At the beginning of 2011, I took up watchmaking/repairing as a hobby not only to make some money towards my very first watch, but to better understand the inner workings of these mechanical wonders. Taking up watchmaking was truly when my passion for watches began. I've come to appreciate the incredible finishes of haute horlogerie along with the numerous complications that the world of horology has to offer because I began to realize the sheer amount of time that goes into each and every hand-made timepiece.
I decided to create this blog to share my passion with my fellow horology enthusiasts and to document the projects that I will undertake on the path to my very first watch.
Thanks for taking a visit and I hope you enjoy what I've done!
Ever since I began repairing watches, I have always wanted to repair a chronograph. On eBay, there are tens of movements that sell each week, but rarely movements with their cases and in non-working condition for me to fix. My time came, however, when this Omega chronograph came up for sale! The watch was in running/stopping condition, most likely because of dirt that had built up and the lack of oil. The escapement and basic time function of the watch was easy to repair - a simple cleaning and the watch was up and running - but there were numerous problems with the chronograph function.
First, there were small specks of dirt within the teeth of the chronograph wheels, jamming the gears and bringing the watch to a halt. That was easily fixed by using Rodico and cleaning the wheels. Second, a piece that is attached to the bottom of the central wheel was supposed to hit another gear once every rotation, effectively turning the hand on the 30-minute register. The piece was too short so I had to improvise and attached a minuscule piece of metal that worked as an extension so the part began hitting the gears as it should. Lastly, the sweep seconds hand was completely broken off. I actually enjoy fixing broken hands, something that I have done at least ten or so times in the past, so this was also fairly easy. After everything was in place, repaired, and polished (I tried my best to polish each piece to look as good as new), there was still some adjusting to do, which took a lot longer than I had expected, but resulted in a beautiful product!
Aside from the excitement I got from finally repairing a chronograph, it was also interesting to see that the watch underneath the chronograph plate (pictures below) is the exact same as any other watch, with the exception of an extended seconds wheel pinion.
Once again, thanks for reading!
Movement without the chronograph plate
Improvised attachment to the triangular piece under the wheel
Complications are by far the most time consuming repairs but definitely my favorite. I was lucky enough to find a cheap repeater on eBay and after about six or seven hours of work, I have (almost) the final product! In the pictures below, I don't have the dial fitted, nor the hands, because I am still waiting to purchase one last piece - a gong. The gong that came with the watch was horribly soldered by some previous watchmaker. The wire part was stuck to the base leaving no room for vibrations when the hammer struck. I sanded the sides down and tried gluing it back together, but to no avail. Super glue works occasionally with some parts (though far from the ideal method, it's cheap), but for something as delicate as the gong, it just wasn't sufficient. Regardless, I have a video posted below of what the first chime sounds like. As for the rest of the watch repair, I took every piece out and polished the inner-workings of the repeater from the dial side - pictured below. I'll post a final video once I find a suitable gong. UPDATE: The calendar dial I wrote about earlier will still need about 3-4 weeks to restore, unfortunately... but again, once I receive it, I'll post pictures of the assembled watch.
One of the watches I've had in my possession for a few months now is a double-sided moon phase calendar. It was a simple repair - all it needed was a little cleaning and oiling - but the reason it has taken so long to fully restore is the calendar dial. It's in horrible shape right now (pictures below), and it took my a while to find a proper dial restoration company. I finally sent the dial in yesterday, so hopefully I'll have the completed watch within a month.
After doing a bit of research, I've found that this watch in silver is actually quite rare! The dial restoration is going to be costly... but it's definitely worth restoring this beauty. In fact, my dad always tells me that I should just sell watches as-is, without getting every last detail. My reply: no. Watches are a passion of mine and, even though it can be lucrative, it never comes down to the money. I'm much more interested in restoring history than restoring my wallet after an expensive purchase.
I'll make sure to assemble the watch the day my dial gets back! And then, of course, I'll be posting some pictures.
It's been quite a while since I last posted here! I've been fairly busy with school and college applications (yup, I'm still in high school), so I haven't been able to publish anything. Don't worry though, I've still repaired a fair amount of watches! This is just a short update of the more interesting watches I've come across since April:
Jules Huguenin Jump quarter Second Chronograph (check out the video to see what I mean by "jump"):
Swiss Triple Calendar Moon Phase:
John White London Verge Fusee (This one has pillars and a two-tone movement):
In "Complete Price Guide to Watches" by Tom Engle, there are a lot of major, maybe more collectible, watch brands and watchmakers, and ever since purchasing the 1990s edition, I have always wanted to fix a watch that is listed in the book. My time came with a Henry Capt pocket watch! Luckily, this was a very easy fix - all it needed was a good old cleaning and some oil. Not much to the story this time around, but it was a fun restoration because of the sheer amount of polishing the case needed. I keep forgetting, but I'll make sure to take before and after pictures of the watch cases next time (the difference is astonishing)!
