Thought I'd share this small adventure bringing a very cheap watch back to life. It's nothing special but, I've enjoyed reviving it.

I'm not sure how I saw this on eBay but, I bid a maximum of €6.50 and won it for €1.00 + €3.50 postage. I find it a bit sad that people are selling things for €1 (less fees) but it seems they may have had someone look at it and declare it non salvageable. It was advertised as not working and I thought it might be nice to bring it back to life. Only one poor front shot to go by (listing picture at the end) but it looked like a late sixties dive 'style' watch. Clearly not a real diver but for this price, I'm not going to complain.

When it arrived, the crown/stem fell straight onto the floor but apart from that it looked complete and not too bad. The hands have been painted black which if they'd done it nicely is one thing but it's all thick hand painting and flaking off. The bezel rotates smoothly and is in good condition.


Open the back and there are some strange things going on here. Looks like someone has become angry with the setting lever screw (the one holding the crown and stem in) and has mangled it and the bridge. It is not attached to the setting lever so, this is why the crown falls out.


The balance spring is all off to one side. Good news is that it moves freely so no broken staff and it manfully tries, but without joy, to make the movement run.


Rotor and mounting plate removed and this is the auto winder mechanism.


On the front side, the date mechanism is quite simple but, with that spring for the date jumper mounted as shown, the movement has no chance of changing the date because the force required is far too great. It needs to be slid across to work closer to the pivot of the date jumper arm. Someone has definitely had a go at fixing this movement but with little success.


It turns out that this is a BRAC 1038 with date and centre seconds running at 18000 A/h with a dual direction winding rotor mounted on a ball race bearing. That's not a bad spec although the finish is nothing to write home about. I've never heard of this company or calibre but Breitenbach is a town in Switzerland and it seems BRAC may have been based there. There is a huge list of BRAC calibres in my 'lift angles' spreadsheet but virtually no information comes up on the web. Cousins do list a stem and a non auto mainspring for a 1038 - seems strange for an auto. I cannot find any other spares at all so have to hope that everything is serviceable or repairable.

It came apart fairly easily except for the setting screw but, eventually I got the that out without damaging it further and later tried to cut a screw slot in what was left. I really need a new part and I have the necessary dimensions so might be a job for the future. If there's any tinkerer keen to try out their new lathe, feel free!




The hairspring is all off to one side. This is pre cleaning (it goes back in the plate for that).


But, removed from the stud carrier, it looks nice although wrong at the stud and without a sufficient dog leg out to the regulator. Just need to change the profile so it sits correctly.


Looking much better to me after some work. I think it still had a slight tilt at this point.


I couldn't find a new correct mainspring so decided to reuse the old one. Unfortunately, it winds the opposite way to most Swiss watches and I am too mean to buy winders for that direction so, use a right hand winder and load it in that. It is now the wrong way for pushing into the barrel but, I press it into a ring which came with a new 865 mainspring. Turn the ring over and push into the barrel - perfect.

Built the base movement and the reason it won't run became clear. When tightening the bridge screws with a movement that I've not seen running, I keep the train moving and with this one, the whole movement locks up on the last quarter turn of the screws. The reason was the escape wheel has no end shake at all. Fix that and all moves smoothly.

Funky looking pallet fork here.


Mounted the balance and it runs very nicely. Couple of tweaks for the beat error and it's soon running 270 degrees amplitude horizontal and 230 degrees vertical with a rate variation over five positions of 14 seconds, beat error 0.2 to 0.5 ms. Can't complain at that for full wind with this movement and old mainspring so move on.

Cleaned the paint off the minute hand and it looks not bad so I did all three and will leave them in gold colour but, they need lume.


One or two spots of dirty brown lume left on the dial so I cleaned those off. I toyed with using an orange lume to deflect from the damaged hands but decide to relume with a mixture of blue and green, making a sort of sea colour (only if you live in the Caribbean!) I've not tried to put the dots on a dial before but it's not too bad to do. I made various tests with different diameter tools - dip into the lume and lightly touch to the dial to get a nice raised blob.




Gave the case a clean and some of the plate is wearing off on the lugs but perfectly wearable. 10 minutes with Polywatch on the crystal and it's come up fine. Put everything back in the case and it's almost finished.

So, this is what I bought for less than the price of a beer- the only picture on the listing and a non runner:


And this is what I have now after some euros of cleaning fluids and lubricants. Still worth next to nothing and hardly fits in the exalted company on this forum but, it lives again! A bit of fun to bring this back to life and it will get some wrist time as a beater. Here on a rubber strap as it's the only 19mm I have to try it on.




With an obligatory Omega.


I believe Mithras made a few watches but probably closed down during the quartz period of the 1970s. Their company and logo are based on the God Mithras (the Roman soldiers' God), here seen killing a bull, for some reason......
Just know I will never meet anyone with another Mithras. OK, that may not be much of a claim to exclusivity.


Now my spending gets out of control as I need a case seal at €1, and splurge on a new stem plus crown at another €10. Finished pics when they arrive.

Cheers, Chris

 

Dibs!

 

so close to a brand named after my username. Great story - the watch looks good too....

 

Nicely done, and thanks for the pics!

