Servicing an Oris "Constantine" Modern Classic

I had a lovely chat with a guy last year at a business event and we bonded over shared interest about watches, specifically Oris.

I previously did a touch-up job on a 32mm Oris Big Crown Pointer Date with a bent hand. Barely noticeable to the naked eye, but I really pay attention to the finer details as I try and improve on my service work.

I showed these photos to the gentleman, and saw his eyes lit up. The next time we met, he excitedly presented me with his vintage-looking Oris Modern Classic.

He told me its one of his early milestone watches, and would love to see it keep good time again.

The watch ran too fast due to dry oils, and the crown operation was very sticky. Upon closer inspection, the last person who worked on this watch wasn't as careful as I would like. One of the reversing wheel pivots was broken, and I saw scratch marks on the balance bridge when they were trying to regulate the movement. Its good practice to just use softer peg wood on these, and only move that regulator needle for finer adjustments.

The watch houses an Oris 633 (modified ETA 2824-2) movement. I've heard these movements have some winding issues if the user puts excess torque on crown-winding, and just shreds teeth on the ratchet wheel.

I highly advise not to do a full wind of these movements & let the automatic works do its job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OakfEpAAmY8

Luckily the movement I'm working on still has all its teeth. If I remember correctly, you can date these Oris models with the rotor color. Early to mid 90s had the gold-plated rotor, late 90s to early 2000 were steel and the newer models after 2002 sport the trademark 'red' rotor.

A variant of this model was worn by Keanu Reeves in the 2005 movie "Constantine", and the nickname stuck.

One of the dial plates was a little loose when I was disassembling the movement, and I made sure to secure that when I put everything back together. Had no issues replacing and testing out the new reversing wheel.

Also removed all the old oils and put in some fresh ones on all jewels and pivots. Still baffles me on how small these parts are.

Went the extra mile on this service and decided to restore some metal. This watch came with its very scuffed original beads-of-rice bracelet.

After a few rounds of using different grit polishing sticks, I got to a good place where I'm happy seeing it shine like new again.

Overall, this was an easy one to work on. I was a bit intimidated at first since I thought I was gonna run into some proprietary parts, but in the end everything was just standard and finely engineered where I didn't have to worry about too many parts flying off during disassembly.

A gorgeous watch for the gentle man, and I'm looking forward to hand-delivering this piece back to him.