Full Restorations
Whether you're a dedicated collector or simply trying to get that old heirloom fixed, we know how to get these tiny and delicate engines running properly, so trust us with your grandfather's pocket watch for expert restorations that will take just a few days.
Doing it Right
Unless your watch is a time-capsule example, where it was tossed in a drawer a century ago and forgotten, it would've been used as a daily tool by its owners, some of whom might have maintained it properly. Plenty of people did not, dropping them repeatedly and running them for years on old or contaminated oil. Talented watchmakers were scarce, so they were sent to a jeweler in town for repair, or worse, the local handyman, who usually made things worse. The amount of intentional damage found in these antique watches is remarkable, from minor things like plastic crystals and the wrong hands to larger issues like parts deliberately thrown out, stripped screws, broken collets, smashed jewels, and more recent Superglue "fixes".
Don't worry - we can restore your family heirloom watch properly, which means putting things as close as practicable to the day it left the factory.
We can't erase every bump and scrape from so many decades of service - and these should be left as a tribute to its history - but we'll restore yours back to original factory specs with all of its components matching and correct.
Before
This is a fairly rare two-tone Model '92 Waltham in the Crescent Street grade with too many things wrong with it to fully list here.
After
The same watch, now fully restored with every single part matching and factory-correct, right down to the screws.
How It Happens
Accuracy is Precision
After disassembly and a thorough COA, every individual component is examined under the 30x stereoscope for issues like scarred pivots, bent gear teeth, rub marks, cracked or loose jewels, and dozens more things. There are no corners to be cut, since it takes a hundred parts working in unison for these antiques to function properly. While watches aren't terribly complicated, their size means there is little room for error, so the goal is a simple one - to reverse or minimize any abuse done in the past century and put the entire movement back to factory specs.
Staff Fabrication
Not every style of NOS balance staff can be found, especially for the smaller factories, so replacements must occasionally be fabricated.
Any new balance staff starts with a drill stock blank in diameters from 0.5 mm up to 2.5 mm. Taking very precise measurements, the new staff is turned on the lathe, and after final sizing of the pivots, the staff is polished with a burnisher and is ready for service.
Micro-Welding
Cracks caused by tinkerers can be filled with new metal and milled back to original specs, assuming the alloy is nickel-plated bronze.
In this photo, some fool had forced in a ridiculously oversized screw, splitting the metal and then peening it as a band-aid fix. The nominal diameter of the correct screw was 0.4 millimeters, shown on the right.
Re-Pivoting
An impact can easily break delicate pivots, and if that happens the staff remnant can be faced, the center found, and the hub drilled out.
A new pivot is then fabricated with precise dimensions to mimic the old one and seated either by friction or by temperature inversion.
Under Dial
The components under the dial are every bit as important as the ones between the plates, and yet they often go ignored. All of the hardware on your watch will be cleaned and inspected, milled flat and polished, and repaired or replaced as needed.
Cosmetic Issues
We offer a number of cosmetic processes to improve the appearance of your watch, including tarnish removal, dial repair, replacing missing enamel in the plate engravings, hand bluing, installing new glass, etc.
Yes, none of these things are necessary for any watch to run accurately, but doing any or all of these processes will make a big difference.
Timing and Accuracy
After it's been completely cleaned and all the issues have been identified and corrected, the movement is reassembled and the timing process begins, which can take hours to get to or better than factory original. Find out how your watch should perform after years of service.
The Factories
There were plenty of reputable Swiss factories founded in the 1800s such as Bulova, Jurgensen and Longines that produced high-grade and complicated pieces, but they used several cost-cutting techniques that prevented them from measuring up to their American counterparts.
Most models did not have banking pins, the jewels were friction-fit instead of easily-changed screw-set ones, gilt plate finishes were the most common, and the regulators usually had no micro-adjustment, almost certainly because all of these were the cheapest options.
The Designs
Vintage Swiss watches usually suffered from poor designs, soft alloys, coarse threads, and low tolerances. Note how this leaning mainspring barrel in the photograph is actually rubbing against the barrel plate because it's anchored only by the upper arbor mount.
The Problems
The Swiss were fixated on making the thinnest watches possible, which meant flimsy gear train wheels, components rubbing against each other, and skinny mainsprings that had trouble pushing the balance wheel.
Regardless, they can be usually restored to running condition.
The Bar Movement
The single most common design was called the bar movement, or bar style, because of the multiple slim bridges used to anchor the gear train components. Legitimate companies like the British firm of M I Tobias did produce this design, but dozens of Swiss factories made millions of cheap knock-offs that mimicked it, even going so far as to call theirs an M J Tobias. Even though the design was similar, none of the individual parts were interchangeable because they came from different factories, including the dial, since the feet weren't all in the same locations. They were all low-grade, low-count examples with press-fit jewels.
We do not work on these cheap generics.
Restoration Highlights
One of the rarest of all Waltham dials - the coveted red guilloche with fancy hands, fronting a Model '88.