Bulova Photos

As a follow-up to the thread below, I have some photos of the Bulova through the process of trying to get it running. This watch came through my family, and I believe it was my grandfather's on my father's side of the family. When I found it, the crystal was missing, and the sub-seconds hand was gone. It was on one of those old expansion bracelets, so that came off really quick.

Here is the watch head just as I began the project - you can see that the dial is in rough shape, likely from being exposed to the air for so long.




I removed the watch movement from the case, and flipped it over for my first look at the movement - it looked quite nice at first glance. The mainspring was fully wound, but the watch would not work. I tried coaxing the balance into life, but each time I started it oscillating with my tweezers, it quickly stopped.





I put the movement in my movement holder, and prepared to remove the hands. Probably not much point in putting down the watch paper to protect the dial, but I needed to practice doing things right.





With the dial and hands off, I had my first really good look at what the condition of this watch was. It looked to be largely intact, with no obvious signs of significant damage.






Looking at the dial side, especially in the area of the keyless works, there was a lot of dirt. It looked as though dirt was entering the case where the stem was, and that area was quite gummed up - I later found that some areas were quite worn from years of winding.





Disassembly was pretty straightforward, but I was sure to take photos at each stage, and take notes about things I found as I took it all apart. I eventually had all the bits taken apart, and in their proper storage trays so I knew what part came from what section of the movement.





In the photo above you can see the main plate of the movement still in the holder, the case, dials and hands in one area, the barrel, sections of the gear train, and the bridges all ready for cleaning.

Here is a shot of the pallet still on the main plate - it was the last item to be removed.





Here is a picture of the balance cock, with the balance attached (nice adjustable mass balance! ).






I found and old "ultrasonic" cleaner that is a consumer model for cleaning your rings at home. It came with various soaps, but I hesitated to use those on the movement parts. I did some research and the solutions for proper watch cleaning are hard to find, and can't be shipped over the border from my normal supplier in California. So, I found some information on alternatives, and ended up using isopropyl alcohol in the small cleaning trays. This shot shows them in the solution getting clean - well at least cleaner than they were......




This cleaning machine doesn't do much, so I have since found another concoction of ammonia and Mr. Clean that I have read does a better job, so I'll try that next. This is a shot of one portion of the keyless works that I had to scrape with peg wood to clean - note this was after it had been in the ultrasonic cleaner in the alcohol!





I spent hours cleaning off the old, dried out oil that was on the jewels in the main plate and bridges. It had hardened, and had to be scraped off with a piece of peg wood. Here is a shot of me at work - I'm scraping the jewels with peg wood in this photo.





In this photo I'm inspecting the pivot on a part of the gear train. The pivots are the part of the shaft that sit in the jewels, and they must be completely clean and have a bit of a shine to them to make sure nothing saps power from the movement. This is probably where the movement is having it's troubles now, as the loupe I have is not strong enough to really inspect these pivots properly. Once I have a new loupe, I will possibly use some polishing rouge to polish the pivots to a shine, so the friction will be reduced.





In this photo, you can get an idea how small these pivots are. This is the pallet removed, and sitting next to a straight pin like you would find on a new dress shirt (that's where this one came from). If you look closely, there is a small shaft sticking up from the pallet, and the very small end is the pivot. It looks like a black dot on the shaft that comes from the pallet, and it is very fine - finer that the pointed end of a pin!





Note that in this photo you can see the shellac that holds the pallet jewels in place. They aren't locking on the escapement wheel very well right now, so I will have to adjust them - I expect this to be tricky as I need to heat them to loosen the shellac, then adjust the jewel's position, and let it harden again. I expect some trial and error will be required.

Here is a shot of the balance again, but this one shows the balance pivot quite well, and how fine it is.




Here is an even closer view of the same pivot - I can actually make out more detail with these pictures than I can with my loupe!






So, once all that was done, it was time for assembly! This went quite smooth, but there were some tricky parts. Below is a photo of the wheel train bridge after I removed it from the movement. The wheels are still in place, and as you can see there are 3 of them there.





This in one of the tricky things - putting a bridge back on over several pivots. This photo shows those gears back in the movement, along with the escapement wheel.






