Rolexman Posted July 23, 2012 Report Share Posted July 23, 2012 Hi everyone. I wanted to share my latest project with you. Maybe some of you read my initial post here. Well now it is time to take you along the journey I made with this watch. I saw this vintage 60's Breitling at my local 'ebay'. What got my attention was the Valjoux 7734 with 45m counter. As most of you know this movement can be used for a Tudor Franken project... Initially I only saw the two crappy pictures below and the extra info told me the watch was running but the chronograph didn't work because of the missing start/stop pusher. I had and still don't have any clue which model this is. I compared it to some other Breits of that age and the closest I came was either a Datora or Sprint. Maybe the experts can chime is? The pictures of the seller upon I based my purchase decision. After some email exhange with the buyer I got myself a deal. I was now the owner a vintage Beitling of unknown origin and state. The waiting began and after a week it arrived at my doorstep. It didn't look too bad. Some brown gunk around the crystal, a missing pusher, scratches, repainted hands, marks on the dial, polished away serial and ref#. The usual stuff on a watch this old. Here are some of my own pictures I took after I just received the watch. After a short inspection I saw the strap was a calf after-market but it did had a gen buckle! The movement had a broken reset lever screw and the start/stop pusher was indeed missing. Apart from that I checked all the functions and it appeared to be ok. Old and dirty but ok. It was now time to pull this baby apart and see what surprises would lie ahead (and there were some as you will read later on). Time for some dirty movement pics. You can see the black corroded reset lever hinge on the right. Here is a close up of the dial and the minute counter. You can clearly see that the hand was repainted (poorly) at some point and the dial got damaged along the way during removal of the hands. Also the lume on the hour markers is missing. The entire hand set. The minute and hour hand are very dirty and the lume is just black and not present anymore. Here you can see the state the dial was in. A lot of marks and other stuff of past watchmakers trying to clean up their 'work'. Here are the rest of the dirty movement pictures All disassembled Now clean and time to reassemble and grease Here is the crown with the old seal and the new seal. If you look at the pictures of the original seller you can see the crown sticking out form the case. The stem is too long (this will be corrected later). The Breitling 'B' is missing on the crown but after comparing it to some vintage crowns on Ebay, I believe it to be genuine. The 'B' wore of or was polished away in a earlier stadium. Here is one of the pusher tubes. After some closer inspection of the pusher that was still in tact I now know they weren't original. The pusher heads were too big in regard to the case hole cut out. So after some advice from my good old friend Rob (The Zigmeister) I decided to replace both pushers. New holes were drilled with a HSS bit and the right size pushers were friction set into the case. Here is the movement all clean and almost ready to go back into the case. It runs perfect for such an old watch. With an amp. of 295 degrees, a 0.1 beat error and + 4 seconds a day on the timer this baby runs strong as an ox! Now only some aesthetic work is left. Remember the hands? Some close ups show us that some hands used to be another color. Like the minute counter hand. Look at it's sides. It used to be some sort of orange color. After some reading I learned a lot of early Breitlings have the chrono second hand and minute hand in a deviant colour to insure easy read off. Stripped and ready for new paint. Here you can see the minute hand already cleaned up of the old lume and repolished. The dial was beyond refurbishing so all I could do is give it a new matte clear coat an hope it would look beter. Normally I would remove the hour markers but as they were dull and tarnished I decided to spray them along. Remember before: After: Hands freshly painted in the original lay-out. You can also see the newly applied lume on the hour marker of the dial. Everything cased up..... almost done! Off course some heavy duty grinding and polishing I also replaced the cystal by a propper sized one (remember the brown gunk around the crystal's edge I wrote in the beginnig?) It was glue turned dirty over the years. The last wastmaker used it to secure the crystal to the case as it was too small. A big 'no no' so I installed a new one. The end result looks great imo All it needs is a OEM gator.... Well that's it. Hoped you liked the review. But wait! There is yet another surprise!...... how could I not have noticed? Damn! The minute counter doesn't count up to 45 min. but rather to the regular 30 minutes. So that means either the movement or dial isn't original (or they replaced the minute counter wheel but that is some what far fetched). This also explains the poor date alignment. Man this watch was really worked on over the years! Heck for the money I paid for it and the way it looks and performs now, who cares right!? I put my heart & soul into this one so I gave it to my wife. She loves it..... Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwatch Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 WOW!!!!! What an incredible transformation!!! Nicely done! I cannot believe what a difference the matte finish made to that dial. Night and day difference and really quite stunning! Well done and thank you for sharing the step by step progress on this one!