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For those of you reading the group, you'll know I have a love for the watch my dad gave me 25 years ago. I also RUINED that watch 24 years ago.....and have felt like poop ever since.

I bought a watch on ebay for it's movement, since it was an identical movement other than there were no jewels but one in it (mine has 17). I looked for a watchmaker that was willing (HA HA HA) to swap the balance wheel and hairspring assembly from the ebay movement to my old watch. No one was willing to touch my watch. Although it was Swiss, and genuinely so from the mid 70's.....no one could "find parts for it". DUH! I was willing to sacrifice the brand NOS movement for the balance wheel assy. Still, none of these snobs would do it. I paid $50 for the donor watch including shipping.

So, I downed a few adult beverages, and got the guts to try it myself. Mind you, I have never seen the inside of a watch, without f**king it up when I messed with it. The very reason this watch needed repair was because I'd messed with it.

Lo and behold, I fixed it myself. I changed the entire balance wheel and hairspring assembly without messing anything up!!!!! It actually was adjusted right on the money, too. It (the wheel assy) ran well in the donor watch, and ran just as well in my dad's!!!

I cannot believe how easy it was, but moreover, I was amazed that, for the first time in my life, I was able to crack a watch case open and SOLVE a problem, rather than CAUSE a problem!!!

A lot of blah about nothing, unless you find it interesting......here's a "wristie" (yes, a bad pic, but what the hey):

looks like a nice watch,what kind is it?maybe you got your second calling there Twall,watch repairman.I collect watches to some extant,I inhearted my dad's Accutron which is one of the world's first elec. wristwatch,but I perfer the old windups and automatics...russ

Twall, congrats on your handyman skills, I have taken my Blackberry apart a few times to replace certain parts but would never tackle something like your project.

Is that a standard wind up movement with digital display ?

Looks like it is built like a tank !
Outstanding - Glad you didn't mess it up this time
and can feel better about it ! :thumbsup:

twall said:

I cannot believe how easy it was, but moreover, I was amazed that, for the first time in my life, I was able to crack a watch case open and SOLVE a problem, rather than CAUSE a problem!!!

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Great job...
I think as we get older, everyone gets more cautiously deliberate in most things we do... Either that or we tend to get luckier... :smile:KennyV

Kenny, I also think as we get older we have more confidence in our abilities because we learned (hopefully) from our mistakes. I remember the first house I owned back in '74, I did not even want to replace a wall outlet. Skip ahead to 2005, I rewired an entire 2000 square foot two story barn and a new sub panel was added. If you had told me 30 years prior to that 2005 project I would have that abilty my response would have been "YOU ARE NUTS"! Sent from mobile.

173abn said:

looks like a nice watch,what kind is it?maybe you got your second calling there Twall,watch repairman.I collect watches to some extant,I inhearted my dad's Accutron which is one of the world's first elec. wristwatch,but I perfer the old windups and automatics...russ

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It's a very, VERY rare 1976(?) Andre Rivalle - E. Gluck's Swiss brand. E. Gluck's most famous brand is Armitron..:wink: My mom bought this for my dad father's day in either 1975 or 1976. My dad gave it to me in 1986.

BKBrown said:

Is that a standard wind up movement with digital display ?

Looks like it is built like a tank !
Outstanding - Glad you didn't mess it up this time
and can feel better about it ! :thumbsup:

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a manual wind 17 jewel movement with a "jump hour". The hour starts to change at 5 minutes till, and snaps (or 'jumps') to the next hour at about two min. til. I have put two pics below that illustrate this 'jumping' motion: 2:56AM, and 2:58AM. [photos in separate post]

That case is solid steel! Not as heavy on the wrist as it looks, though. Yes, you certainly know it's there, but it isn't uncomfortable, or any heavier than many stainless automatics.

I have $65 in the restoration. $50 for the donor watch, $15 for the wristband. The wristband is almost IDENTICAL to the original - I still have a few links from it. Took awhile searching to find one with a straight end and large links!

