Opening a stuck White Shadow

I recently came to learn that I could get at a UG micro rotor without having to pay the polerouter tax in the form of a white shadow so immediately began scouring the auctions.

Found this beauty listed as running but extremely fast, so sold as a junk watch. the dial looked to be in great shape so I put in my bid and managed to snag it.


My problems started when I went to open the caseback and found that the rubber suction cup dies for the caseback opener werent enough to get her open, and the sunken in caseback profile meant I couldn't get any other tool onto it without serious danger of scratching it up.

desperate times called for desperate measures...
Stuck caseback meet M12 nut and superglue.

If its jank but it works, is it still jank?
A bath in some acetone after and you would never know!

immediately found the cause of the running fast.
dirty hairspring strikes again, a quick rinse in benzine to see if I had something more on my hands and it looks like that was the cause, though I will of course have a closer look when I am dismantling the movement for an overhaul.

a little bit of rust on the rotor screw and wheel, as well as on the winding pawl spring, which is a bit scary.

Will hopefully find some time to actually overhaul this one soon, but for now I am enjoying looking at this movement.

These are excellent watches. Funny thing is I just received a 2-66 with the exact same problem, it's sprinting away like it's a high beat movement. In your case, was the dirt making the hairspring stick together at one side, thus altering the speed? Or was there magnetization or something else involved as well?

Congratulations!
I also have a White Shadow and love it.

When you service it, just be aware that the canon pinion and (non-)centre wheel are NOT in the middle. They're decentralised and you need some extra care to take them apart. Where you'd usually find the canon pinion, it's just a wheel.
Don't hesitate to reach out if you need more info or tips.

I demagnetised it before i even opened it up, and in my case there was no improvement, but I definitely wouldnt rule that out as a potential cause, its worth a shot before opening up the case anyway since its basically a free fix if that was the problem.
Lovely photos, I now kinda regret that I didnt do the movement parts lay out photo...
I spent quite some time examining this movement before i started the full dissasembly, to make sure I knew how it worked, during that time I was puzzling over where the slip for time setting was happening and had ultimately determined that it must be a non centralised cannon pinion, I removed this one with tweezers on the staking block, but was considering if it was a job for the platax tool. Luckily it didnt need to come to that.