So, there are 4 pivots now facing up that I have to align all at once. The gears do not stand upright in their bottom jewels, so they flop around from side to side as I am trying to get that bridge back on. It took me several attempts, but after 30 minutes of fiddling I managed to get them on and all lined up!





So the movement is back together, functioning on some level, and still in need of more work. If I can find a second hand to go on it, and a crystal, I might just get this back to a wearable state!

Here is the video for those who may have missed it - give it time to load as it's a large file........

http://media.putfile.com/Bulova-movement


If you made it all the way to the bottom of this post - congrats, and thank you for your attention!!

[Rockrolex]

Al, thank you for a great tutorial. One of the best I have seen. Congratulations on the work so far. I look forward to seeing the final product. Well done. I'm sure this must be very satisfying for you.

[JJ Irani]

Al, my friend....what can I say!!! After reading all of the above, all I have to say is if your watch-making skills eventually match up with your archery skills, then you're going to be one helluva watchmaker!!!

[Uncle-AJ]

I think I'll stick to heavy engineering, I don't think my hand and eye are steady enough for that kind of work. Well done.

[TARDIS]

Hey Al:

I must compliment you on such painstaking and delicate work with your project.

The photo's are great too. Unfortunately, I can't d/load the video as I am with a slow dial-up ISP.

I am sure that many of us here would all like to see photo's of the finsihed product!

Regards

Steve

[mailman]

Nice job AL. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[padi56]

Excellent pictures Al great topic keep it up there is a desperate shortage of watchmakers world wide.

[Gedanken]

I'm just gobstopped, Al - great work! I wanna be like you if I grow up!

Awesome work and photography Al. Who needs DK anyways, with our resident watchmaker!

I know Daren is Dman, but Al, you're Da Man!

[dman]

Bravo Al!!

[Earl]

Al, you say you did the watch repair 101 class off TZ, is this a pay course or just a tutorial for people who want to see what it's like?

Wow - thank you all for your very kind comments!

I guess I am an all or nothing kind of person, so when I take up a hobby, I like to know everything there is to know (within reason.... ).

I still have a lot of work to do on this watch, but will definitely share the end result with everyone at TRF.

Al, if I have any trouble with my BM, I'm sending it to you.

[JJ Irani]

Originally Posted by Atomic

Al, if I have any trouble with my BM, I'm sending it to you.

Nah....send it back to that Hawaiian tosser. He's the one who palmed it off to you!!!

Originally Posted by Earl

Al, you say you did the watch repair 101 class off TZ, is this a pay course or just a tutorial for people who want to see what it's like?

Earl - there are two levels of watch school on TZ, and I have completed level 1. There is a cost for access to the lessons, and on top of that there is a kit that you buy with some basic tools and an ETA movement (hand wound, time only) to work on that the lessons are geared towards. This is what I started with, and the total investment was probably $250 US or so.

This did not get me to the stage where I had the ability to make the movement that I had from the course into a finished watch, so that required another investment in tools and parts for the watch such as case, dial, hands, and strap. Probably another $200 there.

I now have purchased the level 2 kit that includes some additional tools, several types of oil, and another ETA movement that this time is self winding, and has the day of the week and date on it. I plan to start that course shortly. This required another $250 investment.

I'm not quite sure what my goal is with this, other than to better understand how watches work, and to be able to tinker with some old watches I have around the house. It may eventually lead to doing some work on the side, and I have already had some people ask me if I would look at their watches - not sure I'm ready for that just yet.......I've also had offers from people to buy my project watch, so there might be a method of getting back some of the expense involved in getting all these tools. If I have time I'll pull out all the tools that I've bought as part of this and post a picture in the next day or two, so keep an eye on this thread.

Thanks, Al

Al I may be interested in a 'custom' watch if I could see the selection of cases, dials and hands.

That would be pretty cool.

Maybe you could do a custom 'archer' dial, with your avatar.

[Launch Mini]

Amazing work there.
I don't even want to take the back case off a watch, let alone mess with the parts.
Try wrapping your head around the fact that people actually designed & built watches so many years ago.

[G Shearing]

I'm always in awe when someone can do something I can never do. I would have those little parts down on the carpet so fast, or down the edge of the sofa....

[Earl]

Al, thanks for the come back info, I was wondering if it was worth the time and expense. I do believe it was for you as your now able to take apart and reassemble a basic watch!