Took a risk with my Big Pilot

[Antonio]

My relatively new Big Pilot (purchased in September) had some kind of problem. It was stopping, and would bind/jump when I was turning the crown to move the hands. Meaning, the hands would bind, then jump forward instead of moving smoothly. I took it into my local (non-AD) watch shop and asked if they'd work on a watch that wasn't what it looked to be. The kid behind the counter asked what I meant, I handed him my IWC and explained that it had a chinese movement. I don't think he even knew what IWC was. He said it wasn't a problem, he'd send it off downtown (L.A.) to the place where they send the watches. We'll see what happens. I asked to have it checked, if it was repairable to repair it and also full clean/lubrication and set the fake PR to 7 days. I'll let you all know what happened.

[Antonio]

They may be busy with the holidays, but still no word from them. I'll call tomorrow. Also want to have the shop help me replace a screw from one of my Breitling bands. Trying to do it myself is an exercise in frustration.

[Antonio]

After waiting this long I finally called. Another salesperson, more knowledgeable, said it never left his shop to go to the watchsmith. They won't work on reps. Damn.

Have a PM from another member from a place in Orange County that will, but that's a couple hours to drive each trip. Want to find someone here in L.A., preferrably the northern part. I'll keep looking.

In the mean time, recently bought a nice Otto Frei ball and used that to open the back. Doesn't look bad at all in there. The movement wanted to come out when I turned it over, but I've no idea how to remove the crown. And don't know what to do from there other than clean a couple of small pieces of dust and move the PR indicator. Movement still binds a little when moving the hands, but it seems to be working.

If you have any thoughts, I'm all ears.

[RobbieG]

I have found that there is always more than one watchmaker in any town glad to work on reps. In all cases it will be a repair shop that doesn't sell anything for the most part. Just a repair shop. I live in a county of approx. 200K people and there are two (in a town of 30K year round residents I might add) even here. I should think in LA, you will find many, many on the north side of LA or in the Valley my freind. Here is what I could find for you and if you need more, grab the yellow pages and call and just ask if they work on watches with Chinese movements. As you can see from my Google search return there are 9600+ entries from "watch repair Los Angeles". Wow!

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&rls=...esults&cd=1

[trailboss]

Robbie mate, if a town has 200 thou and only 30K perments of cause you will have a higher than normal number of watch smiths. If that many winter only there's a much higher than normal base income in the area.

Haveing said that, yes, there's somone allmost anywhere. A small place is happy to get all the work they can and don't go in for snobery, they can't afford to.

Col.

[Antonio]

Robbie,

Though it may seem obvious, it's something I hadn't considered. Thanks, and thanks for the link. May have to wait till after the holidays now, but I'll post whatever I find.

Have to find a new strap, as well. This one is falling apart. I'd have happily paid more up front for a better strap, etc. Any thoughts? I'm happy with the deployant clasp, will look out for a gen or good aftermarket strap. And if I buy just the strap, who puts the clasp in? Does it come apart or need to be stitched in? and by a watchsmith or a shoe repair place?