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dluddy Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 Well done. Another one saved Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poker Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 Very nice restoration and good pictures of the process. Why is there one part of the movement that still looks black and dirty? Everything else looks so shiny and nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolexman Posted July 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 WOW!!!!! What an incredible transformation!!! Nicely done! I cannot believe what a difference the matte finish made to that dial. Night and day difference and really quite stunning! Well done and thank you for sharing the step by step progress on this one!! Well done. Another one saved Thanks guys. Appreciate the nice words! Very nice restoration and good pictures of the process. Why is there one part of the movement that still looks black and dirty? Everything else looks so shiny and nice. Well that is the corroded hinge I was talking about. Somehow a combination of probably time and moisture did this to the surface of the hinge. It is not dirt but rather a pitted surface. I did gave it another polish afterwards to make the corrosion stand out little less but the effect is minimal as you can see in one of the last pictures where the movement is cased up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wimpie007 Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 Wow nice job!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faber Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 incredible pics and restoration....looks great... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackR Posted July 25, 2012 Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 Mark - awesome...thanks for sharing this beuatiful restoration... what kind of xtal did you use?... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jkay Posted July 25, 2012 Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 Beautiful. Excellent work, and my compliments on your wife's taste in watches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolexman Posted July 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 Mark - awesome...thanks for sharing this beuatiful restoration... what kind of xtal did you use?... Thanks for the kind words. I used a sternkreuz plexi. Beautiful. Excellent work, and my compliments on your wife's taste in watches. Thanks J. Maybe she will let me take some shots while wearing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon05 Posted August 3, 2012 Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 Sensational work Rolexman! You are a true craftsman & should be justifiably pleased with yourself. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mills Posted August 3, 2012 Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 Outstanding work. The transformation to the mechanism is amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ogladio Posted August 3, 2012 Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 Very impressive work Rolexman, it's apparent that you're one of the most knowledgeable members around this forum! Actually went through the same process of buying what I thought was a 7734 donor watch for a Montecarlo, but ending up keeping the watch. Would love for the movement to be in same condition as yours though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_rymeister Posted August 3, 2012 Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 Great work rolexman, looks absolutely amazing, thanks for sharing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolexman Posted August 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 Very impressive work Rolexman, it's apparent that you're one of the most knowledgeable members around this forum! Actually went through the same process of buying what I thought was a 7734 donor watch for a Montecarlo, but ending up keeping the watch. Would love for the movement to be in same condition as yours though... Cool watch. Yours also has the wrong minute counter.... Just enjoy it as is. Looks nice on the wrist! To everyone else. Thanks for the kind words. Makes doing a write up all worth while Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lobster Posted August 3, 2012 Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 I just saw this thread and WOW, I take my hat off. This was a stunning write-up and I applaud your work. Well done and I hope your other half wears that beauty in good health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lhooq Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 I guess I missed this one. Fantastic job, Rolexman! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FxrAndy Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 Great post and good work, i waas expecting another kind of striptease though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparkal Posted December 9, 2012 Report Share Posted December 9, 2012 WOW, Simply stunning.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolexman Posted December 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 I guess I missed this one. Fantastic job, Rolexman! Great post and good work, i waas expecting another kind of striptease though WOW,Simply stunning.... Thanks guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martijnp Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 At first sight I didn't like the watch when you showed it in the first post, but now I see this whole transformation and I really like it! Well done my friend and let your wife wear this watch with love Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andreww Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 That's some awesome work right there! Great job Rolexman! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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