tudor 7928: the weird thing

[Lowontime]

Hi everybody, this is my first post after long way lurking 

 

STORY

I have strong passion for mechanics, from small wrist watches to big diesel engines.

Anyway my last lucky day was some weeks ago, when  my grandfather gave me his tudor from 1964 (30yo birthday gift from my grand-grandmother), He used it all the time, I remember that. He was a diver, this watch has some history, now mine, what a good day.

"I had a bath in the sea with crown opened, it stopped working, now probably a piece of rust, anyway is yours, now you have your magic ultrasonic bath maybe you can fix it"

Sure, some magic will do!

 

 

Well, I gave a swing at the crown and it started! 2 days of magic, also keeps time! than it stopped.

"it has been never serviced" the old man told me. He was between scared and astonished for my magic power.

 

BASIC INFO

Lets start with numbers.. manufactured in november 1963 (at least something is confirming my grandfather words), serial 400.xxx movement is 390 and looks good (more about movement later). No visible rust.

It keeps time, perfect going except rotor is loose (absolutely no wear on movement), I can remove the auto bridge and wind it manually to use it as is.

 

 

BAND

bracelet is 7836 folded type, weight 36grams. compared to list in this forum it sounds strange because this 7836 should be from 1965 (ok this is a question: is the folded type normal here?). I decided it cant be used because putting more wear on this will destroy the value that is very high I guess. No number on clasp. A wash in the utrasonics sucked decades of dirt, there are no words on the difference from the brush I used before the ultrasonics. Every watch lover should have one. you can't understand until you see by yourself and feel how good feels a really clean band.

endpieces are different! 65 and 358, for what I know they should be 382 both (waitin for opinions).

 

 

 

DIAL and PLEXY

Dial is wonderful. Aged but readable. hands good, the kind of yellow I love.

Checking fluorescence: minute hand is gone, hour hand only the rectangle a little visible but lose glow fast, circle in the seconds hand retain glow for longer periods, pearl glows better and for longer (only some seconds anyway).

bezel insert is washed almost completely, numbers readable but you need to pay attention.

plexy has the cracks but only superficial, after little polishing they are almost gone, the yellow tone on plexy is gone too.

This watch has been on the wrist for more than 45 years, all the summer on sea, everything is UV washed.

 

 

Let me know your opinion, what would you do?

For sure I am going to use it, because I think that there is no sense in owning a thing you don't use (except for investments) and because my grandfather is expecting that I give another half century to this family watch but on top of that because is a wonderful watch.

 

Should I find an original band and an original rotor bearing (very difficult).. lot of money

or aftermarket band and auto bridge removed...supercheap

or something in between?

 

Actually I am going to watch makers to solve the rotor problem (dont want to service the movement, only the rotor) and ordered a 30$ band from china just to see how bad it is, can't hurt.

 

 

 

[Nanuq]

It's absolutely magnificent as is. Get the movement disassembled and cleaned, take the time to get the rotor fixed right. Replace all the seals, clean the visible rust off the ring around the dial, then do nothing else. Nothing. It's gorgeous!

You can get a replacement folded bracelet from Mary for $50 and it will be a near perfect replacement.

Then, wear it another 45 years!

[marrickvilleboy]

Nanuq,

 

Can you point to me who is this Mary person with the folded bracelet pls?

[Nanuq]

Sure thing, she's Mary at watchinternational@gmail.com, last several I bought from her were spectacular. I have one on my Frosty Flake and one on my gen 1675.

[Lowontime]

is the pictured bracelet the mary's one? very nice! too nice to be aftermarket I would say.

I had real difficult in finding a folded one, bought a solid for 30$ just to see how bad it is, I hope is not too thick like the newer one but it was advertised for tudor so I hope they didnt cheated too much.

in my reference my '63 tudor should have the riveted one anyway (?) and mine report a ref number that is for '65.

