111 Modified Movement Complete

[omgiv]

Hi Guys,

 

I just finished performing the mods on my 111 movement and thought I would share some pics.  I still need to do some final timing adjustments and then case it up.  Here is a list of mods:

 

Genuine Incabloc Installed

Shaped Swan Neck Spring

Flat Polished the Click Screw, Ratchet Screw, Crown Wheel Screw, and Set Lever Screw

Polished the Click

Brushed the Center, Third, and Fourth Wheels (not quite spec but better)

Installed ETA Polished Ratchet and Crown Wheels

Flat Polished the Canon Pinion

Brushed the Set Lever Spring

Serviced Movement

 

The only thing that I would like to add is a better swan neck screw.  I am hoping that this will become a reality someday.  I have yet to see one that looks identical to the real deal.  As always, thanks for looking and feel free to comment (good, bad, or ugly)

 

Here are some pics.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[w0lf]

Very cool, thanks for sharing. What are you doing for the hour wheel?

[omgiv]

Thanks for the compliment Wolf! The hour wheel just isn't in the picture. Is there anything that needs to be done with it?

[w0lf]

Sure, quality work there, for sure. About the HW - It's brass or gold plated, it's not the eta standard nickel plated kind.

[omgiv]

Ah....I see what you are saying now. I haven't found a brass hour wheel source yet, so I was planning on using the nickel plated one. It won't matter once the dial is mounted.

[alnj]

nice.

[omgiv]

I had some free time this weekend and wasn't happy using the nickel plated hour wheel after Wolf's question regarding said hour wheel.  I had come this far, so what was a few more hours.  I read that you can use bleach or acetone to remove nickel plating, so I gave that a try.  After several hours, the bleach looked like it was sort of working and the acetone not at all.  I remembered that I had some nickel removing powder left over from a project that never happened and gave that a try.  It worked like a charm and only took an hour or two to get it completely removed.  After that, it was just a matter of brushing the finish back on.  I still need to get some tung oil to help seal the brass from corrosion but I think it turned out well.  Here it is next the standard nickel hour wheel and mounted on the movement.  Thanks to Wolf for the challenge :)

 

 

 

 

[w0lf]

Great job, omgiv, what was the nickel-removing powder that you ended up using? Was it just a water solution or did you have to use plating electrodes?

Also, to answer your earlier question about how visible it is when cased, I'd say it's very visible once you know about it:

Looking at these, I'm also thinking that it's possible that OP may not be using the 2.15mm/3.15mm HW/CP H3 kit that we in the rep world are so accustomed to. The crystal distortion & magnification adds to the effect, but doesn't it seem like there's just a hair too much space between the hour hand and the minute hand? I think it's not out of the question that OP used a combination of H2 HW and H3 CP.

I found that the brass HW seems to be unique to ETA6497-2 based calibers because if you look at PreV watches with the ETA6497-1, their HWs are nickel plated:

And fully cased PreV, you can clearly see the separation between the exposed (and oxidized brownish) brass of the hour hand tube and the nickel plated HW underneath it:

ETA6497-2 was introduced at the same time as Vendome takeover, and sure enough, as early as the first PreA watches the hour wheel is already brass:

Lastly, in order to make a longer micrometric screw, and it's not a good solution by any means, you can either use two screws by decapitating one for its shank and another as a whole and screw them in from either end of the swanneck separately. Alternatively cut just the one screw in half and use loctite to get just its ends secure in the swanneck which will give you the illusion of a longer screw.

[omgiv]

Hi Wolf,

 

The stripper that I used is water soluble and came from caswellplating.com.  It is called their B9 nickel stripper.  It works quickly and I am trying to see if it will just strip the nickel or attack the brass if left in too long.

 

Thanks for the additional pictures.  I honestly had never seen pictures taken from those angles to tell.  It is pretty obvious once you see it though.  Thanks again!!!

[BigDD]

very nice

[omgiv]

After looking at their website more closely, it looks like the 929 is the one you want for nickel plated brass.  It says that it will safely remove the nickel plate without etching the base material.  Gonna order some of that too.

[mbenz]

+1

[zhoon1129]

omg.. That's more than awsome..

Can I ask you for the same service when I get my 111v3?

[Inertiadrifter]

Cool. This looks good. I have a Marlin22 modded 111 movement coming in. I'm curious to see how his compare

[omgiv]

Well, I think that I can call my 111 as good as I can get it (right now).  I used to own a genuine 111 but I couldn't justify owning it.  The styling was awesome but at the end of the day, it had an ETA movement.  I believe this is about 98% as good as that one was.  Plus I don't have to justify owning it to myself  The only problem now is that I have a 243 on its way and am looking into getting a 127.  I hope the fever isn't catching....

 

This one has been a real pleasure to work on and a refreshing change from my usual Rolexes.  The only thing that I am unhappy with is that I had to use dial dots to secure the dial to the movement.  The dial feet weren't wide enough for the screws to grab.  The package of dial feet that I had were also not wide enough.  Other than that, I am happy with how it turned out.  The movement mods are listed above in the thread.  The only thing extra I did was strip the hour wheel down to the brass.  I am glad that I did because it is a very nice subtle change.

 

Anyway, here are some picture of the final product.  I also made a new crown guard pin since I wasn't 100% please with the stock one.  Thanks for all of the lookers and helpers.  Without you, this couldn't have been done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jcrob]

Marlin22 job is great, this is too.. are these guys watchmakers? Very skillful!

