A Shout-out to my Watchmaker

Gosh knows I give them enough grief, I might as well give him a bit of praise...

I've been sending most of my work to TM Watch (@Tmorehouse51 ) for around 2 and half years now. Probably 10 or so pieces, not a lot for some of you but a fair amount for me. I learned of this service here on the forum. Sadly, my local guy developed eye problems that made really fine work impossible so I was open to shipping my babies off for service.

I wanted my Omega 2757-2 cal 355 bumper serviced, but I kept holding off because this is one of my favorites and I fear for it's safety in somebody else's hands - the Mother Hen complex. I sent them a cal. 354 as a test in fact before the 355. They passed the test.

I was talking to Tanner the other day about a couple of diver's I was sending and he mentioned the bumper was ready and he would be sending it back so be on the lookout for the invoice. "Fine" I replied and then he says something along the lines of "Oh, by the way I cleaned up that dial for you."

I think I did a good job of keeping the panic out of my reply "Sounds great! I look forward to seeing it." My waffle dial, that fragile old thing! At the mercy of some maniac case-polishing mini-mechanic! Oh NO!!!

Well, I just got the watch back and I am impressed. I have no idea what Tanner did but it is, in the hand, like WOW! better. It had a nice warm patina, mind you, but it was uneven; smudgy and dull on the 7 to 11 side. There was some existing abrasion that is still there but now far less noticeable. I think she looks great!

Here's a before shot:


Note the smudgy stuff in that 7 to 11 or 12 quadrant. The darker mark between 11 and 12 is abrasion.

And the after shot:



She looks great after the facial, IMO.



Thanks, guys! Good job!

No I don't. I was frankly afraid to ask. Now that it's back and is looking good on the wrist I don't care. Maybe he'll see this post and elucidate...

Some wristies; this is a Duchess bracelet, BTW:

I've never really had a watchmaker that conferred with me a lot. One of my first, a German Swiss guy never told me anything except the price when I went to pick stuff up. Lost me when he changed a crown out on a watch and it didn't match. I was new to this and really didn't know how to talk with a watchmaker. Would have been shy to complain.

Having said that, in my work I sometimes go out of scope and fix a problem I perceive with a customer's set up. Generally nobody on site has a clue and if they did they probably would have fixed it.

I think it looks fantastic- you got lucky. I think SOP for most watchmakers is to make it look as good as possible (make it shiny)- so cleaning a dial would be part of that if they think they can do it without damage. Asking them not to when you drop it off would be the best way to ensure they don’t do anything cosmetic. To us, it seems a no-brainer, I didn’t ask for it so why did you clean it? But some watchmakers, it’s just the way they do it.

Diluted water? What like err water? 😉

And you would be surprised how badly it works in the wrong situations. Along with cleaning using other methods. I've seen way more failed attempts than successful ones, and the problem is you never really know how well it will work until you try, and then it's too late.
Ask the guy who had his vintage Speedmaster dial literally rinsed under a tap to clean it how that turned out...or the guy who had his dial dipped in solvent to remove dust and all the printing came off...just two examples people have come to me for advice on after a watchmaker did something without asking that come to mind. Any sort of aggressive cleaning (or not even that aggressive) is playing with fire. I always tell people who ask me that they should only clean a dial (other than gently removing loose materials) if they are prepared to destroy it.