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JimInOz
··Melbourne Australia........was all that it needed.
A Seiko 6309-5230 that had been obtained by a client for use as a donor, one of a bunch of four.
I had a quick look at the movements in the other three (cases opened with a rubber ball) but this little bugger was too tight for the ball.
Never mind, I tried my trusty two prong case opener. Nup!
Then I tried the BIG case opener. Nyet!
So then it was out to the garage, case clamped in soft jaws and max pressure applied with a 3 prong Jaxa. Nada!
Wondering if some previous owner had sealed the caseback with Loctite 263 as a bit of a joke, I decided to get serious. I made a square ended punch from a nail (being slightly softer than the caseback) and tapped away with a ball pein hammer. All that did was push the case out of the vice.
Even applying a bit of heat with a pencil torch did nothing, so late last night I sat the case in a shallow dish of WD40 and went to bed.
This morning it was no soft jaws, just straight into the vice and with a re-shaped punch, I started again. Amazingly after about 30 seconds of tapping, IT MOVED! I then finished opening with the Jaxa.
Finally open!
Water intrusion from long ago had left its mark.
But the balance and hairspring looked OK (from a distance).
The dial was in the same sort of condition but I'll try and do a restore on it just for fun and I'm going to see if I can get this running properly again.
Did I say just for fun?
I must be mad.
A Seiko 6309-5230 that had been obtained by a client for use as a donor, one of a bunch of four.
I had a quick look at the movements in the other three (cases opened with a rubber ball) but this little bugger was too tight for the ball.
Never mind, I tried my trusty two prong case opener. Nup!
Then I tried the BIG case opener. Nyet!
So then it was out to the garage, case clamped in soft jaws and max pressure applied with a 3 prong Jaxa. Nada!
Wondering if some previous owner had sealed the caseback with Loctite 263 as a bit of a joke, I decided to get serious. I made a square ended punch from a nail (being slightly softer than the caseback) and tapped away with a ball pein hammer. All that did was push the case out of the vice.
Even applying a bit of heat with a pencil torch did nothing, so late last night I sat the case in a shallow dish of WD40 and went to bed.
This morning it was no soft jaws, just straight into the vice and with a re-shaped punch, I started again. Amazingly after about 30 seconds of tapping, IT MOVED! I then finished opening with the Jaxa.
Finally open!
Water intrusion from long ago had left its mark.
But the balance and hairspring looked OK (from a distance).
The dial was in the same sort of condition but I'll try and do a restore on it just for fun and I'm going to see if I can get this running properly again.
Did I say just for fun?
I must be mad.
Edited:
