I received a PM from a member who wanted to know if I was interested in servicing his Dad's vintage Normana (apparently @Nick Hacko is busy bringing vintage Breitling chronos back to life ). With my OK, the watch was in the post and arrived less than 24 hours later. At first glance it was obvious that this was a watch that had been well worn (in both senses), and if you maybe saw it on eBay you would either ignore it or risk a few dollars for parts. But if it was the watch that your Father wore most of his life, then the question of value gets thrown out. In cases like this, it's not all about money is it. First thing was to get a couple of photos. The crystal could do with replacement but the case will be left with all of its marks and gouges, just a gentle cleaning to remove built up crud. The back of the watch doesn't tell me much. Maybe a serial number? Or a model number? Who knows? Information regarding this brand is very thin on the ground even though the company was a well established Swiss watchmaker in the 20th century. About the only useful info was the entry in Mikrolisk. So we have little to go on. Let's hope I don't find some weird caliber inside.
Next step was to put it on the Timegrapher to see how the movement was performing. I gave it a full wind and wasn't surprised to see some erratic performance, although the traces were nice and even. A quick check in all positions showed the need for a service.
Now to open it up and see what we have. Everything looks resonably clean for a watch of this age , considering the condition of the outside. The movement looked familiar, but not being sure I made another pic to use in searching (saves turning my head sideways erery five seconds. Off to my old Paulson's Master Reference to see if I could find anything. The movement measured about 22.6mm so I started looking in the 10½''' section and quickly found it. A garden variety AS 1220. Nothing much else of interest inside, just another number and some service scratchings on the caeback. Like the majority of service marks in vantage watches, they mean nothing to anyone except for the watchmaker who put them there. While two of the marks were gibberish, one showed that the watch had probably been serviced in March 1962, possibly by "KD". So now that I have all of the baseline information, I can start with disassembly.
I do like reading these while I have my morning coffee. Looking forward to future instalments. Thank you.
Because this is a "front loader", the crystal has to come off before I can remove the movement. A shap blade and a case knife and the bezel and crystal are off and I'm ready to remove the hands from the dial. Hands off and we can get a clear view of the dial. The dial is heavily stained and the numerals are surrounded by dirt, a lot of signs of "previous work" as well . Even some "grinding gunk" where the hour hand has been rubbing on the dial. With the hands off and safely stored, I can remove the stem and the case screws and take the movement out. Stem removal is started by undoing the setting lever screw, and when I saw this, I knew somebody had been here before me ! Any competent watchmaker has a set of screwdrivers to cater for the various screw head diameters/slot sizes. Apparently, someone in the past only had one screwdriver! Enough complaining. With the stem out and the case screws undone, the movement could be dropped out so that the dial could be removed. With the dial safely off and stored in a dial case it was on with stripping the movement. Q - The dial is obviously in pretty awful condition, so why treat it with kid gloves? A - Be it a pristine 1968 Rolex dial, or a beat up budget Swiss dial, treat them all the same, it becomes a habit and doesn't take any extra time. I only wish previous watchmakers had treated this dial in the same way. <stop bitchin' Jim and get on with it!> OK! Into a movement holder and all of the dial side components are reday for removal. When I looked closely at the cluth wheel and setting levers, I was impressed with the amount of gunk that had built up. I'll definitley be doing a "pre-clean" before I put this in my nice fresh cleaning solution!
Movement side was straightforward, so now it's all apart. I can see that the jewels are particularly dirty, with the dried oils and dust creating a nice "grinding paste". So before going into the cleaning machine, sharp peg wood is used to clean out the jewels. With all jewels done, everything is ready to go for cleaning. While the mainspring looks set, I'll clean it and keep it as it produced good amplitude and power reserve, even with the watch in this condition. I can smell a chorizo/prawn paella cooking, so time for a break.
No, they appear to be plated brass soldered to the dial, there are no embossing marks or rivets on the rear of the dial.
It's not clear to me how you solder indices to a dial that's already painted, or (conversely) paint a dial with the indices already soldered on.
I agree, it would be difficult (impossible) to solder them to a painted dial, maybe an adhesive was used? It's also possible the bare dial (with soldered indices) was painted and then the indices polished to expose their surfaces. That's my conclusion at the moment. I'll have a closer look later but I'm unwilling to do too much "investigating" as it isn't my watch
Or possibly a die-struck dial, gold plated, a wax resist placed on the numerals, then the dial painted?
Had some more time today so back to the bench. First thing as soon as the parts were out of the dryer was to install and libricate the balance jewels. First the pivot jewel is dropped into the cock and a tiny drop of oil applied, then the cap jewel gets another spot of oil. Then the cap jewel is put on the pivot jewel and the Incabloc springs are closed over the cap jewel to hold it in place and also provide a shock spring function. The plate is then turned over and the process repeated for the lower jewel assembly. With both of these done, the balance is removed and pt on a balance tack so it will be safe while installing the remainder of the movement. The obervant among you may have noticed the coils of the hairspring . Anyway, I forged ahead and now have the cleaned mainspring re-wound and installed and the rest of the power train in place and running. Next step tomorrow will be to lubricate the escape components. To close off I'll leave you with a shot of the Ratchet Wheel.
Wow, Thursday already. The little Normana movement ran for quite a few hours (didn't really time it) and showed nice even traces on the timegrapher. However! The high beat error (≈3.0ms) that I thought might go away by itself is still there, so I must take it apart so I can view the position of the balance impulse pin in relation to the banking pins. With a big pocket watch it's an easy task as there's lots of gaps to peer through, but with a small (10½ ligne) caliber there's now way I can see where I need to. So while I do that, here's a little video to keep you amused. PS: Anybody want to guess at the amplitude? A free like given for any answer within 10º.