Reassembly: Sea-Gull 816.351 / ST2130

After the teardown, it’s time to put our ST-2130 movement back together. I’ve put all the parts bar the date ring, the spring barrel (this watch is 2 months old, I’m not going to take apart the spring barrel) and the pallets into a cleaning solution, and then dried them off on tissue paper (not the stuff used for tissues, but the kind that comes in shoe boxes to wrap the shoes in). Once that’s done, we are ready for assembly.

Cleanliness is paramount – and a piece of pithwood is your friend. Before you use any tool, dab it into the pithwood. Takes away any hairs, dust, and dirt. To start off, I clean a screwdriver head

I use the screwdriver to put a drop of clock oil into my oil dish

I use three different oils: a clock oil for the slow moving parts, a watch oil for the faster moving parts, and a superfine watch oil for the pallets, pallet arbor, and escapement wheel

Time to sharpen my pegwood with a knife

The sharpened pegwood stick is used to clean the jewels. Carefully twirl the sharpened end in the jewel hole and check with a 10x loupe for cleanliness. Blow some air in it, check again with the loupe. Repeat until super-clean

After the jewels are clean, give your bottom plate a final blow of air

Clean your tweezers in the pithwood before each use

All pinions are cleaned with a sharp piece of pegwood

Before using the oiler, it’s also cleaned in the pithwood

As I go along assembling the movement, I oil. Here, I’m using clock oil

Same here – note the pinion I’m oiling. It’s upside-down. I will live to regret this once I’ve put the movement together as the time adjustment with the crown won’t work 😉 At this moment, I’m blissfully unaware of that fact

The bottom plate assembly is ready for the two thin cover plates – and I can’t bear to look at that upside-down pinion 🙂

I work with a computer screen on my bench – looking at the teardown images as I go along assembling the movement

The pallet jewels and the fork are cleaned holding them with a folded piece of paper using a pegwood stick

I carefully nudge the pallet fork into its bottom jewel

Now I put the pallet bridge on, being super-careful to make sure that the pallet arbor is properly seated in both jewels before I tighten the bridge screws. I tend to wiggle with some pegwood as I slowly tighten the screws

The wheel arbors get a final clean in the pithwood

Having oiled their bottom jewels, I put the other wheels into place, making sure they are properly seated

I loosely put the bridge into place and nudge all the wheels into position. This takes time and patience – when all the wheels are properly placed, the bridge will slide down into position. Make sure all the wheels are engaged and turn freely with the pegwood stick before screwing the bridge down

Time to oil again. The escapement wheel gets super-fine watch oil, the other wheels normal watch oil

The impulse pin gets a final clean with pithwood – and a check with a 10x loupe to make sure everything is clean. I don’t oil the impulse pin

Balance wheel and balance cock back in place, but not screwed down yet. Again, I make sure the balance staff is placed properly in its jewels by carefully moving the balance with a piece of pegwood. It will turn freely with the balance cock sitting fully on the top plate

Click and click spring going in – this is a bit fiddly, but doable if you hold down the round end of the spring with some pegwood and tighten the spring into place with another piece of sharpened pegwood

Transmission wheel and barrel wheel back in place, ready to put the auto-winder on

Auto-winder in place. This is the point in time where I insert the winding shaft to check everything and notice my setting pinion is upside down. I step back from the bench and silently weep, to continue this entry on another day as I’ve had enough for today

I’ve put the movement and the rest of the parts in a glass jar with lid, and will continue this quest next week. Time for the weekend!

——

Another day, and a fresh start ….

This time, the right way around 🙂

The movement is going back into its case

And we are back in business!

Now that it’s put together again, time to hook it up to the timegrapher.

Position Accuracy s/day Amplitude Beat Error
FU -9 267 0.1
FD -3 268 0.2
CR 0 257 0.0
CU -23 227 0.3
CD -4 300 0.0
CL -16 239 0.2

Not bad – I should probably regulate the watch a tiny bit faster as I would expect it to run slightly slow as it is – probably around 10s/day.
So happy I can ditch that crummy Rolex again and wear my favourite watch!

10 thoughts on “Reassembly: Sea-Gull 816.351 / ST2130

  1. Hi!

    I still have this watch in use. I have done some regulations earlier but it is still running just fine in my wrist. It is easily my most used watch! Thank you! 🙂

  2. I guess that from one of the photos you relubricated this watch with Indian made Anchor oil, and what exactly was that “superfine watch oil” you used on the pallet stones?

    And…have you had any experiences with Novostar oils and greases?

    Thanks, Min Kai

    • This was in the early days before I went professional 😉

      I’ve been using Moebius 9415 for the pallet stones for a couple of years now. The Anchor thin oil is too thin, and won’t last long.

  3. Verdict on movement quality, this vs. Orient? 🙂 (I just ordered an Nomos Tangente look-alike with a Sea-Gul St17 … yay!)

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  6. Outstanding work and care. Just received my parnis pr8 milgauss homage. Was wondering if movement was similar?

    • Doesn’t look like an ST21 movement to me – but it’s very hard to tell from the photos on eBay. Count how many beats per second the watch makes – that will be a good start to determine what movement you have.

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