 

A quality job you've done Chris, I really appreciate this kind of post. It's good to see you getting to grips with the hairspring issues.

 

Good outcome

Even a one beer watch deserves a new lease on life.

 

Price of a beer but how many beers did you consume while restoring it?

 

It's gone from a one beer to a six pack!

 

Make him an offer he can't refuse.

 

I call your six pack and raise the bid to a bottle of red.

 

This watch has been a bit of fun to do. It arrived last Thursday and I worked off and on over the weekend and wrote it up on Monday/Tuesday. So, I certainly spent far more on beer in that period than I spent on the watch! Hmmm, makes me sound like a bit of a lush...

I would say it's now a bottle of red watch.

Need to get a strap for it as that 120 is one of my favourites. That looked terrible when I bought it but came up really well. Here it was as bought and above after a service/clean/crystal/crown sometime last year.


Cheers, Chris

 

Nice work Chris. It's fun sometimes to work on these, and quite frankly I don't get to work on many cheaper brands, because very few people want to pay to have them serviced. But when you do get something like this to work on, you realize how different some designers looked at various functions like how to make a watch wind automatically, or how to make the date change work. There are some very oddball designs out there when you get into these vintage watches.

The balance spring repair seems to have gone well. For a fairly simple fix like this one appears to be, I do the work mostly in situ - with the balance and cock mounted to the main plate. Once you get the coils concentric and evenly spaced, then look at the regulating pins - make sure they are parallel to each other, that the spring is in the middle of the gap when at rest, and then the spacing of the pins should start out say at 2 times the thickness of the spring as a starting point. Then let your positional variation guide you on adjusting from there. If all the vertical readings are faster than the horizontal, open up the pins, and if they are slower, close them up. Not sure you can expect great timing from this movement, but as long as there are not huge poise errors to correct, just simple adjustments like working on the balance spring and regulating pins can get you decent results.

For the screw, if you don't have one, I would suggest getting a proper screw slot file:



As you can see, they are very thin:



Personally I think that if the only problem with that screw is the slot, then it could be fixed pretty easily with the right file. I would actually cut a completely new slot 90 degrees to the original, as the one there now looks quite wide and chewed. It's worth a try, as there appears to be a good amount of the head thickness left in that screw.

I would love the 120 by the way if you are ever selling!

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks Al. The hairspring advice is, as always, useful. I do everything but final tweaks with the hairspring off but, as I build in confidence, I might try your way. Of course, there are no simple adjustments for me....

I've ordered a proper screw slot file. As we're talking tools, is there one to remove moon phase pushers? Mine are like a chrono pusher but the part screwed into the case has an internal spline (not external like a chrono pusher) of 2 mm diameter. I'm not having much luck finding one.

Yes, good fun looking at these different movements. This runs remarkably well but is a little unusual, for example, the click is hidden under the date wheel and it has that strange fork. I've seen that before and I suppose it's to make the movement more compact. There's a lot of free space around the outside of that plate for the, very heavy, rotor to run in so the movement itself is quite small. Interesting for me to see. I suspect I'll never see another.

I really like that 120 myself . Has a lovely dial and a bit more subtle than a 300. Might be with me for a while...

Cheers, Chris

 

I don't know if one will fit your pusher but this is what I have:
https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/multi-function-fitting-removing-tools-horotec

 

Thanks Stewart. That one doesn't have the particular bit I need. I'll keep looking.

 

What watch has the moon phase pushers? What brand and model is it?

Not often you see them as pushers like for chronograph start/stop, but they are usually flush with the case - we call these correctors. You use a small stylus to push on an indent to advance the moon phase indicator, rather than push on a pusher with your finger.

Most modern Omega correctors are sealed units that you replace as a whole, so they are pressed in and out of the case with Loctite 638. If this requires a splined tool, then is might be a brand specific tool. Rolex uses splined tools for their case tubes (2 different types for modern and vintage, and then each has one for turning then in and one for turning them out - 4 required in total), but other than that I can't think of any off the top of my head that use a splined tool.

Cheers, Al

 

Sorry, correctors. It's just an old sixties moon phase with a Felsa 693 and supposedly JeanRichard but I don't believe so.

Here is a picture without spring, washers and seals. Similar to a pusher in that the inner part screws into the exterior part but the exterior part is flush with the it's holder.

You can see that it's holder is screwed into the case. The exterior part is splined and so is the inside of the holder (seen here from the outside)


So, it's sort of like a pusher flipped inside out. It doesn't sound as if this is common so, to remove the holder, I think I will have to cut a slot across the inside and use a wide screwdriver as it should still work afterwards. It will need to come out if I'm to have the case plated as it's a bit of a mess!

Cheers, Chris

 

That's a tough one - not sure where the get a tool that would fit.

 

Thanks for looking Al.

 

Hi Chris. Get a piece of steel rod (pivot steel would be good) that fits perfectly into the centre of the splined bush. Cut a couple of very small flats diametrically opposite one another and use Arldite to glue it into the bushing. Once fully set, dunk the case into boiling water then screw out the bush by turning the rod. Once you have it removed, heat the steel rod to remove it from the bush, and finally soak the bush in acetone to remove the epoxy.

Just a thought.