Watch Repair

I made a video showing the process of restoring my high school graduation watch, the Seiko my parents bought for me when I was 18 back in 1994. I finally found time today to finish editing it and get it online.

Here's the video of me cleaning the parts for Nick's Vostok watch. A lot of work goes into this!

Just reporting to the forum that I got my watch back from Chris and it runs like a Swiss watch (though it's Russian!). I am most impressed by his workmanship, attention to detail, and communication. And his prices are quite reasonable indeed. If you have a watch, especially a mechanical one, in need of repair or maintenance, I'd strongly consider his services over your local repairer (if you can find one, that is). You can PM him, of course, but his website Watchmaker Chris - Watch Repair in Fort Wayne Indiana is well worth a visit too. (You can see my Vostok there also.)

I hope the moderators don't mind this shameless plug, but I wanted to pass this on.

Nice job Chris.
Thanks for showing your work.

I bought a Seiko in Hong Kong when I was on R & R in the early 1970’s. As I recall, I paid $20.00 for the watch. A few guys that’s all they had as they either drank, gambled, partied or women, thinking they wouldn’t ever get back home.

KoNickon said:

Just reporting to the forum that I got my watch back from Chris and it runs like a Swiss watch (though it's Russian!). I am most impressed by his workmanship, attention to detail, and communication. And his prices are quite reasonable indeed. If you have a watch, especially a mechanical one, in need of repair or maintenance, I'd strongly consider his services over your local repairer (if you can find one, that is). You can PM him, of course, but his website Watchmaker Chris - Watch Repair in Fort Wayne Indiana is well worth a visit too. (You can see my Vostok there also.)

I hope the moderators don't mind this shameless plug, but I wanted to pass this on.

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Thanks, Nick 🙂

Here's the link to the story of what I did with Nick's watch: Vostok Komandirske Automatic Watch Repair

Bill Clark said:

Nice job Chris.
Thanks for showing your work.

I bought a Seiko in Hong Kong when I was on R & R in the early 1970’s. As I recall, I paid $20.00 for the watch. A few guys that’s all they had as they either drank, gambled, partied or women, thinking they wouldn’t ever get back home.

Click to expand...

Do you still have it? My dad gave me a Westclox wristwatch that he bought at the base store right after he finished Air Force basic training in 1968. It has a Seiko movement. I'm planning to service it, soon.

Yes, I still have the watch and it works great!

I bought it when I was in Hong Kong during R&R. Vietnam. I was in the Navy back then. As I recall, I was on the ship, a destroyer escort with less than 200 people, 288 days and one night off in Hong Kong. Fun and games.

I have a watch I'm working on now that's a complex one. A mechanical watch with an alarm function! Never worked on one of those before. I just got the timekeeping part of the movement assembled today and it is running exceptionally well. It was the nastiest looking movement I have ever worked on; filthy and even had some corrosion on some parts. The owner is about my dad's age, mid 70s,, and he said it had been his dad's watch. He said it quit working in the late 1960s when he was a teenager and had not run since then, but he had kept it all that time and had tried in recent years to get it serviced so he could wear it in memory of his dad; but no one would work on it because it was an off brand watch called "Clinton." They should have opened the back; it has a movement made by A. Schild, a major Swiss movement maker and parts are easy to find for it. They lost out on a good paying job.

Because it was so dirty, I was afraid it would have a lot of wear and would be hard to get enough amplitude and accuracy out of it, I was wrong; the movement right after reassembly and lubrication, with no adjustments at all done yet, was running +25 seconds per day with an incredible 291 degrees of amplitude and no beat error! Its running like a brand new watch. I need to finish assembling the alarm mechanism now, then I'll be done.







Can't do anything about the patina on the dial, but the owner is ok with that. I did get the case cleaned and it is very bright now.







The dirty movement. The second crown is for winding the alarm; it has its own mainspring separate from the one that drives the watch!






Some parts after cleaning.

Running!





Right after I finished assembling and lubricating it, I put it on the timegrapher just to see how it was running. I need to wait a few days before doing the final adjustments, to let the lubricants work in and stabilize. The initial, no adjustments done readings are exceptional.

• Rate: Its running about 25 seconds per day too fast. That's not a problem, I'll correct that when I do the final adjustments.

• Amplitude: This one surprised me. Amplitude is a measure of how much power is being transmitted through the gear train from the mainspring to the escapement. It needs to be higher than 250 for the watch to run well. This one was giving 291 degrees of amplitude; that's like a brand new watch! Usually an old movement that is as dirty as this one was will have a lot of wear in the parts that rob the movement of amplitude, and getting enough can be challenging. I'm very happy with this!

• Beat Error: If you look at the video, you'll see the balance wheel oscillates back and forth. The clockwise rotation and the counter clockwise rotation need to take the same amount of time. If they don't, you have beat error. As long as it is less than a 1 millisecond difference, the watch will run accurately. This one has no beat error!