A Successful Sunday

Ms JimInOz was off visiting her Mum and I was in the garage working on my bikes.
I got a call from @bindo who had a watch that needed looking at, so having nothing to do except tinker with tyre pressures and oil levels I said, “No probs, bring it around”.

Turns out it was a Tissot chronograph he’d found when cleaning stuff up, I think he even forgot he had it. Anyway, the battery was flat so he had taken it to a local battery person to get it replaced.
All went well, the new battery went in, the case was closed and then the person went to set the time.

In doing so, they managed to pull the crown and stem completely out of the watch!
😲😲😲
Not a problem, all that’s needed is to remove the caseback again, use a very fine screwdriver to push the stem release lever down while gently inserting the stem/crown. Caseback on and all done.

However! The person immediately thought the best method was to jam the stem/crown back into the watch hoping that what came out must go back in.
Not so.
The watch is a Tissot “V8” chronograph with an ETA G10.211 caliber.

Now, before we go on, have read of this:

https://calibercorner.com/eta-caliber-g10-211/

pay particular attention to the the following two comments.



And even more importantly................

The outcome of the battery change was that pushing the stem/crown back in with force and no forethought displaced the stem release "button", and as the actual hole in the plate is a very tight 0.60mm, there is no way of depressing it.

So what do we do......................

We discussed the situation, and being aware of the type of movement, @bindo gave me the go ahead to do whatever, and if it was repairable, all good, if not he would have a nice "display watch".

After researching this movement I came across a few videos, this one showing the construction of the movement.

With a better understanding of the construction of the base movement, I decided to do a surgical intervention so that I could access the now hidden (possibly damaged) stem release lever.

Here we go.



Here's the plate that need to come off so that I can enlarge that tiny access hole below the relatively huge hole on the plate.

The plate is held to the plastic movement case by double sided adhesive film. With the plate out of the way I can use an Antilope jewellers 1.4mm drill to enlarge access hole for the stem release lever.



Touch by touch and check, then keep going until the hole is complete.
After vacuuming all of the plastic scarf out of the movement we are presented with access to the hidden jewel, and after a bit of coaxing with a fine needle we have the stem release lever in the right place.

It was almost too easy after that. All bits vacuumed out of the movement, the top plate put back on the gluey bit and the crown/stem inserted as per manufacturer's design.

Then it as a new battery, caseback pressed on and all done.

A successful Sunday.