Thanks - I guess it's a bit unusual for a watchmaker not to pressure test a watch after servicing, as that is a very standard practice. But I don't know what sort of agreement or relationship you have with your watchmaker, so maybe this is something that has been discussed and decided against previously.
In a previous post you mentioned that seals are not always enough, and the there is humidity in the air that is already inside the watch. Both of those are true, and for the seals not being enough, that is exactly why a pressure test is needed even after replacing the seals, to confirm that the watch has water resistance.
The air that is inside the watch has humidity as all air does, but watchmakers will typically control the humidity in their workspace to minimize the chances of very humid air being present when the watch is cased. Generally as the video you found shows, if there is condensation due to humidity in the air, the amount is small and it dissipates very quickly. It is not typical that humidity from the air inside the watch would be enough to cause the changes in the Enicar you have shown, so my guess there is that some other form of moisture had entered the watch at some point.
When it comes to making a vintage watch seal, the success of that will depend on a number of things:
1 - Was the watch ever intended to be water resistant? Many were not so in those instances there's not much to be done.
2 - What is the condition of the surfaces that the various O-rings and seals mate to? If they are damaged or pitted, then replacing the seals may not end up giving you any water resistance. So this means that areas like the case back and the case, where the O-ring goes, must not be pitted, like this:
And also, the case tube where the seal inside the crown rides, must not be worn, like this:
Or this:
Or this:
In all the cases shown here, they were replaced - this is the last one after replacement for comparison of what the tube should look like:
Most of the water damage I see in watches is from water entering through the crown, so the case tube and crown are probably even more critical than the case back and case groove. If you have a vintage watch, it is not likely going to get fully submerged in water, but it will often be worn while washing hands, and the chances of water exposure at the crown are higher than anywhere else in daily use.
3 - The last thing is the willingness of the watch owner to compromise originality for water resistance. As a watchmaker it doesn't matter to me if the owner chooses to replace the seals or not, but if they don't then the watch has to be kept 100% dry.
On the pressure testing, I watched the video - fair number of errors there but not unexpected with these kinds of videos. The comparison of water and air molecules was......
The dry pressure test is the safest in terms of not exposing the watch to water. His description of how the test works is generally okay, if a bit simplistic. The resolution of the machine is actually much higher than he indicates - it measures in hundredths of a micron, not microns.
If the test fails, he says there's no way to know the location, so you have to use a different type of tester - this isn't true at all. These machines have something called a "leak finder" program that will allow you to basically perform the same tests that a wet tester does. So here is a filed pressure test on a watch:
I can use the leak finder program - this pressurizes the case for an extended period of time, and during that time air will move inside the case and the pressure inside the case will be higher than 1 bar:
The machine will monitor the rate at which the air is entering the case, and will tell me if it's safe to perform a water test or not - in this case it was as you can see:
What I do next is place the case into a glass of water, and I can see where the leak is, and how bad it is:
First one is a large leak at the crown. Second is a slower leak at the HEV, and the third is a much slower leak at the crown. Note that when I do these tests in water, the case will not have the movement installed.
The last tests he mentions are the high pressure wet tests. Lot of misinformation there - first being that only manufacturers have this equipment - it is a required piece of equipment to have a full fledged Omega parts account, and I know the same was true for Rolex (when Rolex actually had parts accounts before they started closing then all) so there are plenty of watchmakers who have this equipment. The second is that it's so expensive - the dry testing machine with compressor was far more than the high pressure wet testing machine was.
The last is that the cases are only tested empty. They are tested with the watch fully assembled, so he's incorrect there that the test is only done with empty cases.
My personal procedure for this is as follows:
1 - Dry test with empty case - passes, then
2 - High pressure wet test with empty case - passes, then
3 - Dry test with fully assembled watch - passes, then
4 - High pressure wet test with fully assembled watch.
You can see photos of this in this thread here:
Pressure testing a "Watchco" SM300 | Omega Forums
Hope this all helps.
Cheers, Al