Thanks, everyone, for sharing in my triumph. :thumbsup:

JDgreen said:

Twall, congrats on your handyman skills, I have taken my Blackberry apart a few times to replace certain parts but would never tackle something like your project.

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Being horribly nearsighted helped a lot in this project. I can see stuff with my naked eye that a lot of people can't see with a loupe (because I can hold it so close to get it in focus)!

Here's two pics of the hour "jumping". Also, a pic of my two-year old Stauer Dashtronic (21 jewel self-winding automatic), which is simmilar, but not a jumping motion. (I modded it by putting a Rolex-style band on it - had to do a lot of shaping to those curved filler panels to get them to work. Originally had a black leather strap):

That is quite an accomplishment and quite a bad-ass watch. Love that Stauer too. Vintage watches like that look super cool, they have soul, and they convey "character sans pretension" unlike a gold Rolex which says, "I sold a ripoff investment to your grandma and here's my commission."

You have to have a special gift to work on things that small, a gift I don't have, so I had a heck of a time working on my RC helicopter. Every repair was... 1. Mount goggle sized reading glasses. 2. Move small part into position while holding breath 3. Drop part on floor and hear it roll into HVAC floor register, and then eventually... 4. Sell RC helicopter at a huge loss and give up dream of shaming Alan Szabo with mad skilz. 5. Tell yourself you didn't fail because you gave up, it was because top RC heli pilots have Romanian circus performer DNA and Intel microchip technicians doing their repairs.

Nice job honoring your dad's good taste in bling.

@ Jetblast:

Thanks. I always liked the watches that are different. If you've seen one Rolex, you've seen 'em all......well, not quite, but I tell myself that anyhow....

LOL @ your RC heli description.........I fly micro helis, and I'd rather work on a watch, sometimes. Although I did take the inner chassis totally apart on my Syma 107, to replace the main rotor shaft. That was NOT fun.

Me and this watch go waaaaay back, long before dad gave it to me!

I'd always snuck into my parent's room as a kid and snooped in my dad's jewelry box. He didn't have much in there....but this watch was always there. He never wore it. I didn't really know what it was. I thought it was some kind of calendar, but I was still enamoured with it anyhow. It shocked me when he gave it to me, and FURTHER shocked me to learn it was a digital watch! I'd fallen in love with it before that, though (my dad probably already knew I was in his stuff snooping - I never took anything, but I always loved looking at that strange metal calendar thingy in there. :wink:.) As an aside, i never snooped in his stuff again after he gave me this watch.....that's the only thing I snooped for! It was some kind of innocent magnetism to it.........strange how that works sometimes, eh?

Twall,my most expensive automatic which is a chronograph w/moon phase and calander I keep in a watch winder which auto. windes it at preset times.I used to wear it but I do so much manual labor around my place I did'nt want to ruin it.They aren't that expensive,there's tons of em on the net.The regular watch I wear is an Eco-Drive chrono.Good watch ,not heavy on the wrist don't have to worry about replacing the battery because it's powered by light.You don't want the battery in it to go down though,it has a meter that shows the charge.If it don't get enough sun I set it by a light to charge the battery.I gave my Nephew a Special Ops. watch when he got back from his second tour in Iraq.It had a carbon fiber face and had a 10yr rechargable battery .It had a saddle shaped charger that you would place the watch on and it would charge through the case.A word of caution,don't ever by a watch made in China,especially automatics and chronos.JUNK!don't ask me how I know!..russ

Hmmm, my Dashtronic is a Chinese movement, and I have never had a problem. I also have a Stauer Graves, with day, month, date, and sun/moon dials. Also a Chinese auto. Again, not a hitch. Unless you're talking a less-than-reputable Chinese Rolex (or Omega, IWC, TAG, etc....) rep, I have yet to have a problem with China movt.'s......

Although, when a gen Seiko 5 can be had for $51 on Amazon with free shipping brand new - the Chinese autos seem risky. But, that's not based on my exp, I have had a lot of good luck with the jeweled movements......

