Omega 30T2 Repair: Sourcing Balance & Bridge Parts

Hairsprings. I have about 4 bumpers what need hairsprings.

A lot depends on what the estate sellers find in old cache's. This week there is quite a bit listed. Problem is, that to get the part, one aquires the bulk of the parts watch and as noted before, the cycle continues.

I have a bid on the T30 parts. Doubt I will get them for a reasonable amount. Of the 5 items I bid on this weekend, I only won one auction. Which at least was for some 710 stems.

It has been about three to 6 months since stuff like this was listed. So there is a lot of feast and famine.

It is not really in Omega or other manufactures interest to keep the old stuff working. It really has no bearing on any modern post 1990s watches which are a completely different thing. Done with different computer aided manufacturing.

While I was unsuccessful cutting hands from razor blades. Tuna can steel cuts just fine on the laser. The laser also was able to cut the thicker X-acto knife blade, So this makes for a way to form some flat parts like set springs. I have a book titled 21st century watchmaking which details grinding out these parts. Curiously written by the same Father/Son team that wrote the chronograph repair correspondence course.

Outside hobby activity, it is not economical to spend time on repairing or replicating a consumable part.

There is also a tendency to forget that after WWII there were still 100s of Swiss watch manufactures. I think A. Schild 3 handers are just as easy to work on a T30. The quality may not be as consistent. Curiously some of these are listed as rolex compatible. Rolex at one point in it's history being more of a case finishing company than a movement maker.

As I often repeat the quote of my mentor, these 'generic.' Swiss watches, could last 500 years if maintained.

Recognition and bragging rights about being able to supply parts for 30mm movements? You must be joking.

Swatch cares about social media influencers. Collectors of obscure (and relatively inexpensive) vintage watches have a negligible impact on their bottom line.

I agree with everything you wrote, but I just don't think that Swatch gives a fying fluck.

I have been collecting off and on for 30 years. So it is not just the manufacture hoarding parts or grabbing them when they come available.

A few watchmakers I have visited also hoard parts. So while the supply is dwindling. These do come up in estate lots from time to time. So there really is no motivation for creating alternate parts.

In actuality, the parts prices are still fairly low. Some sellers list things that sit unsold for months/years, Eventually someone will pay the top dollar or sesterti. I passed over a bunch of 34x bumper stuff this weekend and today. Other hoarders grabbed it. Looked like there were a few balance completes with hairspring.

More later in the week. Readers here are not likely to bid, as they expect the watchmaker to do this for them.

I have a bunch of wheels what could possibly be re-pivoted. Finding or making drills that small what can cut into the alloy is not worth the effort. Given time usually a wheel will show up in an estate auction.

Also have a bunch of pallet fork adjusting tools. Also some old Besfit or Sitze jewel assortments. A real time waster to fiddle with the micrometer. Such is actually a textbook image processing/part identification that any first year college engineering student could do. While the demo of an optical flow scanner was not successful on watch parts. It was optimized for automotive sized parts. The actual guts of the machine are open source as the patents are expired.

Which was the whole point of the patent. That anyone could use them once the generational monopoly ends. Yet now they are used to restrict trade. Speculators valuing a company by the patent portfolio. So investors do not want to fund something anyone could copy.

It really comes down to motivation. Meanwhile the hoarding continues.

As they used to say, 'There are plenty of fish in the sea.'

Yesterday won a collection of scrap T30 parts. No balance bridge in the pictures. I think a later model. Listing says 1943. No midcase or dial either.

So this material is out there. One has to keep an active daily and sometimes hourly search going.

I was thinking the OP got the watch back with a balance staff, I guess that was actually @sathomasga who got the watch back.