Shop to order tool kits. Click here to go to the Tool Shop "

[NRG]

It's misleading, you don't have to buy a toolkit!!

[OiRogers]

Wow... Looks like I'm gonna have to mosey on over to TZ and check those courses out... I'd love to be able to do this myself someday.

[mikellem]

Excellent work!

[Estaban]

Fantastic post. You obviously have studied hard. I wish I could do simple watch work. Maybe when I retire in 25 years.

[oswald]

Wow great work especially since you started with a completely dead watch!

Wear it with pride!

[bkdc]

You don't need to purchase the tools to enroll in the TZ course. However, you'd better own your own tools because you can't do jack without them.

If you're going to do any watchwork, you'll need to start buying tools anyway. It gets very expensive very quickly.

[stac]

Great post!

I too am a "graduate" of the TZ watch school

If our membership only knew much fun and fulfilling working on movemets is !

The first thing I do when I recieve a rep from a dealer is completely disassemble and clean/relube the movement . It's a nice stress relieving process as I am in no hurry.

Keep reading all of The Zigmeisters posts as he is a true craftsman

[vlaletom]

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 ...

[marrickvilleboy]

Great work! but i'm not sure how they teach it over in the U.S, but we were taught to dissemble in this order:

Oscillator

escapement

barrel bridge/barrel

gear train

winding and setting

The reason for this order is that you can check for working order of the parts as you remove parts, for example, check for the "jump" of the pallet fork after you remove the oscillator.

Again, i'm glad more people are learning this trade.

Edited October 14, 2006 by Marrickvilleboy

[vlaletom]

Great work! but i'm not sure how they teach it over in the U.S, but we were taught to dissemble in this order:

Oscillator

escapement

barrel bridge/barrel

gear train

winding and setting

The reason for this order is that you can teach for working order of the parts as you remove parts, for example, check for the "jump" of the pallet fork after you remove the oscillator.

Again, i'm glad more people are learning this trade.

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