That's pretty interesting that the manual for the movement is written up in the wrong order. Seems kind of ridiculous, surprised nobody has ever revised it. Sure makes the learnng part hard if you don't have a natural intuition about it working on the assumption that the masters have spoken lol

What I'm really looking forward to is a voiceover, if you're willing! That organic, unforced drive and joy over the painstaking discovery you're doing is what I think would set your channel apart.

My voice is not a pleasant one to listen to

Maybe I could do the voiceover with AI LUL

Turn it into a girl's voice. :pokerface:

Edit: So many posts to catch up on but here is a "Thanks" in advance. Keep up the great work and sharing your adventures with us! :)

Just narrate in a voice impression of how you think Badhobz sounds in real life based on his posts.

Are you trying to get me Cancelled?

Read one of my signature posts out loud and see how that goes. :lol

Pretty proud of myself today. Yesterday I rebuilt the 2824-2 using the ETA manual (after failing with the Selitta manual), and today I did a teardown and rebuild without having to use the manual for like 90-95% of the movement.

Having a calendar makes it quite a bit more complicated, especially in the keyless works area (for setting the date without having to move the time 24 hours for each day).

https://i.imgur.com/pB48HB1.png

The parts in the bottom left portion of the container are for the calendar works and keyless works (and a couple parts for time setting). Quite a few extra parts to remember! I hope to be able to do it without the manual next time. I'll pay extra attention during disassembly.

Also I can't test the function of the watch yet until the new spring arrives tomorrow. That one tiny nose hair sized spring prevents everything from running!

In the meantime, I did a full service of the 6497-2 and it seemed huge in comparison! I can disassemble and reassemble that thing very quickly now, and have it running with good amplitude and timing.

If you thought servicing a quartz watch would be extremely simple, think again

https://i.imgur.com/UBptzIz.png

(Someone kindly donated a watch and I'll see if I can get it working in new condition)

A 30 year old watch sounds like a lot until you realize that was the late 90's :okay:

I've gotten pretty good with the 2824-2 now, and can get it running at 300+ amp, really good timing consistently (I have one ready for regulation tonight). I can oil the shock jewels consistently, installing springs without losing them, etc.

I disassembled my first Miyota and holy shit. This is going to be a challenge! It's hard to explain, but you can tell that it's not really meant to be serviced the way Swiss movements are. It can still be done of course, but it's not really designed to be convenient. We'll see I guess.

I got a new multimeter, and all the coils in the TAG Heuer tested out ok, so for now I assume it just needs a service to get all the hands running and resetting properly. I'll do that this week and see how it goes. I bought a small amount of oil that is specifically called for quartz movements (0.5 ml, no joke, but that's plenty enough)

So sure enough, I broke the pivot on a wheel :fuckthatshit:

I'll show you why this thing is such a pain to work with

On most watches, there are 2 or 3 bridges you need to install, which have holes that line up with 2 or 3-4 pivots each. This makes it easy to line everything up. I'll show the 6497-2 clone as an example. This is actually Panerai's refreshed version of it from the 90's:

https://i.imgur.com/yOg6HLx.png

You can see at the top there is the barrel bridge, which only needs to line up with the barrel in this case. Below that is the train wheel bridge, which lines up with 3 pivots (you can see the jewels). Below that are two cocks (yes Badhobz that's what they're called) one of which is dedicated to the escape wheel (the original ETA version moves some things around and has 2 bridges)

This is especially important on older designs, or low end manufactures, because the tolerances are loose making it hard to get so many tiny pivots to line up. Spreading them across 2 or 3 bridges means only having to line up a few shitty pivots at a time.

There are high end single bridge designs, called 3/4 bridge. But with super tight tolerances, these are pretty easy to get lined up.

Well the Miyota puts everything under one bridge:

https://i.imgur.com/LvdC0RU.png

Along with the balance cock, there's the one bridge with SIX pivots to line up, plus the barrel. And tolerances are good, but not that good, so it takes a lot of patience to line things up. To make matters worse, there is a spring underneath it, pushing down on the center pinion, so even if it's lined up perfectly it won't just settle into place on its own.

So yeah while these are serviceable, it's clear that they aren't really designed to be worked on often. This has more to do with the fact that they are so cheap to replace, it makes more sense to do that than to service them. But there you go.. It's possible, but a real pain to do.

It's a real challenge! I'll have to order some replacement wheels and try again later. I might take that center spring off first to see if that helps during practice

Got a new toy today POGGERS

https://i.imgur.com/2oulSO5.png

Also brought in some other new tools to upgrade my work, including an automatic oiler, something I should have gotten right away. Also an ultrasonic cleaner. I almost died because when I first tested it, it completely freaked my cat out, who was sleeping nearby. He got up, and just sort of started twitching and freaking out. We thought he was having a stroke or a seizure of some sort, but it turned out he was just scared awake by a sound we can't hear. It took a long time, but he calmed down and is back to normal. I tested it in another room, and he seemed to be fine with it. Fucking scared me man, I don't know what I would have done.

