Finally, a Chronograph!

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

Another Repeater - Almost Done

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.