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A trip down under: Let the Build Begin.......Aussie Pogue

2K views 21 replies 10 participants last post by  TheTigerUK 
#1 ·
Another 6139 up for restoration. This time an Aussie Proof 6139-6000 for one of our own here on the forum. This came in with several issues which took some extra time to evaluate and correct one by one. A time consuming task to say the least. I start every service with a thorough evaluation checking all the functions to identify problem areas. Often times there is more then meets the eye and other issues will surface as time transpires. This was one of those times. Even though at first glance everything looks good, only time will tell what lies under the hood..........

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On this particular 6139 it would run with low amplitude but would stop once the chrono was engaged. The sub dial hand was slightly off on a reset and had been glued in place. There was no quick set day or date even with the movement out of the case and no change over at midnight The lume was missing on the hour hand and the inner bezel wouldn't turn with the crown. The crown was aftermarket and had no ridge to center the stem spring and the stem appeared to be too short.

The inner bezel issue was due to the stem gear being installed on the stem backwards and the stem gear spring missing.
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The issue with the date change over at midnight was due to the tab being broken off on the date finger. As you can see the broken tab is sitting loose in the 12 o'clock position. The issue with the quick set not working was due to burs on the stem not allowing it to enter the clutch wheel to fully depress the day-date corrector.
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With a few of the issues solved I moved forward with the tear down and cleaning of parts.
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I'll skip the usual set of movement assembly photos to highlight my Handy Dandy new fangled hand installer tool......... I picked this up after Simon had posted about the one he had received. I needed something to simplify and speed up the hand installation process. I didn't have a lathe to fabricate a movement holder so I had to work with what I had. I took one of Adrian's movement holder and custom ground a washer to center and secure it in the base plate of the hand installer and epoxied it to the base of the movement holder. I also modified it with a screw for depressing the pusher and holding it in place for installing the sub + sweep hands.

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The beauty of this tools is that with light pressure while depressing the hand, it allows you to rotate and align the hand perfectly.
It worked like a charm............:)


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First the sub dial hand and the the hour hand..........
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Then the minute hand.........
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Followed by the sweep hand..............

To be continued..........
 
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#2 ·
Going back a few steps the movement assembled as normal but as usual, there would still be a few hurdles to overcome.

Keyless works, center wheel, barrel, escape wheel, third wheel + pinion, and center chrono wheel
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Train wheel bridge, coupling levers, lever spring, hammer, and hammer spring,
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Minute recording wheel and intermediate recording wheel followed by the chrono bridge.
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Pallet fork + balance and she's ready for a test run only to discover that the watch would still stop when the chrono was engaged. After a closer look I discovered the center jewel in the bridge for the chrono wheel was cocked. Once the jewel was reset in the bridge it was reinstalled and she was back up and running with the chrono engaged only to discover it would once again stop when the chrono finger tried to advance the intermediate minute recording wheel. On the "A" movements this wheel is attached to the chrono bridge and it is recommended that it gets no lube on the pinions. That basically leaves you with the option to thoroughly clean it once again and try to loosen up the wheel on it's pinion. This sometimes works and somtimes not. In this case I had to replace the bridge with a donor bridge. Two more issues solved............lol
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Back to the dial side to install the cannon pinion, int. date wheel, date driving wheel, hour wheel, replacement date finger, and day finger
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Long story short (or is that log story long in this case??) date + date wheels, dial, + hands, replacement sub dial hand, movement cased with new crystal and gaskets. Nos stem, nos stem spring, stem gear installed correctly, and replacement crown.
A full wind and she's up and running like a top..........:)
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Ready for a bracelet and some wrist time.
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And in the time it took to post this restoration I could have torn down and cleaned up another 6139. Hence my somewhat lack of posting over the last few weeks. I'm trying to make headway on a backlog and post about 1 in 3 watches completed..........

Bob's yer Uncle.......................
 
#4 ·
Thanks John!
The movement holder will rotate on the base in order to install the sub hand but it may be a little more difficult to view alignment of the hand due to the position. I'm just learning my way around this hand installing tool and will most likely proceed with installing sub dial hands in the future but on this build I did it the old fashioned way with a regular hand held installation tool.
This new tool really speeds up the hand installation process. Once you set the stops for the particular movement your working on the hands go on quickly, to the right depth, and parallel to the dial unlike when installing hands with a hand held tool.

I've modified 3 movement holders for 6138's + 6139's, 6XXX's, and 7S25, 36 + 4R36 movements.
 
#5 ·
Thanks Tom, I should imagine because the holder is centralized you will always have to do the sub dial by hand ?

I wonder if once you have set the stops for one movement you could mod the holders so that the stops never had to be changed for different movements ?
 
#7 ·
Beautiful work Tom! Thank you for your diligence.


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#10 ·
Tom - You earned your money on this one. Nicely done my friend. Some go easy and some go hard. This was fought you all the way.
You are so right about that John but on the other hand it's such a pleasure to see the issues resolved!
 
#12 ·
really nice job Tom - well done. I like that hand installer - nice piece of equipment.

Question: why are these models called "Aussie" Pogues?
The gold dial with black rotating ring combination seems to be a legitimate color combination found only in Australia. Many people find these gold with black ring, clearly unadultered Pogues in Oceania. To cement the legitimacy, Adrian from VTA's father bought one just like it brand new so when stories emerge that they found a Pogue with the gold dial and black ring from Australia or that corner of the world collectors now recognize it as a local variant. I am not sure if it has to be an R or a T dial or a -6002 or a -6005 only or any of the extra minutia that we always learn about when the detectives put their minds to it.

You can argue the aesthetics as there was a pretty good reason not to mate these 2 colors together in my book. But as a regional thing it makes a nice variant to collect. I think any bloke who takes a gold dial and pops on a black rotating ring without any provenance of genuine Australian history does not have an Aussie Pogue but rather a mutt.
Editorial over:)
 
#19 ·
Here is the thread on the Aussie from last year: New Infos about the "Aussie" Pogue, discovered coloured catalogue and model number AH023

This was the case where I was searching for a PROOF gold dial and got a little lucky to get the “Aussie”. I understand the aesthetics aren’t for everyone but I like the black and gold combo. But like Jon and others have mentioned, it wouldn’t be hard to “make” one. It needs to be a -6000, Roman day wheel (like the silver dials), black chapter ring.

When Tom was in my watch he verified that it was an original watch. So the provenance really has to be authenticated by a watchmaker with the reputation of someone like Tom.

I’m very excited with the result!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#20 ·
Here is the thread on the Aussie from last year: New Infos about the "Aussie" Pogue, discovered coloured catalogue and model number AH023

This was the case where I was searching for a PROOF gold dial and got a little lucky to get the “Aussie”. I understand the aesthetics aren’t for everyone but I like the black and gold combo. But like Jon and others have mentioned, it wouldn’t be hard to “make” one. It needs to be a -6000, Roman day wheel (like the silver dials), black chapter ring.

When Tom was in my watch he verified that it was an original watch. So the provenance really has to be authenticated by a watchmaker with the reputation of someone like Tom.

I’m very excited with the result!
As well you should be ! It is a variant that is quite hard to find when genuine and I think a real collector who is trying to 'get them all' should aspire to have an Aussie Pogue (with substantiation like your own) to his collection.

Thanks for the minutia - figures you would be the detective !
"needs to be a -6000, Roman day wheel (like the silver dials)"
 
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