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Stewart H
·Towards the end of last year I bought a 133.8 Chronometre that was advertised as having a broken balance. Having sourced a NOS balance (an obsolete part) from Australia, I finally set about cleaning and repairing it yesterday.
Before:
As you can see, the crystal was in an un-salvageable condition.
Having taken the watch out of the case, the first thing I noticed was that the second hand was wedged into the hole in the minute wheel with paper. Looking at the back of the hand it was obvious why this had been done - the post for the hand was broken off inside the hand tube. There is no way that will ever come out so it needs a new second hand and wheel. As I started taking the movement apart, I thought it strange that there was a screw missing from the bridge that holds the oscillating weight in place - this is quite a large screw so difficult to lose.
The reason the balance was broken was because the roller jewel had been forced out of the pallet fork - so that's a new pallet needed as well.
All on its own in the bottom of the movement was a small screw that didn't belong anywhere - now that IS strange.
At this stage, I was so glad that I bought the French Frankenbumper. http://omegaforums.net/threads/death-of-the-frankenbumper.2787/
So here it is, back up and running with a new crystal, strap and balance plus the pallet, wheel, bridge screw and second hand from the Frankenbumper.
The hand isn't quite right but I will either try to find an appropriate one of file down the tail at a later date.
Before:
As you can see, the crystal was in an un-salvageable condition.
Having taken the watch out of the case, the first thing I noticed was that the second hand was wedged into the hole in the minute wheel with paper. Looking at the back of the hand it was obvious why this had been done - the post for the hand was broken off inside the hand tube. There is no way that will ever come out so it needs a new second hand and wheel. As I started taking the movement apart, I thought it strange that there was a screw missing from the bridge that holds the oscillating weight in place - this is quite a large screw so difficult to lose.
The reason the balance was broken was because the roller jewel had been forced out of the pallet fork - so that's a new pallet needed as well.
All on its own in the bottom of the movement was a small screw that didn't belong anywhere - now that IS strange.
At this stage, I was so glad that I bought the French Frankenbumper. http://omegaforums.net/threads/death-of-the-frankenbumper.2787/
So here it is, back up and running with a new crystal, strap and balance plus the pallet, wheel, bridge screw and second hand from the Frankenbumper.
The hand isn't quite right but I will either try to find an appropriate one of file down the tail at a later date.
