Reply With QuoteGreat stuff! I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this.
Hi all
I have put together a couple of pics of my last project. This was my first pocket watch.
Limit was a British company, established in Lancashire in 1912. The 15 jewels movement in this watch was swiss made, and it is probable that it was supplied by Thommen in Switzerland, and cased in the UK by Limit.
It turned out to be very easy to work on. My previous projects have all been wristwatches (mostly Seikos!), so the slightly larger diameter here definitely helped. It also turned out easy to put it back together.
Here is a summary of what I did with this watch, I hope you enjoy reading this!
First the “before” picture – I bought the watch on an ebay auction for spares or repairs, not really knowing what to expect.
Upon receipt of the watch, the first good surprise was that the watch was running after my first attempt at winding it.
The mineral glass dial was very cloudy, so this needed to be addressed.
I also wanted to completely strip, clean and lubricate the movement.
Upon opening the case of the watch, the movement looked very grubby, with traces of heat having been applied to some parts of the movement in the past.
I am not too sure why this would have been done, perhaps to heat up Shellac for a repair of the balance jewel? Or to burn dust residue in the watch. I was quite puzzled by this because the marks are definitely not localised to one area of the movement.
I proceeded to strip the movement, no snags were encountered during disassembly.
After a bit of manual cleaning, all the parts went in the ultrasonic machine for a good clean.
I was not quite happy with the look of the visible parts of the movement after the Ultrasonic clean, so I gave some of them a polish, and back into the machine.
I did not want to achieve a perfect result, but just wanted to make the movement look a bit more presentable. The superficial heat marks came out. Note I did not polish the balance cock as I did not want to interfere with anything there!
I put the movement back together, and lubricated it.
By that point, I had received a new crystal from our favourite supplier (the one who is named after your uncle’s son…). I would normally use my crystal press to push out the old crystal, but I did not have a suitable die for this diameter, so had to do this manually. With a bit of persuasion, the old crystal came out, but not without a minor injury (cut on my thumb from the bezel edge, it was quite bloody!) so I will definitely wear gloves next time!
And here it is, the watch completely re-assembled. I did not do anything to the case as I like a bit of patina, I think it gives this watch character.
I put it on my timing machine, and with an accuracy of approx. 10sec/ day I am very happy with this, so will not do anything else to this one.
I hope you found this interesting, comments welcome (positive, negative, or advice!)
Last edited by .olli.; 5th July 2016 at 14:26.
Great stuff! I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this.
"A man of little significance"
Thanks, I think I need to give you an update over a full English breakfast since I missed the last curry!
Good work.
Nice looking dial, is it enamelled?
Dave
The dial is just metal, covered in a layer of plastic.
I'm glad one of us (locally) has the gumption to get of ones derrière and do something useful. I assuming it's helpful to have the extra 'time off' at the moment as well!
Regards curry....see you emails!
Yes I have never been so busy since taking redundancy! Mainly getting on with all the jobs in the house / garden I have been meaning to do but never had enough time for the last few years! The wife has prepared a list, I am slowly working my way through it!
Thankfully it is leaving me a bit of time to work with watches, which is something else I never managed to find enough time for the last few years, with work and family commitments. In fact I am looking into courses available to take it to the next step!
My word! That's a lovely looking thing.
awesome job and very interested post mate well done! i am always interested in restorations (mainly cars) but that looks a bit to precise for me
Excellent description and good to see this old piece kept going
Pocket watches are great, and I find myself continually returning to them
Nice job Olli, a lovely dial on that one
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