This watch hobby is sort of insane. Allow me to explain...one of my railroad grade pocket watches, a 23j Waltham Vanguard 1908, has a pair of color mismatched balance jewel setting screws...one has a normal polished finish and the other has a blue polished finish. From what I’ve researched, the normal polished finish is correct. Anyway, the blue screw has been bugging me for quite some time [about a year]...so today I spent TWO POINT FIFE [2.5] HOURS carefully removing the blue screw, lightly polishing off the blue finish with product from a Cape Cod cloth, cleaning the screw and then carefully re-installing the screw. Gee...TWO POINT FIFE [2.5] HOURS just to do that? Really? Yes...but everything is “matchy-matchy”...and I feel better now. Blue screw from pics previously posted in WRUW Today thread... No more blue on the screw...I’m digging the “matchy-matchy”...
You are master of your universe. You figured out this watch hobby thing; It’s about sanity in an insane world with one blue screw. Tip of the hat sir.
My Gawd , I don’t know how you lived with that. I would have thrown the watch away. Now you have to worry that the dimensions are slightly different.
That one? If he's referring to that one...it looks like the head of that screw is fairly thick so the regulator spring has a significant surface [on the side of the screw head] to push against, right?
I figured that mate, just thought I'd drop some more "watchmaker" talk into the mix to keep the thread going. It's a lot more interesting than the "Does my arse look big with this Speedmaster" ones.
Cool beans, sir. Also, I wasn't quite sure if the bluing would be removable...or if it was removable, how difficult [or easy] it would be to remove. I know that bluing is created by heat and I've seen steel blued by heat in various applications...manifold pipes on motorcycles/automobiles, the hands of the railroad pocket watches that I own, etc. I was actually surprised that the slightly abrasive product contained in the Cape Cod cloth removed the bluing fairly easily. The bluing is not as durable as I had thought...which has taught me to be much more respectful regarding the preservation of the bluing on the hands of my railroad pocket watches. No wonder they had us use wooden tipped tweezers at the AWCI when we handled the hands of our generic flieger ETA 6497-1 watches...even though those hands are not blued. In sum...learning has occurred...and I have "matchy-matchy"...which looks "goody-goody"!
You hoser! Now I have to remove both screws and heat them up [with something]..."screw" that...that's too much work...I'll just heat them up [with something] while still installed in the balance jewel setting!
I binge watched three hours of "Jessica Jones" on Netflix last night ... your project was a much better use of time.
