So, I decided to take the movement out of the case to remove the pusher for a cleaning. I ended up turning the setting lever screw too much so then I had to take the hands and dial off to reset stem and setting lever screw. I later find out that settling lever has vanished. See photo. Is it possible for the setting lever to fall out even though the set bridge sits on top of it?

 

Vanish? No! It is somewhere, be assured!

 

Evaporation.

 

C'mon man, don't be ridiculous. We all know that setting lever evaporation was solved when the joint US-Canada accord was enacted to fight acid rain - congress added that line in when no one was looking. No, this is a little known phenomenon called "SSLC" or Spontaneous Setting Lever Combustion...completely different thing...

Sheesh!

 

Is this an 865? If so, you're looking for the huge (relatively speaking) piece of metal you see in mine below. It will be somewhere and likely on the floor or the underside of your shoe. Without it, the crown/stem would fall out so, it was there. This is easy to find and I used to think the gold coloured lyre spring you see at 12 O'clock was small - it isn't...

Had forgotten how oily mine was when I took it apart! Oh, also could be on the back of the dial.

Anyway, if you find it, take everything to your Watchmaker as it sounds like you're in the dark here. Don't try to refit the hands or dial as you may already have bent the shaft that the second hand sits on - they are very delicate.

Edit: I now see another thread where you posted this as well so Al's post at the same time as mine makes sense. If I were you, I'd quit while I was behind and get it to your Watchmaker. Write it down to experience.

Hope this helps, Chris

 

Good advice Chris. Check your shoes. A colleague of mine was working on a pocket watch and a part went missing. It was stuck in the tread of his shoe.

 

Depending on the part, finding it stuck in the tread means it's now junk, so it was lucky that it wasn't a fragile part. You would be amazed where I have found parts...sometimes in my pockets, or down the front of my shirt/lab coat, sometimes inside my shoes, sometimes in my hair, etc. Sometimes you must find it before leaving the room, or your search area now includes anywhere you walked to since it might be on your person, then fall off in another room.

I once had a mainspring get away from me while removing it from the barrel (it was soaked on oil - always wear eye protection when working with mainsprings) and the barrel arbor went flying. When a part flies away the best thing to do is stop and listen as you can often identify the general area where it lands that way. I heard it hit a small table that was behind my chair, but after looking on and around that table for 30 minutes could not find it. I crawled under the table and noted that the sides of the it were made of sheet metal, and they had rolled a lip along the top edge to give it strength - the arbor was inside that lip. Somehow bounced under the table, off the underside of it, and landed in that lip - amazing...

I often recruit my wife to help search for lost parts. The most frustrating thing is when I have been looking for an hour, and she walks in and finds it in 30 seconds...

I have a book with a photo in it showing Philippe Dufour on his hands and knees looking for a part under a bench in his shop. It happens to the best of us.

Cheers, Al

 

Great story! I have only lost one barrel arbor. The part my colleague lost was a bridge screw and the search area went from his bench to his ultrasonic bath ( about 20 feet away.) It was a huge search area and he gave up. Then I thought "check your shoe!"

 

Wait.... what's an Italian part doing in a Swiss watch?

Now you're just bragging.

 

Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one. My wife can spot the glint of a tiny screw from 5 yards. I think it's all that practice looking in the window at Tiffanys....

 

As my wife often said "SPARKLIES!".

 

Yes, it is an 865 and thank you all for your responses...my brain is telling me to listen to Chris's suggestion here, but my heart is telling me to continue on this very very small scale adventure. My wife tried to help me find it as she noticed my confusion/desperation, but no luck so far, had to give up because it was already past 1:00AM. The search will continue when I get home from work today. By the way, at least the pusher is now spotless.

 

No offence meant to those who may be follicly challenged....

 

Look what I found!!! Right when I was about to give up to. We did it guys, we did it!!!

 

From FB earlier this year, posted it for the kids.

Don't you hate it when you know you're removing a springy thing from a watch, but you don't want to bag it (too much trouble) so you just go ahead and push it off the pusher.

"PING"......and the circlip smaller than a pin head just vanishes. You freeze like a rabbit in the headlights hoping to see or hear the landing but no luck.

A scour of the bench top reveals nothing so you resign yourself to the loss, get a ziplock bag and remove the last three clips which although they spring like fleas on steroids, are captured inside the baggy.

But imagine the relief as you go to scratch an itch on your left temple and notice a blemish on your underarm, not a blemish in fact, but the missing circlip. "YaFKNhoo" is a mild expression used by many watch tinkerers on finding that part no longer destined for the never never.

 

The suspense is killing me - Where did it turn up ?

 

"YaFKNhoo" is exactly what I felt!!!

Now, the hard part is should I continue this ultra small scale expedition of putting this thing back together or should I throw in the towel and find a watchmaker somewhere in San Diego to do it??

 

It was in a crevice of a white grocery plastic bag far from the bench. It was one of the last places I looked because I wouldn't have expected it to end up there.

 

Strange that - how you always find something in the last place you look

 

Unless you keep looking for something you've already found, when you find it, it will be in the last place you look.