PS: This thread will be a bit quiet for some time until a new mainspring and a batch of new seals arrive in the mail.

 

Nice work Jim! Glad the barrel as okay - if it tips to the point where is contacts the bridges, then that's when you need to take some action to determine if it's in the barrel itself, or in the main plate or bridge. The wear on the flat surfaces of the barrel drum and the over should be looked at to make sure there aren't any rough parts there that might snag the mainspring. If so, a new barrel should be used, or if you are in a pinch, the roughness can be removed.

These Seikos tend to have amplitude that sucks, so anything you can do to get it up will help get you better results in the end. Another area where I see issues on barrels is the top surface of the hole that the arbor goes through in the drum. Ham fisted watchmakers who don't use barrel arbor holders, or are just clumsy with them, can chew up the top surface of the hole when inserting the barrel arbor, and this is another cause of amplitude loss. Sometimes this damage can be cleaned up so the surface is flat again, and then you just have to check the barrel arbor end shake.

Case work looks good too. It's a whole other set of skills really.

On the subject of spring loaded balls....no we are still talking watches...and rotating bezels...

Here is the Omega version of the same, as shown in a vintage Seamaster:



Here the ball is a ruby sphere, with a spring in a hole drilled into the case. In later versions, they went to a design that is more of a self contained capsule, and the ball is some sort of ceramic material, likely similar to what is used in ceramic ball bearings for rotors:



In contrast Rolex at the time had no clicks in their bezels at all, just a friction spring under the bezel (my 1680 from the early 70's has this), so very different approaches back in the day.

Not sure who was the first with a one direction bezel, does anyone know? I do know the old Doxa 300T's had a one direction bezel, and they were made in 1969 I believe. In the past I've made new click springs for them, like on this one several years ago - it's just a wire spring and the one for this watch was missing, but I knew what it looked like, so out came the wire:



Getting there:





Hard to see as my photography skills were a bit lacking back then, but it's on the case. There is a section that turns down to go into the anchor hole, and then it wraps around the case, and a small section is turned out towards the case edge:



When installed, the bezel only turned CCW...

The common flat click spring with 3 tabs on it that Omega uses now is a more recent design, and many of the early click designs used the balls or a wire.

Sorry, bit of a diversion from the topic but I do wonder who was the first with a one way bezel...

Cheers, Al

 

Good job on the click spring manufacturing- much better than a paper clip

How often do you have to manufacture parts for vintage watches, and what are the limitations as to how complicated the part has to be in order to make the task impossible?

I wonder what kind of click spring my modern DOXA Poseidon LE uses?

 

I seem to remember that Blancpain had that feature on their early divers (early/mid-fifties?) and due to parents on the design kept others from utilising the functionality.

 

Fortunately, not often. This click spring was an easy task that didn't take long, but for something more complicated it often comes down to what people are willing to pay for. If I can source an actual pre-made part, that is always the best and likely cheapest option.

Other than costs, the thing that most often limits what I can do is the equipment I have. I have a watchmaker's lathe that I use regularly, but it doesn't have attachments for gear cutting, so anything requiring a new gear being cut isn't something I would be able to do without spending a lot of money. I actually had experienced watchmakers who were mentoring me when I first started, telling me not to bother getting a lathe, because they never used one. I found that strange at the time, and I use mine quite often, but a lot of what you need depends on the type of work you do. So if you are sort of a "retail" watchmaker that spends their days flipping batteries and adjusting bracelets for walk-in customers in a store, and doing the odd mechanical service in the back when time permits, you are not likely going to need a lathe. If you restore true antique watches that are 2 centuries old, you had better be fully equipped to fabricate pretty much anything from gears to complete fusée chains...

Note that I use mine as much for making tools that I need (for example a custom punch or stake for some operation) as I do for making or modifying watch parts. It is also useful in many refinishing operations for case parts.

There are a few guys in the watchmaking community who focus on parts manufacturing, so they started out being watchmakers who service watches, and over the years gathered the equipment to do a lot of manufacturing, and have specialized in that now, and no longer service watches. There's one that I use on occasion when I have a job that I'm not equipped to do, and his prices are reasonable for the work that goes into it, but in the end still quite expensive.

The modern Doxa's are notoriously difficult to get the bezels off. I have the Omega set for removing dive bezels, and despite trying on a number of different models, it wouldn't work to remove a bezel from a modern Doxa. Some people have suggested prying bezels off, but I have seen so much damage done by that method that it's not something I want to do personally. I even contacted Doxa (who I bought many parts from in the past) and asked them what tools or procedures they had for removing the bezels, but they always said that I needed to send the watch in if I wanted the bezel removed...I was always able to work around it on the watches I had in the shop, so never did that.

Cheers, Al

 

I have a Bergeron bezel puller that has 4 claws that grab the edges of a dive bezel, and then you screw down a plunger that puts force on the crystal to pull the bezel up and off.

I’ve only used it on my old Planet Ocean 2500 to swap between black and orange bezels. I probably won’t try it on my DOXA, I was just curios about the DOXA click and retention springs vs my Planet Ocean for example, since we had one in the thread.

 

Likely a Bergeon 7820 - the newer version of the 6820 (which had 3 jaws). I've used the 6820 before, and honestly wasn't a fan as it used steel jaws, and if anything slipped there was potential for gouging. Omega now makes a version that functions in a similar way, but the parts that contact the n=bezel are hard plastic, rather than steel.

 

Fascinating stuff! Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing the end result.

