A sticky pusher or two is not an uncommon occurrence on Omega Speedmasters. This can be caused by a build up of crud inside the pusher tube if the seal has failed but more usually the cause is a broken spring. I thought I’d show how I approach this repair.
Chronograph
Breitling Colt battery change
This Breitling Colt chronograph came in for a battery change recently so I thought I’d document the procedure for anyone thinking of having a go at doing it themselves.
IWC Mecaquartz chronograph
The International Watch Companies mecaquartz range of chronograph watches use a hybrid movement with quartz powered time and chrono functions coupled with a mechanical reset. The mechanical reset instantly snaps the registers back to the rest position as opposed to a fully quartz movement which has to advance them back to rest. The movements were based on the Jaeger LeCoultre calibre 630 and 631, the 631 having the addition of a moonphase indicator. These movements have two motors, one powering the timekeeping hands and the other powering the chronograph. The watch featured is based on the 25 jewel 630 calibre. As you can see from the photograph it has an unusual date indicator, much like a pointer style but different in as much as only the two red bars that frame the date are visible on the dial. It came in with various issues, the most immediate being that it didn’t run, neither the time keeping or the chronograph.
Seiko 6138-3002 chronograph
Seiko is well known for getting their 6139 chronograph to market in February 1969, the first automatic chronograph available to the public at that time. The story goes they wanted to release the twin register 6138 first, but because of the extra layer of components for the hour recording wheel it’s a more complicated watch than the single register 6139 and it wasn’t moving forward as fast as they’d like. Consequently they focused their energy on getting the 6139 to market to try and beat the two other contenders who were also developing automatic chronographs, namely Zenith-Movado group and a joint effort from Breitling, Hamilton/Bren, Heuer/Leonidas and Dubois-Dpraz. The arguments are still being done to death as to who actually was the first to market but my take is Seiko takes that accolade, your views may differ! This 6138-3002 came in for a full movement service as it wasn’t running correctly and a new crystal.
Corum Bubble Joker
I thought I’d feature this as it’s a watch you don’t see very often, Corums Bubble Joker ref 82.240.20 which was created for their collector series. This particular one is powered by an ETA 2892-2 with a chronograph module on top, I believe some were powered by the Valjoux 7750 movement. Corum produced 777 examples of this particular model. The chronograph hand had become detached on this one and it needed refitting and of course investigating as to why it had actually come off.
Another day, another Pogue….
I’ve had a number of these 6139-6002’s in recently, in fact last month I did a little piece on the history of them here. I thought I’d feature the latest one that’s been on the bench to illustrate the transformation a simple thing like a replacement crystal can bring to the watch. It came in for a new crystal and a full movement service. Under that crystal the dial and handset look to be in great shape with little damage and bright white lume, and thankfully no broken crown on this one.
Seiko 6139-6002
Watches that have a connection to space missions are always popular with collectors, the most obvious being Omegas Speedmaster which back in the 1960’s came first in trials to become the official watch used for space flight by NASA. Seikos 6139-6002 also has a part to play in the space mission story as commander William R Pogue wore his example during his eighty-four day Skylab mission between November 16 1973 and February 8 1974. Although he was not officially sanctioned to do so, Pogue wore the watch during his duration on Skylab. He travelled around the Earth 1214 times for a total of thirty-four million miles with the watch on his wrist. He also used the watch during pre-flight training to time the engine burns. Seikos 6139-600x chronograph has now become better known as the “Pogue” for the above reason.
Seiko Gen 1
This Seiko 7A28-7120 chronograph came in for a full service, a new crystal and a seal change recently, it also had a problem with the chronograph minute counter which wasn’t working. More commonly referred to as the Seiko Gen 1 (generation 1) these were first issued by the MOD to British military pilots in October 1984 and weren’t replaced until November 1990. Seiko supplied a Gen 2 chronograph later on in the 1990’s. The Gen 1’s were also the first quartz powered chronographs issued by the MOD replacing the venerable mechanical Valjoux 7733 powered ones that were issued for the preceding decade or so. The MoD bought and issued a total of 11,307 Gen 1’s, which makes it one of the most popular issued military chronographs to date. This particular watch had been sent by the owner to Seiko UK for the work to be carried out but it was returned as they don’t carry the spare parts anymore, this was when it made its way to me. The movement has a crown at 8 and the start, stop and reset at 2, 4 and 10. The large seconds hand is the chronograph running seconds hand, the sub dial at three is the 1/10th second counter, the one at 9 is the minute counter and the one at 6 is the running seconds.
The Seiko one button chronograph
This little one button chronograph came in for a service and crystal change earlier in the year, It’s a Seiko reference 5719-8992. As you can see it’s actually out of the case and in a movement holder in this shot.
These little one button chronographs are interesting watches in Seikos development. They marked the first commercial chronograph that Seiko developed for the mass market, whilst Seiko had made a chronograph model back in the forties it wasn’t available to the general public as all production was destined for the Japanese military forces. The 5719 and 5717’s were brought to market on the back of the 1964 summer olympic games in Tokyo where Seiko were the official timekeepers. (more…)
The Watch Bloke 