I recently found a watchmaker in Minnesota who does pretty amazing lapping machine work on Speedmasters. Here are a couple of pictures of a Mark II that he just polished for me. The price was well under $150, and the turnaround time was a couple of days. He's a full-service watchmaker, who (for example) knows how to handle chrono stutter and hour register creep. I'll be testing that out shortly. Send me a PM if you'd like more info. I have zero connection with him, other than as a satisfied customer.
Looks good! Yes, metal is sacrificed to get the finish back, but looks nice. The tell for me is always on the hooded ends where you can see how thin it gets.
I agree if the case is beat up to crap and you no longer can stand its look , to the lapping machine off it goes . Sure they will take metal out but to me that is better than the beat up vintage look. I know some will cringe but I don't mind a newly refurbished vintage watch . Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
To prevent losing the small flat portion of the case near the crystal completely, they actually have to change the angle of the grind if the wear on the case is severe, so the case angle gets steeper than it was originally. More material is removed from the outer edge than the inner as a result, and the section near the lugs gets very thin on some of these. On some it's doubtful if it could be completely cleaned up again after refinishing like this, so this may be the last time refinishing can be done if it gets thin. There was a thread on another forum where someone sent a watch to Omega, and they removed so much material it was nuts. Yes at first glance it looked better, but there was barely any material left at the lugs... Just something to keep in mind on these watches. Cheers, Al
Hey guys this is Tanner from TM Watch. Just wanted to point out a few things to you guys on here. When I refinish a case I actually laser weld in the dents to avoid taking off too much material. When I refinished his case , it was already heavily refinished. I didn't actually even take any off of the top where the crystal is seated. PM me if anyone has any questions or inquiries. Thanks guys!
Personally I think it look good. From what I gather this is a skilful job and as noted in my opinion looks infinitely better than a beat up case. Each to their own however Wear in the best of health!!
Nice looking watch mate! Metal, Shhhmetal??? Who needs a ton of metal on their wrist anyway? Think of the load on your poor elbow joint!! My watch is covered in 52 years of grime and crap. I would love to have it polished like yours but I've been advised to have it sympathetically cleaned! I think your watch looks really nice.
It's my dear old Dad's DNA! We keep our grime in the family It's all I have left of my dear old Dad and it'll end up down the sink at Swiss Time Services!
You could swab it all off and put it in a little glass bottle and keep it on the mantel over the fireplace. You know, next to your belly button lint collection.
Don't get me wrong. I think it's a great job and I am sure you can easily fix that line. Maybe you didn't notice. Btw what is your laser welding machine? Here in Italy there's a lot of mithology going around this laser welding process. People doesn't understand it's just adding some metal to the case and then polish. There are indipendents here that are charging over 1000 euros for a watch polish just because they tell they are using the mythical laser welder. Recently I tried to discuss this in an Italian forum and I was attacked, I couldn't tell those prices are ridiculous. I guess there were a lot of watchmakers there.
