Omega T-17 restoration

eBay can also be used for finding service documents and missing parts you have stashed in a box somewhere ...

One of the things I found last week when I was going through the omega stuff was a T-17 movement and dial. I never thought much of these old rectangular 20 movements. While interesting the dials have badly discolored or faded. I do like art deco. Still these interesting old things. I posted a photograph of this movement in one of my introductory threads. (might have been the things with springs chat.)

Over the weekend I ordered another chronograph case part in hopes it would fit one of my movements (like my lemania 105 movement.) This case part came today so I immediately started going through cases hoping to find a back and a bezel . I then got sidetracked on the Sisyphean task of sorting through a box of dust I have had for decades.


I had marked some eBay listings which had photographs of T-17 parts as this movement is probably worth restoring.


To my utter astonishment I saw a bridge that looked like one in the ebay screenshot!


Even more improbable is that they fit perfectly.
Inconceivable!!!

-j

It gets even better!!!



Still missing the escape wheel and the pallets. Possible that I already have sorted them into the sorting bins. Staff is busted, (we would not this to be too good to be true) hairspring and roller look ok. Found a bunch of tiny screws which may or may not be to this. I have also found cap jewels and setting levers, which will take time to sort through.

The dial side is missing the motionworks and most of the setting stuff. The center wheel arbor is busted off. I have a lathe, and even some old 19th century pivot turns. Using that however is a real time sink. Such parts can be had for a price on the auction sites. (was looking at them anyway.)

Found a click, but it seems to be too large. Ironically I would love to find the missing 650 click. I was attempting to clean things up so I can put the 650 back together. Keep getting distracted by sorting through all the rest of this stuff.

-j

Finished sorting the dustbox. Took less time than I thought. And to think I could have spent the evening watching you tube videos, or pressing command-R here and on auction sites.

Found the capstone. Seems to be held in by some sort of slotted disk. There were a lot of regulator arms in the dust box. Finding the correct regulator will be a challenge. At least I have the online photographs from eBay listing.

The escapement (wheel and lever) and the keyless works are going to tricky as these parts all look the same, and there were dozens of them in the dustbox. The lever might be easier to find as it is inline. Did find one but it was too large. Then I managed to drop it onto the floor. (easy come easy go.)

There were not any small disk type clicks in the dustbox curious. A lot of the dust seems to be floor sweepings, rusty, broken bent parts. I got lucky as sometimes I would take these and put them into a small ziplock bag and give them to my steampunk friends. They would call it steampunk crack. Did not know one could get high on watch parts.

My search for more T-17 info became circular Found this post here. Most helpful in identifying parts.
https://omegaforums.net/threads/t17-spares.79976/#post-1061784

Late here, but finding these parts really made my day.
-j

From experience, I've found that it saves a LOT of time if all of the bits are stored out of the way and ONLY accessed when actually looking for a specific part.

Note that the boxes are on high shelves.



Except for this one I was too lazy to find a high spot for.



Another tip, don't get distracted by unusual movements or other interesting looking bits, or else you end up saying something like "Shit! Is that the time?".

😲

Ah a new day beckons.
The parts are mostly sorted. The bulk of these trays were sorted back in the 1990s. I keep wanting to make a machine to do this automatically. Or at least measure the sizes automatically. We were discussing this last week on the clubhouse chat. Probably no need for full AI. Simple pattern matching should do it. The old service manuals had silliuatte photos. And to the topic of this thread, these often show up in eBay auctions. So an AI could be trained to search ebay auctions to identify parts.


Once I realized there are T17 parts in this mess I sorted things into smaller tins. There is a good probability more missing parts are in this these photographs. I do not have time today to continue searching, perhaps this evening.


-j

Barring the return of Inigo Montoya. I think I found all the parts that have not blown away somewhere. I was able to find the setbridge and yoke and probably the yokespring. Other parts are hard to identify and they are somewhat generic. I did select some candidate parts (shown on the left.) It is hard to know if the motion works is the right one. There is not a lot of corrosion, so I think the unrusted screws are likely ones for this movement.
Now this project can go back in a box to sit in the drawer. I could not come close to finding an escape lever or escape wheel. The balance bridge is missing the regulator and most importantly the clip that holds in the upper jewel. I dug through the trash looking for this. Did find some more timing washers, so I think my search was pretty thorough. I think the missing clip is 5165. The regulator is 5075.
The broken center wheel minute arbor and the seconds register pivot, make this project not real practical project in the near future.
Still it is nice to have all this stuff together again.
-j