Citizen (makers of the Eco-Drive you mentioned) makes a fine watch. I have a shoebox full of Citizen automatics I just won on ebay. I'm gonna get a small real toolkit, and see if I can turn a dime on these things........

Did I mention I did the transplant on my watch without proper tools? A 99 cent "precision" screwdriver set, tweezers, and an xacto knife was it....:biggrin:

Stauer Graves ( a very nice nod to the pocket watch ordered by banker Henry Graves in 1933 - the Supercomplication) 27 jewel automatic movement (Chinese movt.):

wierd because that's what these two chronographs are,Stauer.Both the same timepiece,both 31jewels and both with the same problem.When in the chrono mode the 60 sec. hand won't advance the minute hand.The watch's themself are beautiful watches and they keep good time but if the stopwatch part don't work I got no use for them,they go in the box and are put away.When I was a junior in high school back in 65 I ran crosscountry and track so I saved my summer caddy money and bought me a really nice windup Tissot chronograph,cost me $100.00.That watch lasted me my high school career,I don't know how many parachute jumps in the Army but didn't make it through Vietnam,it got shot off my hand in a firefight one night and I never saw it again...russ

173abn said:

wierd because that's what these two chronographs are,Stauer.Both the same timepiece,both 31jewels and both with the same problem.When in the chrono mode the 60 sec. hand won't advance the minute hand.The watch's themself are beautiful watches and they keep good time but if the stopwatch part don't work I got no use for them,they go in the box and are put away.When I was a junior in high school back in 65 I ran crosscountry and track so I saved my summer caddy money and bought me a really nice windup Tissot chronograph,cost me $100.00.That watch lasted me my high school career,I don't know how many parachute jumps in the Army but didn't make it through Vietnam,it got shot off my hand in a firefight one night and I never saw it again...russ

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I do believe Stauer chronos do not abide by any known standard as far as the chrono movement goes.....they are not NOT true chronographs, I am sad to say. Stauer no longer offers ANY mechanical "chronographs", and the quartz ones are like you say, not a true chrono. I also own the Stauer quartz Flyboy chrono, and like you, I was not happy with the chronograph function. I have a Casio Atomic Wave Ceptor that is a TRUE analog chronograph.....and the face charges the batt, like the Eco-Drive.......

So, in that realm, you are correct, but not because the movement doesn't WORK (which is my definition of junk), but because it doen't work to any known standard.........it works just fine, but in a cheap non-standard way. I probably muddied that all up, but I hope you get my drift.

I must say, I also belong to a watch forum. I could only get a couple of 'that's a wierd watch' and 'congrats' from them. But, I have a 14 reply thread here. This is a LAWN MOWER FORUM!!!

This truly speaks to what a great place this is to be.

Thanks again to all!

Well there is a close association between watches and mowers...
A watch can tell you when it's time to mow...
and I see it is now time to mow. I'll leave you all here for a few hours and burn some diesel... later. :smile:KennyV

Well, I visited my dad on Sunday (wearing the fixed watch). I said "remeber this?" You should have seen the look on his face! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: All he could say (twice, in fact) was "Well, I'll be damned"........:laughing:

Think I was happy to have fixed that watch? Dad didn't even know I still HAD it! Very happy man......:wink: Guess he didn't know himself what that thing meant to me......:smile::smile:

We got talking about it (my mom was amazed I still had it, too.....), and it came from Present Co. (dunno if it was a nationwide chain, or a NE thing), and it was VERY expensive. I do remember my mom having a snit over giving a kid such an expensive watch......."he'll just break it or take it apart" was what she said......:laughing:

HOW WELL SHE KNOWS ME!!!!

Nice payoff. :thumbsup:

Have not worn a watch since late '02 (retired about that time) but sometimes miss wearing one. HTF do you measure seconds when your Blackberry clock only lets you count minutes or hours?

I would download a stopwatch application, if I could just find the TIME to do that....:laughing::laughing: