A Voyage of Discovery

Disclaimer: If you thought the Count of Monte Cristo was too long you might want to skip this post 😏

So... Following on from the not so marvelous effort with @Aurelian's Santa Fe, a couple of more successful bits off the Gasworks bench. This time with no dial disasters...

Firstly a 7009-4040 from 1994. I do occasionally stray outside the 1970s.

This was among the dirtiest watches I've ever worked on. I don't think it spent much of its life in a cushy office job... it certainly didn't have soft hands and manicured nails.

However, a warm bath (bubbles, candles, pebbles, etc) and a good service later it is in much better shape. A new crystal always makes a huge difference too.

I haven't refurbished the bracelet yet but I think it looks better on a leather strap anyway. Seiko 5 bracelet are hardly bywords for quality.

Secondly, after many many hours of work, I finally have the Bellmatic working as it should. It's a 4006-6040 from 1976. The year we had a heatwave in the UK but, as the Berlin wall hadn't yet come down, no one was talking about climate change - Read Michael Crichton's "State of Fear".

I've not worked on the 4006 before and it's been a real voyage of discovery... with thunderstorms and monsters lurking in wait. Think Jason and the Argonauts... complete with Harryhausen skeletons but no golden fleece.

When I picked it up off eBay it was ticking but not well; the minute and hour hands were not moving. The alarm worked but the setting ring slipped and occasionally jammed. The case and bracelet also needed a good tidy up. Plenty to do then.

Firstly to get it ticking...

A full service highlighed two issues.

1. The pallet fork was suffering from a worn pinion.

2. The cannon pinion was very loose (I suspected as much as the hands weren't turning and this is usually the cause)

A replacement pallet fork and canon pinion were sourced and bought. It is possible to gently pinch the pinion back into shape but, as the replacement was less than £5, I decided to go with new.

Look at all those parts!

With these issues resolved, the watch was now ticking well and keeping good time.

I continued my journey in good spirits, little did I know the horrors that lay in wait.

I bought a replacement crystal and, despite being assured by more than one resource that it was correct, it... err... wasn't. It was a fraction too large and broke during installation. I knew it was too large but I forced it because I'm stubborn and refused to accept it wouldn't fit. There was the unmistakable crack of splintering acrylic swiftly followed by swearing.

Rather than buy another crystal that wouldn't fit, I decided to restore the original crystal with multi-grit sanding (400, 600, 800, 1000 all the way up to 5000 and finished with Polywatch). I'm not sure why I didn't just do that to begin with, the original was perfectly restorable.

Then on to identifying the issues with the alarm setting mechanism. I'll abridge it here for the sake of the reader but it took quite some time and a number of builds and rebuilds. These cycles were oft as not accompanied by swearing.

At one point I managed to lose a spring, search for it everywhere including ridiculous places it couldn't possibly be, give up searching, order a new one and then, 5 minutes after ordering the new one, find the original spring about 3 inches from where it disappeared. Swearing.

The profanity clearly helped as I did finally manage to track the issue down to a worn setting wheel lever that was wobbling ever so slightly and allowing the connected setting wheels to slip.

A replacement was sourced, bought and installed.

The movement was once again reassembled and this time the alarm setting wheel worked perfectly. There was much rejoicing.

Despite being a real challenge I've loved working on this watch. It's such a clever - albeit complex - movement and the watch itself is actually rather a handsome chap.

It's already found a new home with @Guvnor64

I've got a few other bits lined up over the coming weeks including a Kinetic that I started work on a few years ago but have never got around to finishing.

Sorry it's been such a long one.  If you got this far - Thank you for sticking with it.

Until next time lovely people 💕