GenTLe 1,510 Posted January 13, 2020 As most of the recurring people know, I like to put my tweezers inside the watches and tinker with them. It gives me much more satisfaction than just collect them, especially when they can be perfected (i.e. that Nomos with wring lume color on the hands, or that other vintage SeaDweller with the wrong crown guard shape and so on). Normally all goes more or less smoothly, but every now and then it happens THAT watch that is evil on earth and seems to have the willing to ruin your days. I'd like to hear your stories about your evil watches I have had 4 of them by now: a Pro-Hunter GMT, which I think was my 2nd rep, and that I ended up rebuying it because the 1st one was a mess (also it had inside a non-requested "swiss" crap movement...), an H-Factory Pam based on the 7750 which I had to work on both the case (crownguard that was not remaining close) and the movement (3 times... due to the crappy winding gears of those early 7750s), the BR03-88 type aviation (hands too large, sent to Ssteel who fucked up the movement pushing the hands too hard on the pinion, hard time to find the spare parts, etc etc... All in all it has been unusable for 1 year since when I received it, luckily now it runs great!), and finally the 2892A2 based titanium Franck Muller Vanguard, which finally it's back in shape since yesterday evening. I'm going to write about this last one. The evil watch is this one (pic of a gen): All started by a mistake I did when it arrived brand new: I noticed the crown was a bit too out and decided that since I thought it was a push-pull crown (and it wasn't... This watch for whatever strange reason has a screw-down crown...) I decided to take out the crown and reduce the stem size. BIG mistake. This watch has a 2892A2 inside and this movement is one of the absolute worst when it comes to dislocating the sliding pinion while reinserting the stem. It has happened to me about the 20/25% of the times I've dealt with this movement and had to reinsert the stem in it... I kind of hate this movement... So I removed the crown, shorten the stem and... fucked up the keyless when trying to reinsert it :( BONUS: I discovered then that it is indeed a screw-down crown, and that I have cut therefore the stem a bit to short... Damn me. I kind of fixed it putting a small piece of steel wire inside the crown, so that the stem could stop screwing-in earlier and therefore was sticking out more from the crown. Not the best solution, bu t it somehow worked decently even not perfectly. OK then, let's disassemble everything, service the movement and put back all together. After the service, with movement apparently ok, I had the idea to put the dial face down on a piece of lint-free paper to help to secure it to the movement -> resulting in a partial deletion of the West and East writings on the border of the dial itself. Damn me again. I searched the web and found a set of markers with extra fine tips, like 0.1mm. With A LOT of patience and tries I managed to fix the dial. Watch has then been reassembled and placed back in the box. But it isn't the end of the story... One thing I wasn't liking is that the movement should be wound quite some time before it started to run and you also had to shake a bit the watch to make it to run. But it was keeping good time and had a decent balance amplitude, so I decided to keep it that way. This was 1 year ago. FFWD to 1 month ago: I put on this watch for a special dinner and when I hand wound it it was making a not so nice gritty sound... Uhm... During the dinner I also discovered it was loosing time, like 25min/day Did I just said that I hate this movement? Anyway, the next days I opened it to check what was the issue. I told my self "well, while I'm on it, let's fix that stem that I did cut too short, let's take out the wire piece that is in the crown and use a proper stem extender. Imagine the rest... When finally I got the right length, at the final reinsertion of the stem, that damn sliding pinion got out of the yoke (again!). Problem is: I did not want to remove the movement from the dial and hands: the risk to mess up again the dial side writings was high and also the hands (who have very long tubes) aren't the easiest to handle. I decided to try to fix it from the back of the movement. I removed the autowind bridge, then the balance wheel and cock, the pallet fork and its bridge, the gear train bridge and the 3rd and escape wheel leaving the 4th wheel - where the second hand is attached - in place. Then I removed the main spring bridge and finally reached the sliding pinion and stem housing. I fixed the sliding pinion on the yoke, put back the mainspring brige, managed to put back the 3rd wheel (which sits partially below the 4th wheel, so not the easiest thing considering the 4th wheel was still there), the gear train bridge, pallet fork and balance. Still something wasn't fully ok: the amplitude was as low as 230°... Checking with the loupe, I noticed that sometimes the click spring was sliding below intermediate ratchet wheel, pushing on the mainspring barrel and de facto putting enough friction on it to reduce its force (and therefore the balance amplitude). I had to remove all again, look into my "movements for spare parts" box and find a new intermediate ratchet wheel to try... It worked, amplitude now at 270° and movement starting well with a few handwound and no shakes needed Time to put back the autowind bridge... And bang, again