[Sir Alan]

One of my most recent purchases was this:




(this picture after I'd cleaned it up, fitted a new crystal, new bezel insert and a donor 6309A movement that is clean as a whistle and runs great).

I'd bought it knowing the movement was not working, and from the one picture it was clear it was very dirty / rusty.

After I'd swapped the movement, I decided to fully strip and then attempt a re-build of the original.

I found copious amounts of oil, rust and general debris inside - it was no wonder it wasn't running.




there was also evidence of previous botching - scratches, burred screw heads, a missing screw and incorrect screws.

I couldn't make it any worse if I tried.

Last week I was given a 60x magnification wide stand microscope so I took the opportunity to have a look up close.




Here are a few pictures I took of the hairspring and pallet forks:






and here is the hairspring after I'd cleaned it in essence of renata




I was really pleased that it went back to an even spacing. :grin:

I've got the movement back together and its running. I don't own a timeographer yet so can only do a basic time keeping test, but so far it looks good.

 

[DAHASCO]

Nice save and Great Pictures...Thanks...

 

[Patrinos2003]

impressive photos, nice work there keep us posted!

 

[xzqt]

Nice marco.

 

[Transporter]

Nice job there, how do you find essence of reneta, I use lighter fluid to clean hairsprings it's not bad but that hairspring has come up ace, is it just a one dip solution?

 

[Sir Alan]

I've only used it (essence of renata) once and as you say it worked perfectly - one dip.

Previously I'd used lighter fluid which seemed to work but I had nothing to compare it to nor did I have the microscope to see how dirty things were before and afterwards.

 

[Sir Alan]

An update on the strip down, clean and re-build of the 6309A that came in the 6309-7040.

There was a lot of rust damage (pitting), mostly cosmetic (I think) on several of the components, notably:

ratchet wheel
transmission wheel




and pawl lever




I did have a second 6309A movement, but this was in an even worse state (I bought it non-working, just for the day and dates disks) so it was a case of pick the best of the worst from each.

The first challenge (and lesson learned) came getting the barrel and train wheel bridge on. For the life of me I couldn't get it to sit down, even though there are only three bearing points (the escape wheel, the third and fourth wheels).

On the third attempt I realised what the problem was, the click spring was underneath the bridge!!! I'd been paying so much attention to the wheels I'd not noticed this. Once I'd moved it aside (outside of the bridge) everything sat down nicely within minutes.

There is a specific note about this in the Technical Guide.

The next lesson was fitting the balance cock and balance. I'd done this before on a 7005 movement and found it more than a bit nerve wracking.

This time I just set the pallet fork over to the right, dropped (not literally!!) the balance wheel in and trusted that the balance would find its bearing hole and the pallet fork with a little guidance from a cocktail stick. I had to repeat this three times and each time it only took a matter of minutes.

The next obstacle I hit was with the click spring - for some reason it would not engage as it should with the ratchet wheel. This was the click from the other movement, and after several attempts to get it to move freely I ended up using the original click. This worked perfectly.

The final lesson was when I came to oil the diashock on the balance. It pinged off when I was moving it and whilst I heard roughly where it went, I never saw it again. These things are tiny!!




Luckily I could use the one from the other movement - this had some previous damage around the stud screw that meant I didn't feel too bad about this.

I've learned a lot from this work - its taken 4 attempts but I've got a movement that's running and so far seems to be keeping time (I only finished it this afternoon).

Here it is back in the watch that I stole the movement from:




and a shot from the front:

 

[Transporter]

Nice work, I know them little keepers on the dia shock are a pain, like you ive had a couple ping off never to be seen again, I also see you had the click spring problem, I had to laugh reading that, as soon as you find out you remember for every other movement that you tear down and rebuild.
nice job there well done

 

[BenchGuy]

Shock springs: carefully placed rodico will keep you from having to chase...a strong permanent magnet will help you retrieve, if necessary.

 

[Joe Horner]

Shock springs: carefully placed rodico will keep you from having to chase...

How did anyone ever do this job before rodico? So many uses in one little green sausage! :grin:

 

[nzwatchdoctor]

How did anyone ever do this job before rodico? So many uses in one little green sausage! :grin:

Your idea of putting your oiler in the middle of it when turning it off / on is a good one I use