Hallo OF, i have a small project on my stepfathers watch. Small introduction: the watch stopped working, he brought it to a watchmaker for the "annual" battery change. But this time the watchmaker said, the movement is damaged and needs replacement. So they sent the watch to Germany for cost estimation. They estimated ~300,- EUR. He refused since that is almost the price of the new watch. After a month or so he got the watch back and then consulted with me for help.. Obviously i told him i will try to figure if i can do anything. Thats the condition i got the watch in (seconds hand was floating around the dial. The dial was not centered, i found out later that one foot of the dial was broken off and missing, the second one was bent). Back: My diagnose of the movement was limited to swapping the battery, but that obviously didnt help. So i sourced a new movement on ebay for 30,- EUR. Ronda 6004.b The movement is undecorated, so i swapped the golden "Train wheel bridge" and the "Electronic module cover". I didnt bother repainting the "Coil" in gold colour, i think it matches the colour ob the strap perfectly, so fine with me the way it is (but can be done later as well). So here is the result of the new movement with old parts: Coming back to the dial side, here the minute and hour hand already fited. I had to bend the intact foot of the dial, and also had to file it a little bit, in order to fit the smaller holes of the new movement, worked out ok. So watch is ticking and keeps time, thats great! Then i realised... the seconds hand that was floating around was bent, and was missing the cylinder part. so could not be fit I am not sure if this is even the original hand.. So here i am tryin to figure out the which hand to fit and where to buy it. Ebay search doesnt give any good results. I found a technical dokumentation: https://www.ronda.ch/en/movements/quartz-essentials/ronda-normtech-700-6000/caliber/6004b/ as far as i understand the seconds wheel takes a hand that is 0.2 mm diameter hole. I also measured the length of the seconds hand, but i dont know which one is the correct. If i measure the hand including the round part then its 5mm long, only the straigth part is 4mm. So which length would i have to order, the 4mm or the 5mm? I am also located in Europe, can anyone please advice where one can order a replacement seconds hand? Thank you very much for your help!
I like the project and you are doing a great job. Let's hope you can track down something that will pop on and be a reasonable fit for the second hand.
I ordered parts from cousins uk in the past. Good luck. https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/hands-watch
Cousins? Usually you measure the length from the center of the hole to the tip, in your example roughly 4.5mm, but YMMV.
i am a bit confused by the registration. can one register to accuire the products as a private person? i registered, but my credit card was refused..
Wanted to finish off the story. Finally managed to purchase a set of hands from CousinsUK. Again big thanks for the advice (@KingCrouchy and @S.H. )! They had 2 different styles, A and B but in different lengths, so i ordered both just in case. In the end, wasnt sure that the A type would not be too long so went with the B, beside i personaly thought it looks a bit more fancy So i was kind of done... ... but then thought that the tip of the seconds hand was a bit lifted up, it did clear with the hour hand, but i still wanted to take the hand off and bend is slightly... And then BAM!!! while lifting off the seconds hand the clear lacquer on the dial somehow cracked and ... well i just F..KED up. The irony is, that i ordered a new type of dial protection (thin silicone) together with the hands, as i was only using the bergeon plactic dial protectors untill now, and they are sometimes a bit thick. So i actually just wanted to try the new one... damn.. thats so devastating spending so much time and effort and then to mess up in the end The watch is put back together, runs fine, all hands clear. Actually i feel like a managed 99% of what i was aiming for.. But the aftertaste is.. like a bad stain. well whatever...
Used the 1mm Levers from Horotec. With this silicone dial protection on top: It was a mistake, its too soft. Edit: But most likely it was not the material fault, but my own fault.
Never had problems with silicon protection , but I use either a presto or levers I made myself (very curved and sharp). Live and learn, unfortunately...
I lifted the hands off this dial 3 times in total, the first time with presto, and the other times with levers. Also no problem, until i had a genious idea to correct the seconds hand. I think one lever was not perfectly flat, so when i lifted off, i digged through the silicone. It was pretty sure my mistake. I will try to be more carefull in the future for sure. Nevertheless i am very sad.. And need a cold beer!