Way back in the dawn of time I found I had some Landeron movements. This lead me down the Landeron rabbit hole and off on to all sorts of tangents. The initial observations were in this thread, where I more or less rebuilt a Landeron 48. The problem with this warren is there were about a half dozen or so watches in the drawers. The need for replacement parts added the remains of three more. Other auctions aquired missing parts. Twists, turns and what not. In the last six months many things were learned. The main one was that Landeron 48 and Landeron 51, which share a base caliber, do not have many parts in common. Much time was needed to sort though trays of watch parts and new materials intended to traverse this warren. With some effort parts for 9 watches can be identified. (Pay no attention to the Omega side tracks waiting for parts.) The above image shows one of the many iterations attempting to group these rabbits and spare parts. This shows 4 Landeron 51 and 5 Landeron 48 watches. One of the Landeron 51 watches (lower left) is mostly complete needing a case. The other three are basically parts movements. I thought I had posted a screen shot of a typical eBay parts auction. I only found the photo of them from the site. What I was mostly interested here are the dial. Note that one of the dials is not on a watch. This dial actually fits my Valjoux 23 parts watch. Hours of looking at these showed that one of the movements seemed to have most of a wheel train. Shadows shoing the extended 4th wheel pivots. What takes some skill to see, is that someone has jammed a spring from a Landeron 48 onto a Landeron 51 plate. Here again, below, is the before photo of the watch which started this trip down the rabbit hole. This also is a mix of landeron parts. One which was mostly assembled was a Timecraft which has it's own thread. https://omegaforums.net/threads/on-the-bench-landeron-48.149921/#post-2046401 The remaining parts are for a Delbana. This watch is one of the few with a case and pushers. A third case was engraved Modera. Niether the Delbana or the Modera have dials. An auction for a Debana dial proved most fortunate. on arrival it came with a bag of spare parts. To my amazement this watch had a good balance, but no escape wheel. Downside is that the lower jewelcap was also crushed. Interesting that two watches had almost the same failure. With so many movements and parts I decided to try a different approach. Most of the Modera was cleaned at the same time as the Timecraft. The Delbana was not cleaned as the lower jewel was crushed. With the guidance of OF members. I was able to press out one of the ebay jewels from one of the stripped movements and transfer it to the Delbana plate. I then tried the balance and it seemed to work. As I had two identical watches I decided to build the chronograph first. This way I could go through the textbooks and repeat the assembly steps. I did this with the Val-72 and got to where I could replace the chrono in 40 minutes or so. Unlike the Valjoux parts, the Landeron parts are stamped sheet metal with a much looser tolerance. Even so I found that screws and parts have to work together. This formed a lot of mixing and matching. Even within a caliber there are parts which subtly differ due to the year of manufacture. The data sheet even points out that some will not work together. Until one has both parts in hand can the differences be seen. This is where the eBay twins became helpful. If nothing else as a screw holder. I had done similar things with the A Schild watches. With the chronographs, I became aware of what is the obvious. That the parts are fitted and adjusted to work as a group. My initial approach was to put all the pretty parts onto the Delbana. I also learned why the Modera watch pushers jammed. These parts worked better on the Delbana. There may be parts mixed into the Timecraft as well. Sometimes it comes down to the patina of the part. Another thing I learned. Is that the case can sort of work as an improvised movement holder. The Bergeon holders often get in the way of the pushers. Ideally one would make or find ($$$) a specific movement holder. Holders for these old war horses do not seem to currently a catalog item. I had thought that a dial marked MEPA went with the Modera parts. But when I cased it the dial did not fit. One of the other dials (with hand set) did fit. Since this movement ticks. I decided to go ahead and finish casing it. If nothing else to keep all the parts in one place. The result came out quite well. The lack of a pusher make wearing this impractical. The case has also seen some hard use. I actually was going to attempt some nickel plating on it. Projects like that seem to require too much overhead. Something as simple as replacing the staff in the spare balance becomes 'a Project.' The more flat work surfaces one has, the more they seem to accumulate 'stuff.' With this success, it was finally time to see if the Delbana 'Mouse' movement would tick using the case as an improvised movement stand. ... and it does. Not the most exiting of photographs. Most of this is about the anticipation and the waiting for parts or the time to play with such parts. There are also many choices to ponder. A downside of getting a nearly complete parts movement for a dial, is now there can be another movement to consider restoring. The branch of this rabbit warren not explored here, but much time spent upon was the Landeron 51 movements. One of those is a rather nice Bovet. At first I thought I could steal screws from the 51 for use in the 48. Only the tick tock parts are the same. The plates and everything on them differs even the screws. This makes looking for parts online a bit of a challenge. Many who sell the parts only to a quick check of the reverences. Often the sales are mixed lots where something advertised as VAL-22 parts, shows those plates and Landeron levers. Unless one has the parts in hand it is often a game of chance to see If the parts are what they look like. Assembling the parts back into movements helps with the organization. Some things like working with the dials and hands though are risky. With the Delbana, I now have two sets of hands. It is possible I did have the dial at one time. This does give the option to attempt to re-lume the hands. This rabbit hole still has a long way to go ...
