This lovely 1970’s Omega dress watch came in for a service a short while ago. I was struck by the simple, very elegant styling, the whole watch hangs together beautifully from the baton hands and applied indicies to the dial that fills the slender 9k gold case with its baton type lugs. It just looks right!

Once inside, the calibre 1030 movement is every bit as lovely as the external components, you can tell the rhodium plated movement hasn’t been built down to a price, again it’s just right.

The stripdown went without incident bar a couple of points of interest.

The bridle had detached itself from the end of the mainspring, not an unusual occurrence but once this goes the power reserve is depleted as the spring will now slip on the barrel wall long before it’s fully wound. A new mainspring was fitted.

Another occurrence that isn’t seen so often was the incabloc spring from the balance cock was split in two, when I went to undo it, it fell out in two parts. You can see the new replacement below, it’s the brass lyre shaped spring in the bottom left of the picture. To fit a new one of these the balance cock has to be stripped of its regulating levers to allow access to the slot in the incabloc upper housing that the springs “hinge” sits in.

The balance assembled back together again.

The new mainspring greased and lubed.

The motion work coming back together.

The dial and hands refitted.

And back in the case. The crystal still had a few marks and scratches……..

…….but a bit of elbow grease and some varying grades of emery cloth followed by a buffing with polywatch soon got it looking nice and clear. These calibre 1030’s are one of Omegas lesser trumpeted quality hand wind movements. All in all a lovely package!