gritting sound. After disassemble of it found the guilty: the reduction wheel wasn't in good shape... No idea how this happened but I suspect it has something to do with the situation of the click spring... Anyway, again in my "movements for spare parts" box I had one to fit and finally the movement was back in shape. Oh, and last but not least, somehow a semi invisible hair (probably a wool fiber) found its way between the dial and the crystal... Luckily I managed to blow it away simply lifting a bit the dial without having to remove the stem again... If this little fucker will give me headaches again, I'm going to throw it on a wall, smash it with a hammer and pass over it with my car... GenTLe 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deju 1,889 Posted January 13, 2020 I have a gen omega deville 1342 quartz.... driving me insane lol At this point it's a project of madness and passion 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ssouthall6 4 Posted January 13, 2020 Sean caseWm9 braceletGen hands, dial, bezel, insert, DW, crystal, gasket, tube, stem, crownThis project was a nightmare from start to finish.First it started out as a wm9. I got an sh3135 and gen dial, hands, crystal and dw, sent to ado, turned out it would not fit the wm9 case. So I had to wait for a Sean or gen case to come up.Managed to get a Sean case and a gen bezel from occb2 - all good except the gen bezel would not fit the case. I then completely forgot I said to ado just switch the insert (which needed a special tool to part from the bezel) and ended up selling a wm9 donor watch for less than I paid for the gen bezel - the current owner probably doesn't even know they have it!So I'm left with a battered gen insert on a Sean case. Still not happy I do more research and discover with some work you can get gen bezel to fit the case. Manage to get a 116622 bezel and insert from Dubai for $600. Except it gets lost in the post. Full refund but back to square one.Eventually get a gen bezel but the insert is in worse condition than the current gen one I have. So once again the bezel is parted and ado gets it to fit. But the watch looks a bit battered so I take it to Italy, meet up with my friend Johnny Depp who polishes and brushes it very nicely. Then I discover tomrep can refinish the bezel. So I send it to Germany and very quickly this becomes a disaster. Tom loses the gmt click spring we are using because we had to part the insert and bezel. After a month of buying different click springs Tom gets one to fit. But then he can't get the caseback to fit. I have no idea why. So I buy a load of different casebacks, I think the current one is noob, and we are off and running again. Except it arrives back in the UK and the hands aren't aligned. Goes off to red1 to get sorted. Turns out removing and repinching the Canon pinion has done the hands no favours so another new set of gen hands and a vr3135 come in to finally get it done. The hands were supposedly 'like new' (like shit would have been closer to the truth) but they get cleaned up, fitted and now touch wood it's my best running watch. Hasn't lost a minute since I got it back. I have moved house 5 times since this project started!!!Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fulvio_61 208 Posted January 13, 2020 Quote If this little fucker will give me headaches again, I'm going to throw it on a wall, smash it with a hammer and pass over it with my car... Just to be sure of the result, right? This Vanguard based titanium is still really nice, however. But I can't find it from any TD .... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GenTLe 1,510 Posted January 13, 2020 1 hour ago, deju said: I have a gen omega deville 1342 quartz.... driving me insane lol At this point it's a project of madness and passion What's wrong with it? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GenTLe 1,510 Posted January 13, 2020 16 minutes ago, ssouthall6 said: I have moved house 5 times since this project started!!! Whoa... I don't want to know what you've put into this rep in terms of money... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GenTLe 1,510 Posted January 13, 2020 16 minutes ago, Fulvio_61 said: Just to be sure of the result, right? This Vanguard based titanium is still really nice, however. But I can't find it from any TD .... Now there is another one around: same all except with the more robust 2824 Here the last one: https://www.trustytime02.cc/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_456&products_id=20677&zenid=9beddf6f651b2c110779871503cc7a66 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fulvio_61 208 Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) Thanks, I have tried several times - exactly the same TD - but incredibly I missed it! Edited January 13, 2020 by Fulvio_61 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ssouthall6 4 Posted January 13, 2020 4 hours ago, GenTLe said: Whoa... I don't want to know what you've put into this rep in terms of money... I could have bought the gen put it that way Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hasel5 4,810 Posted January 13, 2020 14 minutes ago, ssouthall6 said: I could have bought the gen put it that way I have a gen paid £2500 second hand Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ssouthall6 4 Posted January 13, 2020 I have a gen paid £2500 second hand Yep, could've bought that easily Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