You seem to love watch movements as puzzles to solve or reconstruct. Would love to see some actual functioning watches in your collection.
The bench this moring. I went down yet another rabbit hole with seeing If I could restore a rusted watch hand. The results of that are promising once I figured out a useful binder. https://omegaforums.net/threads/a-novel-way-to-restore-color-to-hands.156641/ The Debana came out pretty good as well. The reason for the sidetrack down the hand restoration rabbit hole was that I wanted to relume the hands on this watch. The photograph makes them look a bit whiter than they do to the eye. This dial is quite nice. I actually practiced on the second set of hands which may or may not have come from the collection of Delbana parts. I have not been able to find anything about MEPA. I thought this dial went with another movement. However a different unmarked dial fits that movement and case marking. These watch parts got quite mixed up over the decades. I tried mixing a bit f tea into the lume for the MEPA hands (which also fit the Delbana.) To tone them down. The lume shot does show how this matches when illuminated with UV. I am fairly happy with the result. Getting watches back into cases makes them ever so more useful. Still have a bit of bother with the sweep hand on the Delbana. This is a Nos hand I had in an assortment. It is loose on the tube, so shifts on return to zero. I had broached to much then attempted to tighten it which caused the hand and the tube to separate. Now if only there was a decent source for watch cases to put the other 6 movements into ...
Be careful what you wish for ... I have been watching this all week. Now I am going to miss the anticipation. Do have the wait for them to arrive. At least the seller printed the shipping label as soon as I paid. Getting all at once prevents the drawn out waits and additional shipping fees. As they say in for a penny ... Far from perfect. The last thing I need is more movement plates. Usually in this sort of pile the plates (as I have discovered from similar acquisitions decades ago) are probably worn out or have cracked jewels. One of the plates has a lower inca. Not much use though without a matching balance bridge. The maker name is covered on a dial. Does not look like Delbana more like Delray in the same font with the same numbers. Case backs and movement rings are always interesting. Especially when one has cases with no backs. Not sure what becels are? Bezels are nasty things like hairsprings. One can not have too many and they only fit the case they were made for. Making them requires something called a draw plate. Then they have to be soldered in such a way the seam is invisible. Not to mention the plating and polishing. Wonder if I can corner the market in worn out Landeron parts? They certainly do breed like rabbits ...
I still have to take @JwRosenthal's apart ... that's the 51? We know it's missing at least 2 parts I'm getting good at taking things apart, putting them back in working order? Not so much just yet, what's wrong with me?
They are here! Pretty much what I expected. Of course nothing really fits. I really have no use for the plates as I have as many complete movements. There are a ton of rings. One of the cases has a back, and the L48 plate does fit. There is no bezel for it. None of the rings were bezels so the must be becels. I did find I have pushers for that case which is pretty much what I expected. The dials are fair. One of them is a Delbana and the other a DelRay the third is 'Fabiela.' Sadly the 'Delb' is mising from the 'ana.' These dials are much larger than the cases at 34mm which is larger than the Watch I have been wearing the last few weeks. For some reason I keep getting cases what seem to want to fit the Valjoux movements. These cases are much largrer than the Venus-170 movements (which mostly do have cases.) I was wanting a case I could drop the 'Timecraft' movement into. Guess I am going to have to file and polish it. Two of the backs may fit that case. Not quite sure what all the bronze rings are for. They are around 35 and 36mm. One of the movements has most of a wheel train. Two of them are 248 which is yet another variant. If I did not get these, I think I would have regretted it all the more.
I have this watch that needs a service/repair. I believe it's a Landeron 51. It actually runs when you manage to wind the broken stem a bit. I'm afraid the proce will surpass my comfort zone, so it sits.
There are plenty of movement rings. Still sorting through all this stuff. I do not think it is cheaper by the dozen.