I found a folded one on ebay but it has straight ends and they are difficult to swap in my opinion (I don't have proper tools). You can find it looking for "oyster folded" on thEbay, really cheap, sorry I can't still post links, too young

 

I already solved what looks like rust, in fact it was yellowed plexy, gone with little polish. I already took it to a watch maker who is going to fix the rotor or dismount the autobridge while he wait the replacement. chronograph showed good figures (0.1ms - 240° horizontal). Honestly I am hesitant for a full revision, this had only one in 50years and going well.

I am not buying the lubricants aging process, I have lot of experience with lubricants and metal wear in other fields and man..I can't find a real reason to think that a metal is going to be aged running against a not well lubricated rubin, please enlighten me, I mean with science explanation I can understand (mech engineering background).

M personal ignorant (in this field I am a newbie) opinion actually is that movement should be serviced to remove the metal dust created by the wheels running against each other, this dust is going to wear everything.

Anyway I am still deciding about revision, probably I am going to do that if I solve the rotor problem even if I am scared because any replacement is going to be a pain and a stop for the watch (not the same as a stopwatch that could be fine. sorry but english is not my motherlanguage so it sounds funny sometimes, just sharing)

 

to mods: I can't post smiles! system thinks they are links. I am happier that what appears in my post (smile here)

Edited May 19, 2014 by Lowontime

[panerai153]

Well, as a mechanic, around Diesel engines, etc, you know that friction is the enemy of longevity. I firmly agree with nanug, get it serviced, and I mean a complete service. Complete disassembly, cleaned and properly lubricated.

I'm in my 7th decade, I've been around equipment my entire life. We have a pretty big farming operation, and we have all sorts of motorized equipment,tractors, combines, cotton pickers, 18 wheelers, pickups on down to a whole slew of stuff with small engines. We adhere to a pretty rigid maintenance schedule with regular oil and filter changes, air filters blown out daily. Why do we do it, because it keeps everything running, and when you are planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall, we can't afford to have critical equipment sitting. Your watch is just the same, it's a precision piece of equipment, and it will run better and last longer of you get it serviced. And incidentally, you are very lucky that it's still functioning after 45 years of no service. I bet when you get it disassembled it may have more wear than you think.

Take care of it, it's a very nice watch with tons of sentimental value.

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[Lowontime]

OT parenthesis:

when rotating metals touches oil is needed because the friction will wear metals and create dust that will go around creating more wear, in engines oil is also a detergent. we everybody know that and change oils as frequently as we think is necessary or following the manual, personal choice.  I agree with that.

 

But lets talk about watches:

I am ignorant and I say that just to animate our talk, no mean to have reson in my pocket I am just studying and my brain is actually here:

 

slow wheel are often without rubies but use metals that are so called self lubricating, I Can't see the need of oil, they are too slow for the oil to really make something useful.

they only needs to be clean. Don't open the watch is the best thing you can do. (bands are weared for the same reason, dust is wearing them not the friction between metals)

 

Faster wheels are on rubies, or artificial sapphire, that has 1/3 of the friction of brass/steel and a coefficent of hardness of 9 (hope I translated good, sorry if not), any oil you put there is only INCREASING the friction, but is supposed to avoid the contact between metal and ruby so I understand why is put there, it is the only wheel that is fast enough to make the oil do this job (during spin, at invertion points can't and this is where rubies are much weared so again oil is just a hope in my point of view).

Again the best thing to do is keep watch close to avoid dust going there. I would put oil there because the surface tension keeps the oil film at least for some time, if oil is good it will not gum so why not put there a very little drop, I Agree with the use of oil.

 

A service cost more than a replacement part so actually I would have a movement that has been cleaned to death, closed and waiting for the next fail. This is what my father did and this watch and has resisted decades. the same with the rolex by my mother, 30yo still going well. Now I should change a part? well, how much they saved in half a century? much more than what I will spend. Also please consider that they used their watch for entire life with 1 single service for the tudor and no service for the datejust. Entire life. Think about it. Does it make sense to service something that is probably going to serve your entire life? he had NO other watches, he used the tudor even when doing dirty jobs, I never saw him put it down during the day, for him this is just a watch.