This is a fairly old gift that I received almost a year ago, but I came across some pictures on my computer so I figured I'd share my experience with ALS's top-notch customer service!
I wrote to ALS about my passion for watches, simply expressing that I found their watches of incredible beauty and of astonishing horological engineering. My letter was about a page long that outlined what I so loved about their watches - from the blued screws holding the polished gold chatons to the hand engraved balance cocks and diamond end stones. I highlighted that I would undoubtedly collect their timepieces once I was financially able to. This letter was just for the sake of acknowledging my interest in the brand and to applaud their work, nothing more.
I did not receive a response from any representatives for quite some time and I figured my letter was either forgotten or disregarded. However, much to my surprise, a package arrived in the mail! A personal letter from ALS as well as one of their wooden loupes and a book! I don't have a picture of the book but it was "The Revival of Time" by Walter Lange.
I'll admit, it probably wasn't the smartest idea to jump straight to a repeater from having only fixed time-only watches. The logical next step from time-only pieces was probably to begin taking apart calendars, or even chronographs. However, it has been a great experience and definitely one that I do not regret racing into.
The movement had its entire gear train disassembled, which would have been an easy fix if that was the only problem. Unfortunately, the repeating mechanism was jammed too. I must say, it was an experience just taking the watch apart! It took nearly an hour to figure out how to safely take apart each piece, making sure that others were not harmed in the process. For fixing watches, I usually use parts boxes that have 20 slots in them, but for this repeater, I actually bought a new box with 30 some slots to accommodate for the vast amount of extra pieces. I tried my best to polish the hammers and gong, which turned out okay, but it was difficult because of the fragility of the gongs - I didn't want them to snap off from their base.
The problem with the repeater was that the star wheel was poorly made. Quite frankly, it may have been from a previous repairer's faults. The spaces between the teeth were either too large or too small, causing the quarter's snail to rotate without moving the star wheel or causing it to get jammed. I had to file some of it down and bend some teeth into place, but apparently it worked! After reassembling the movement, I was able to get both the repeating mechanism to match up to the time and the escapement to run. There is one fault to this watch that I was unable to fix - a missing piece. The piece does not hinder the performance of the repeater at all, nor does it affect the gear train, but it is the piece that is supposed to give the quarter chimes two tones. For example, if it was 4:20, quarter repeaters would generally chime ting ting ting ting... ting tang ting tang. But with the missing piece, it just chimes ting ting ting ting... tang tang. I'm not complaining, though because it is still fully functional!
There are a few unique things about this watch, aside from the obvious that it's a repeater. First, it's a cylinder escapement which completely eliminates the pallet fork. Second, the dial is beautifully guilloched, which I assume is hand engine-turned? Too bad it wasn't in the best of shape, but you can see the detail in one of the pictures below. I forget the name of this type of movement, but finally, the mainspring barrel is uncovered, anchored from the bottom.
It was a great learning experience as I have now added quarter repeaters to my arsenal of watchmaking skills! Throughout fixing the piece, I had a lot of moments where it just "clicked" as to the purpose of this piece or that and how exactly everything works together in harmony to create an audible version of the time. Sorry for the long post this time, but I had a incredible time repairing this repeater. I have attached a video of the chiming, which comes around midway through the video, as well as pictures.
For hours on end, I have tried to repair this movement by F.B. Adams & Sons but to no avail. I got it to run for around 8 hours but then it stopped and I am stuck.... I will be selling this piece soon because I think the problem is that a tooth of one of the gears is broken - something that I do not have the expertise to fix just yet. Even though it is not running, I wanted to post pictures of it because of how beautiful and rare this piece is.
I recently acquired this Geo Forrester & Co. pocket watch from either 1809 or 1811 (I forget off the top my head) and it took about six to seven hours to fully restore (minus the missing seconds hand). This is by far the piece that I am most proud of because of the amount of time and effort that I put into getting each detail as perfect as I could. I polished the case and hands and removed as much gunk as I could from the bulls-eye crystal. This fix was baffling at first because I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the watch - all the pinions and gears were in perfect condition, nothing was bent! After setting this watch aside and coming back to it with a fresh mind, I realized a special mechanism that actually locked the pallet in place (something that I had never seen before). I was more than ecstatic when I simply pushed the locking mechanism's lever and freed the pallet. After disassembling the watch and cleaning each part, I put everything back together, oiled the jewels, and life was restored to the watch.
More often than not, I purchase watch movements because they are more readily available and cheaper to purchase in lots. However, with this piece, it was both movement and case so I took my time in polishing as much as I could - even down to the hands as I mentioned earlier. This piece is actually running a bit slow as of now so I still have some adjusting to do. I hope you've enjoyed reading my first post and one of many watch restorations to come. Enjoy the pictures!