A new Rabbit arrived. I think this is a Landeron 51. I boutght it for the hammer. Of course I really need 248 hammers (and escape bridges.) Really nice Geneve dial. To bad I have no luck finding cheap cases for these. The loose parts came mixed in with the Val-22 parts. Still waiting for the center wheel to arrive from Switzerland. I think the tick tock parts on this are complete. The balance is not guaranteed, although it does seem to tick for a few seconds. Here is a family shot of all the landeron Rabbits. I think there are 14 or 15 plates. I keep getting cases where the pushers do not align. I have also acquired a bag of pushers what do not fit the cases. I accidentally impulsed 3 more dials from Istanbul, Turkey. Getting to be quite a collection. (the Louvic, and other AS watches are photobombing this photograph.) These things really do breed like rabbits.
So while I was writing these posts the Minute Jumpers arrived from the UK. Amazingly fast shipping. I am still waiting for the stuff from Switzerland and France. Even more impressive is there were indeed 5 parts. All individually packed. Often the sellers seem to ignore the quantity on the packaging. Only shipping a single part. This is also a tricky part as the design changed a lot. In a lot of way this part determines the caliber of the movement. The online data sheets and the old reference text books, do their best to show the differences. Only actually working with the materials does one begin to appreciate the subtle variations. It is also curious that the parts for the high grade valjoux watches tend to fit into any watches. With the massively produced mid grade landerons the coupling clutches, hammers and activation levers all have to be fitted together individually as the stamping vary quite a bit. even in the same caliber sets. The tick tock parts on the other hand are eminently interchangeable and quite robust.
May not be the best way to ship stuff with little pointy pivots. These came today as well. Now I have both the missing val-22 part. And a lot of misc Landeron parts. I can already see useful things in the crack/stash baggie. I love sorting random parts.
That is a lot of parts! The first photo shows what came today. The second photo shows the 10 "parts" movements I got to fix the two I already had. Was surprised to see the minute jumpers. One of those is worth the whole lot. There were two balances. I still need to staff the balances I took apart last year. So many small differences even in the same caliber. The new bridge will not fit the L48 it does fit the L51. I also found that some of the jewels in the plates are missing. It is also interesting what is not there. Was hoping there would be some stem clutch wheels #407. There was also only a single third wheel. Lotsa escape wheels. A surprising number of balance bridge screws and case clamp screws. Even a few hand were in the mix. No hammers. Well there is one, but seems to be for something else (looks a bit like a Venus hammer) It is hard to figure out the caliber of some of the plates. The ones I think are L51 are 14.5L. Reference books show 48 and 51 at 13.75L The sliding gear shows the most variation. The marked 248 plates are also 14.5L. I laser cut some rings which can work for movement holders. Useful for measuring the plates. On the smaller movements the teeth of the barrel stick out. So I will need to find a way to mill a slot for this.
I did it again. Bought another job lot of Landeron parts. As I often do I check eBay every morning for new listings. This stuff barely was listed for one day. Well I admit I sometimes look several times a day if there is an auction I am watching. I also picked up a week or so back another lot of cases. Got lucky this time two cases fit some of the movement plates. The third case is too small. Possibly could fit a Venus 170. All my V-170 movements already have cases. It is interesting how some parts are more common than others. I still have yet to locate some incabloc balance bridges for the 248 movements. Still this lot does have a balance bridge, Even some wreaked balances. The last lot had a bunch of bunged up pallet forks. Do not know it these will be better or not. Pushers tend to be an issue. Especially the ones with the rounded ends. I should figure out how to make some. I have scraps from pipe organs so that awaits as well. The cycle continues...
I'm watching this thread with both pleasure and envy, got a couple of Landeron's and parts are somewhat erratic in their appearance on the bay and elsewhere. The hunt is a large part of the fun though!
There is no consistency on some of the parts. Especially the hammers which are stamped sheet metal and have the most variation. Minute jumpers are also a bit erratic as there are three major variations. The hammers are also controlled by the push levers. Even within a caliber, the hammer and lever must match or there will be binding or slop. Most likely this is due to the inconsistency in the stamping. In theory the eccentrics can compensate for some of this. At least I learned from @Archer that the eccentrics can be pushed from the back to loosen them. The bay really is the last resort for parts. Some of these movements had the eccentric split at the slot head. The hard part is resisting cheap incomplete movements without cases or pushers. Better to save up for something complete. Advice I give others, but seldom follow myself. Although that is becoming more of a criteria. It is the watches I got 30 years ago what are the exceptions. Now if only some balance bridges with incabloc shock settings would show up on a listing or parts house website. It really is about the hunt. I do not need the latest group of parts I am waiting on, but that is what I long for ...