 

I am probably going to service this watch just because it has received too much dust and fingerprints and because now is the moment to replace a part but probably I will wait for the next fail.

Probably I Am going to service it in a high end laboratory where they have celan environment, good washing machines, gloves and something that covers their mouth, this will ensure me that there is less dust. typical watchmaker breath on shiny parts millions of particles, if he is a smoker? don't want to think about that.

 

imho the watch really cleaned and oiled  the less possible is the one that will fail so late that there is no economic reason to service it before the fail. This is valid for watches of normal value you can afford parts, my '800 patek is not even runinng to avoid any kind of problem (I am still tryin got understand a reason to own a watch I dont use..investment I think, going sentimental on an object scares me a little). I think anything should be related to the use and target you want.

 

Foolish? maybe, I can only know that if I put my theory in practice. this is the real reason why I will do a full service and than close it until next fail, to see my theory put on real world (unless in the next time someone can convince me that I match needs a service).

 

end of OT, thanks for you time on this.

[Nanuq]

That all makes sense, but remember the older a movement gets the harder it will be to find parts.  And even though it seems to be working fine, there is still damage occurring.

 

Here is my 1030 movement when I had Ziggy service it.  The watch ran "okay" but it had not been serviced in decades.  Serious wear had happened and he prolonged its life but he could not make it work perfect.  So now it runs better and it will last longer, but the damage has been done.

 

 

 

[automatico]

"A service cost more than a replacement part..."

 

Tudor 390 sometimes has auto winding problems and parts are getting hard to find.

Tudor 390 = FEF 380 base with autowinding added.

[panerai153]

I believe that you have some valid points, but as nanug said, these older watches have movements that haven't been manufactured for 40-50+ years. Parts are getting harder and harder to come by. Some things just aren't available at all, so either the watch becomes a paperweight, or you have to send it to one of the really high end watchmakers who have the skills and equipment to make parts. Problem then becomes, having a crucial part made may cost 10-100X what the same part cost when it was a stock off the shelf item. Since you can't see what's going on inside the movement, it's awfully difficult to tell when a watch is about to have a catastrophic failure. Personally, I would prefer to have it serviced at a reasonable interval, rather than take a chance on parts wearing out from lack of oil or a little bit of metal shavings that are now acting like grinding compound and really eating the insides up.

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[Lowontime]

I studied some more the lubricants for watches and well.. somehow my opinion is slightly different.

9010 d5 8300 and most of the alternatives are degrading in 2 years, the best one are guaranteed to retain the specifics for 6 years.

That alone is a real point we are expected to service our watch, oil can be engineerd to stay there but can't resist against time.Please note swatch owns ETA and moebius so the shorter life od the oils the more moeny for them, strange but true.

Still I think that if a day will exist where a part is not in reach for my movement well guys, that day is far from today. I mean decades are passed by so ok my watch will resist only for my life, my son will buy his one, the one he likes! In some perspective there is something wrong in expecting a son doing something just because you decide it.

Anyway not my case, I love the family tudor and I am going to service it as soon as I find the right watch maker, the last one touched my rotor and I wished to eat his finge

But believe me, the next I am going to buy is going to wait a lot, call it scientific experiment

Thanks to everybody, nice discussion.

[Nanuq]

You are exactly right, I chose a vintage Rolex for my son "some day" and he isn't interested in it, he prefers a mod Seiko I gave him.

I guess we maintain these for our own enjoyment, and that's as much as we can expect from them? I hope to get 5 more decades from mine and then... I won't care anymore.

[Lowontime]

Sorry if I ask again but.. is the bracelet in the picture the one I can buy from the contact told in this thread? it is amazing how it looks like the original, maybe mine is fake too

 

can you confirm that there is number on only one side of the bracelet on the 7928 1963 tudor?