[w0lf]

Great results, I have two small mod suggestions both on the crown, one is functional the other is purely cosmetic.

Cosmetic:

The beveling on either side of the Noob crown knurling is done at an obtuse angle, in addition the knurled teeth have micro burrs and are too sharp. H-Factory crowns have almost nailed the OEM look but their beveling angle is also too obtuse. Most OEM crowns have a more aggressive bevel and are completely deburred and have polished teeth as well as the bevel, as a result the knurling isn't sharp and the crown appears visually thinner.

left OEM, right H-Factory.

The functional mod, and you may have done this already, is threadlocking the Noob crown shank. I'll try to explain in detail so if you know what I'm talking about (maybe because your crown came apart when you were unscrewing the stem), don't read any further - just use some red loctite and put it back together for good.

For everyone else, think of the crown in terms of the shank and the dish. The shank is the part of the crown that goes into the crown tube, holds the stem and contains the spring mechanism of the crown. The dish is the knurled part that we wind the watch with. The shank of the crown houses the spring and the stem bob which the little hexagonal (at least in the case of Noob, Genuine and the latest Titanium H-Factory crown) bit that the stem screws into. The significant differences in the construction of the shank the two leading factory crowns are as follows:

H-F & OEM: The dish and the shank are one-piece, at the very tip of the shank where the stem bob is, a small cap screws into the threads on the inside of the shank to keep the stem bob and the spring mechanism from popping out.

Noob: The dish and the shank are two separate pieces, the whole shank is essentially the cap (just a very tall one) holding the stem bob and the spring into which the dish screws into at the base.

The weakness of this design, besides providing more torque where it's less advantageous and can cause you to leave the shank inside the crown tube one day, is that you're adding a potential leak point. Whether it will leak in reality is difficult to say at the very least because there has to be enough water pressure to squeeze through the threading. Technically, over time this may still happen and the water will seep into the seam between the shank and the dish of the crown, go down the threads, into the shank and then into the movement. There's a reason behind OEM crown and caseback construction - minimizing potential water ingress points by putting all screw type joints behind the gaskets, not in front.

Look for broken crown posts, sometimes people post photos of their crowns that have come undone, it will be the visual aid to all of the above.

[martijnp]

Nice job, love the watch!

[omgiv]

Thanks for the compliments!!!

 

Wolf...I appreciate the tips and pointers.  Anything to make this better is always appreciated.  My crown did not come apart while working on it and I did know know that it was a two piece crown.  I will certainly throw some locktite on it when I work on the crown.  Do you have any macro shots of a genuine crown?  I searched my image library, google, and ebay and came up empty. I am just looking to see the proper angle and how sharp the crown teeth are.  Lastly, what do you use to change the angle of the beveling?  Do you use something as harsh as a file or something less harsh like an emery stick?  Thanks again for the tips!!!!

[w0lf]

I have a few different generations of OEM crowns, I'll try to take some good photos and post them up. Ideally, the beveling job is done on a lathe with a fixed cutter so you can set the angles. If you have no lathe, a good emery stick and a steady hand are a must. Use grits 320>800/1000 and after 1000 you can follow up with fine aluminum oxide finishing film or high grit emery, 2500 and up should work.

If you want a polished bevel & dish rim, newer watches and autos have the polish more pronounced because the crown is used less; it can be done with with a chromium oxide impregnated leather strop or a cape cod cloth.

The idea of this mod has been kicked around for a long time, I did it to contemporary builds a few times and kBiz wrote it up here: http://www.repgeek.com/showthread.php?t=175833

[omgiv]

Thanks Wolf

 

I would appreciate the pictures.  I went ahead and tried it myself.  I took the crown apart pretty easily, so the locktite is a good recommendation.  I also tried to cut a new bevel and polish the knurls.  I have no idea how it turned out so you can be the judge of whether it is improved.  I cut the bezel using my lathe and a graver, but it would probably be better to use a cross slide to set an exact angle.  Maybe I will try that out.  Thanks again!!!!

 

 

 

[w0lf]

Perfect, this is exactly what was missing. Can you tell more about the bezel? I'm guessing you squared-up the bottom chamfer as it's rounded on those.

[PilotI]

I love what you've done to the movement. It's really close to gen.

 

just for reference, here's my 111 with the OEM part, I think it's gold plated. You could have it replated of course if you want that gen look. The entire drive train gears are plated differently than the standard ETA gears, i think they are also gold plated as the shine is really 'yellow'

 

 

since we're talking about details, change the CG screws, the scewdriver slot is a lot smaller on OEM and an easy tell...

Edited February 5, 2013 by PilotI

[omgiv]

Thanks for the tip on the crown guard screws.  I will have to keep an eye out for a set of OEM screws.

 

I mistyped and wrote bezel and meant to say bevel.  Here are some pictures of the other side of the crown.  The side profile of the teeth aren't as clean, or sharp, as before.  I don't know if this is due to the crown not being perfectly round or what.  I set up my cross slide so the angle should have been consistent.  I am not exactly sure what chamfer you are referring to as well.

 

 

 

[w0lf]

Took some shots for you:

Left to right: Ti B-J series, SS B-J series and SS PreA-A&Btrans series

Titanium:

Stainless:

PreA-A&Btrans:

Also, since CG screws were mentioned, left - Noob, right - OEM