Watch Repair
- Thread starter Chriscrawfordphoto
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kshapero
South Florida Man
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I like that one. I've seen others like it, but they always had badly beaten up cases; yours looks much nicer. There are a huge variety of Benrus Sea Lord watches with different dials and case shapes; it was their line of water resistant watches. Yours will probably need serviced; every one I have bought has needed it because of their age. I'd have to see the movement to be certain, but yours probably dates from the mid to late 1960s.
Wenge
Registered User
yes I think it's from early 60s. it looks good now but if needs service will send it on if you're doing that for a paid service. so far in 10 hours it has needed full wind, since full wind (never forced) 10 hours ago, and after 9-10 hours it's 30 minutes off. A safe guess you're right and it may need looking at.
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Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I've found that all these old Benruses from the 60s have movements gummed up by dried lubricants, and they need new mainsprings. Cleaning and relubricating, and replacing the mainspring brings them back to life and makes it possible to adjust them to give accurate timekeeping. Unfortunately, you can't adjust one that is off 30 minutes after less than half a day; its too far outside the adjustment range. I was going to send you a PM about sending the watch to me, but your profile doesn't have a button to send a message, so you must have disabled it. Send me one if you want to have me work on it 🙂
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
OK, now you're just rubbing it in! 🙂 Some nice watches you have there! What's the first one (#158) -- Seiko?
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Nick (KoNickon) sent me his Vostok Komandirskie watch to service. The hour hand wouldn't move, even though the minute hand and seconds hand are working properly.
I suspected that it had some broken or missing teeth from either the hour wheel or the minute wheel, and upon disassembling it, I found that the hour wheel has some broken teeth. I have a new Vostok hour wheel that I'll install when I reassemble it. I mae a video showing how I diagnosed the cause of the problem:
I'm going to finish disassembling the movement and give it a full service; the part will be cleaned, reassembled, and relubricated. I'll make videos showing the work I do on that as I progress on the service.
I suspected that it had some broken or missing teeth from either the hour wheel or the minute wheel, and upon disassembling it, I found that the hour wheel has some broken teeth. I have a new Vostok hour wheel that I'll install when I reassemble it. I mae a video showing how I diagnosed the cause of the problem:
I'm going to finish disassembling the movement and give it a full service; the part will be cleaned, reassembled, and relubricated. I'll make videos showing the work I do on that as I progress on the service.
Muggins
Proprietor of Orphanage for Lost Cameras
Either you have very small wrists or that's a clock on a strap!
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Most watches made today are gigantic and look ridiculous unless you have giant arms. I've had serious health issues since early childhood and my wrists are TINY; that's one of the big reasons why I love vintage watches so much. In the 50s, a normal men's watch was about 32mm in diameter. Today, most are over 40mm.
Muggins
Proprietor of Orphanage for Lost Cameras
That might explain the thing I got one birthday that felt like an anvil, it was so big!
Rayt
Nonplayer Character
At my graduation my father took his Rolex off his wrist and give it to me. It’s really expensive to maintain a vintage Rolex but I want to keep it running. It doesn’t manually wind anymore and after three repairs it still doesn’t wind but the watch is accurate as long as I use it. The crystal from that era is plastic so it scratches and I have had it replaced twice now,
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I wonder why no one who has repaired it could get the manual winding working? That's a real simple mechanism on a watch. Does it need parts they cannot find?
All watch crystals will scratch, except maybe sapphire. The nice thing about plastic is that light scratches can be easily buffed out with some cotton balls and a $7 tube of Polywatch (Amazon sells it) and if it has deep scratches, plastic crystals are cheap and easy to install. The glass crystal in my Seiko was cheap, but a real pain to install. It required an expensive crystal press and you have to be very careful to get it pressed into place perfectly flat so it doesn't sit at an angle; and it requires a plastic crystal gasket that can be damaged if you don't press the crystal in perfectly aligned.
Rayt
Nonplayer Character
I have had this early 60’s Rolex for 40 years and before when I pull the crown out at the first notch it would wind smoothly but then maybe 15 years ago it would be really stiff barely able to turn a few times. No improvements after three services. The last repair guy said the last repairman did not mount a spring properly. I can wind it now but it’s stiff so don’t want to force it.
I haven’t worn it in a week so just now I start to wind it. It starts smooth but after ten rotations it gets stiff. Since it works and accurate I won’t get the regular maintenance for another few years.
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KoNickon
Nick Merritt
It's not that big, really. Maybe 42mm including the bezel. I have some larger ones. Looks fine on my wrist, and I don't have large wrists.
I've started watching the video, and I misremembered -- I pulled out the paperwork and indeed the watch was made in 1998, not '89. So the Roman inscription and "Made in Russia" makes sense.
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Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Muggins was responding to one of kshaparo's posts, where kshaparo is wearing a huge modern watch. Vostok's are large, but many of them wear surprisingly small because a lot of Vostok cases have extremely short strap lugs. I have some Vostoks with 42mm cases, which normally is a size way too big for my skinny wrists, and they look good and wear comfortably for me.
1998 sounds good. I imagine they were trying to export them and assumed people would want English inscriptions in the US, Britain, etc. Today, they market them as unique/nostalgic because they're old Soviet designs, so they've gone back to Russian inscriptions on those exported.
Muggins
Proprietor of Orphanage for Lost Cameras
Indeed I was! I was beginning to wonder what I'd quoted myself, TBH.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
In this video, I complete the disassembly of the movement in Nick's Vostok watch. The next step is to clean the movement parts before reassembling it.
chuckroast
Well-known
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
Ye gods, Chris! A Contax has nothing on this! (Has the mainspring finally wound down yet? 🙂)
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
He lays on the floor nearby and tries to guilt me by looking sad and lonely because he wants attention, and doesn't like me wasting time working when I could be holding him!
Yours is more complex than most of the watches I've serviced because it is an automatic and has a date function; but even a simple manual-winding no-date watch packs a lot of tiny parts into a small space. Most no-date manual winders have around 42 parts held together by around 20 screws; and the screws are tiny. Most of the screws are less than 1mm across the top of the head!