 

Love it. Makes me want to send my 6306 to one of you guys for a service.

 

Hooray, a mainspring has arrived .

But I'm too worn out after a day of hose cleaning, gardening and driving, but tomorrow it begins again.

(and Australia Post excelled, less than 24 hours to deliver it).

 

Thank you for the very comprehensive write up Jim. I've been playing with a 6309 from a crappy dress watch as my first auto service. Very poor amplitude on the first rebuild though so I'll need to have another look at it before progressing to the dial side and auto mechanism.

 

I had just started back to work fitting the mainspring when the Postie rang the doorbell.
The gaskets have arrived!



However, I was slightly distracted by another little box I had to sign for................



Very tempting to check this one out, but first come, first serve so it'll have to wait .

Looks to be in very good condition though.



Anyway, back to the Turtle.

 

Nice world timer... I missed out on one at an auction a few months ago. Keeping a eye out but missed the hnco one, congrats.

Anyhoo, it’s nearing beer o’clock on a Friday arvo so I’m sure the next instalment of The Turtle won’t be until the weekend - looking forward to it.

 

Beer o'clock it shall be, it's been a busy day.

After I got my Darlin' off to see her folks up in the hills and finished with the Postie, I got back to the barrel and mainspring. Barrel walls were given a light film of Moebius 8217 Braking Grease and three drops of Moebius 8200in the mainspring area, then the mainspring was put in. Arbor bearing areas were given spots of Moebius 9405 grease. Looks much better now.



Next was putting things on the main plate, starting with the balance jewel. I put too much oil on the cap jewel so I had to pull it off, clean it, re-oil it and set it. You can see how small the cap jewel is, it's the pink dot on the watch paper.



The hard part is re-installing the spring clip that holds the jewel assembly in place. It has to be held over the cap jewel with a stick in the centre so it can't escape, then a fine pointed tool used to get the three legs of the spring in and under the groove in the plate.
(I know! I shouldn't use an oiler for things like that, but it was handy, won't do it again! )



The setting works were next, nothing too difficult, just applying the minimum amount of oil/grease where needed and the plate was ready for the major parts to go on.



The first wheel to go in is the centre wheel, and it's bridge, then the escape wheel, third wheel and fourth wheel and barrel are put in place.

And this is when I remembered why I don't like the 6309 movement. The combined train/barrel bridge is a real PITA. Trying to get all pivots aligned and the bridge seated needs great care so that pivots aren't damaged and jewels aren't cracked. It takes a lot of teasing with my special tool (a brush bristle in a fine hypodermic needle) to get them all positioned before seating the bridge.

After about 20 minutes of teasing and tapping the movement holder it was done and I went for a coffee.




Having taken more time than I expected, and as I had to cook dinner for my Darlin' I decided to wrap it all up and take a break.

So all ready for tomorrow when I can finish the power train and test it for performance and efficiency.

Until then.

 

Another nice day and Ms JiO has gone to get her hair done so I have peace and quiet for a few hours, time enough to fit the pallet and balance.

One thing I found was that the pallet was extremely small and difficult to hold if you need three hands, so I did a McGyver and used a small O-ring to turn my tweezers into a clamp. This held the pallet while I used a microscope and a fine oiler to apply Moebius 9415 to the pallet stones.



Pallet was installed then the balance was dropped in and started straight away, even without a top jewel. The jewel was installed, the cap given a dot of Moebius 9010, the retaining spring fitted and that's the power train complete.


Ticking away nicely .



On to the Timegrapher to see if there is any difference between the first reading and the first post service check.

BEFORE



AFTER



I'm happy with that. I'll give it a few hours for the lubes to settle in and then I'll check it with the lift angle set to 54.5º.

In the meantime, I can finish assembling the case and bezel.

 

Boy, doesn't the bench get messy if you don't keep it "neat'n'clean" .



The setting parts and the day/date gearing went in OK, now checking the quickset and 24 hour day/date function.



Hands fitted, hand clearance check required.



It's now cased up (minus auto winding assy) so I'll let it run overnight and then tomorrow I'll do some tuning.

Getting close to the end, then I'll have to give it back to the owner.

 

Great read!! I feel like taking my 6309 apart and...destroying it

 

Hi Jim,

Good to see it coming together. The method of oiling the escapement is a little unorthodox, and my concern would be that in the process of installing the pallet fork with oil already on the jewels, you would end up getting oil from those jewels where it doesn't belong. In addition, it's unclear if you would be getting the right amount of oil on the escapement.

I cover the oiling of the escapement in detail here:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/basic-watchmaking-tips-oiling-part-4-the-escapement.87072/

Oiling it after installation is pretty much a universal thing - I only say pretty much because who knows if someone is out there instructing in a different way, but this is the accepted practice. I don't recall these Seiko movements being specifically an issue when oiling the escapement installed as the thread I linked to shows, so you would likely get a more consistent result if you tried doing it the way shown in that thread.

Cheers, Al

 

Good point Al, and that's usually what I do.

However, the design of the 6309 with the full train/barrel bridge (a PITA) and a wheel covering the approach pallet made pretty difficult so I made the decision to apply the lube prior to installation.

I applied 9415 in very thin dots to the striking and sliding faces of the stones.

Putting the pallet in place without touching the escape (too much) was done under a microscope and I don't think I spread lube where it wasn't need to a great extent.

I've left it to run overnight and will check it in the morning and see if the lube is OK or needs doing again