Anyway, also got a Rolex superclone movement, and have a vintage 70's Omega coming in. It's a women's movement, so will be ridiculously small and these are not very accurate, but it's a cheap way to work on quality vintage movements. Also I am thinking of restoring or refreshing a watch for my wife as a gift, and this is a common one for that era so I want to start working on it now.

I also started wearing reading glasses at times, because... you know. That age

That's my update for now! The microscope is trinocular, so I can attach a camera to it

1) your workspace is so clean. i love it. NOT GUANGDONG HOARDER.

2) when are you gonna start doing custom work so we can buy it!??!?!?!

3) maybe you can go bigger and start working on vintage clocks and stuff... would be kinda cool to see those desktop clocks get revamped / customized. i think you might have a market with that as everyone just throws on a lame LED quartz clock nowadays.

Yeah this is the one room in my home that I keep clean and tidy, with a lot of effort. Makes it easier to find parts that go flying

I think I am going to stick to repair and restoration, rather than fabricating dials and cases etc. If that's what you mean?

Clock repair is definitely something I'd be interested in. Might pick something up to see what it's like. Should be a lot easier if anything, since everything is bigger

Bit of a thread hijack, but what's your opinion on Twemco clocks?

Very cool classic analog clocks, including perpetual. But very expensive!

So how much should a service cost let's say on a 7750? And would you do relume?

I'm nowhere close to servicing watches for people yet, sorry. I am going to put in many months of practice before ever attempting to do work. But I will eventually be able to (as long as it's a real 7750), including relume!

Here's that Omega women's watch I ordered. Taking it apart now for cleaning.

Grain of rice for scale

https://i.imgur.com/HmI67Px.png

First vintage service completed! Long ago actually

I didn't run into any issues; thanks to the microscope, the tiny size wasn't a problem at all. Well the weird shaped pallet fork was a bit tricky. One of the shock springs came out on me, but it was easy to put back in (this is NOT the case with Chinese springs, which I'll get to some other time)

I didn't mention the condition when it came in, but it was in 'barely running' condition. Meaning the balance was not broken, but there was enough wrong with it that it wouldn't run for more than a few seconds. And when it did, obviously the timegrapher was a 'snowstorm' so it wasn't keeping time

As it turned out, all it needed was a full service. Teardown, full clean (scrub in naphtha with brush to dissolve all the caked up oil and grime, rinse in alcohol, placed in water based cleaning fluid, run through ultrasonic cleaner for 10 minutes, rinse in water, rinse in 99% alcohol, dry). Cleaned the balance and pallet fork and jewels separately in hexane. Also inspected the pivots and jewels to confirm nothing bent or broken or still dirty. I didn't touch the mainspring. There were a couple spots of rust, but nothing in a place that would affect performance

https://i.imgur.com/fssPkMs.jpeg

After that, and proper lubrication, it's running quite well. Small movements like this, even good quality ones, are not as accurate as larger ones. So with that in mind, this old Omega 485 keeps good time in all positions, with a delta of just 14 seconds. Maybe I should find the rest of a watch!

Next on the bench is a Rolex 3135 superclone, which I had to order parts for unfortunately (there's that Chinese spring issue, which has been a problem for me since day 1 starting out)

After that, I think I'll be ready to tackle the Tag Heuer quartz chronograph that a super awesome revscener donated to me quite a while ago. Having worked under the microscope for a while now, I think I'm ready to tackle that. I posted a screenshot from the technical manual a while ago, and you can see why I put it off until I got some more practice with smaller movements. It has similar issues to the Omega actually, where everything is just a bit sticky, including the pushers. I think a service and lubrication will be enough to bring it back.

I've got a vintage Seiko Sport 5 that doesn't work... I really like the watch aesthetically but from the moment I bought it off eBay it was obvious some Gurpreet in India didn't fix it right.. lesson learned.

I would be willing to mail it to you if you wanted to take a run at it?

I could give it a shot! If the movement is toast it wouldn't be too much to get a replacement either. PM me

If you can wait, I’m going to HK in March 2026 and could drop it off with Skinnypupp… ;)

I’ll let you know, I don’t live in Vancouver anymore tho and not sure when lll be back next!

In preparation for 68style's incoming Seiko, I have my first Seiko on the bench! It's a new NH36A, straight from Malaysia or wherever they make them now (probably China I imagine). It won't be the same as his, but it will be based on it so I'd like to get familiar with it first.

https://i.imgur.com/5g45c3g.png

It's definitely different from the Swiss based movements I've worked on so far, and comes across as something made by and for machines to work on. One giveaway are the massive screw slots, intended for use by machines. This meant I had to grind down my screwdriver to fatten it up for a better fit.

I was shocked at how much oil and grease there was all over the place. We're taught to use miniscule amounts of each, so it doesn't spread all over the place. This thing had tons of grease throughout the keyless work. Not that it was spreading on its own - it was all where it was supposed to be. There was just a lot of it.

https://i.imgur.com/qfqrcOG.png

There's so many parts, I have to use two parts trays. Going to degrease it, clean it, and put it back together

The regulation out of the box was not great, with a delta of 25 seconds, and 1ms beat error. This is all within spec, but the spec is pretty wide and I should be able to improve it. Remember that 50 year old ladies watch was also around 20 seconds!