I got this Shanghai from Ian in Australia – we did a little swap. I fixed his Chunlei, and got the Shanghai for my work.
As you can see, the date doesn’t sit quite right. The watch is brand new, and this problem was created right there in the factory. The Chinese watch industry makes some smashing value-for-money watches, but the build quality isn’t always what you would expect it to be. Mind you, this one probably didn’t cost more than £20 on taobao, so no big harm done 😉
This lovely Sea-Gull ST5 in very good condition landed on my bench today – flown in from Finland.
I had just unpacked it and was looking forward to take apart this little gem, when an EMail arrived from Finland.
Janne, the owner, casually mentions that he operates an 8 ton magnet at work. Could it be magnetized?
I quickly open it up, and the hairspring sticks in that peculiar fashion. On to the demagnetizer, and the problem is fixed. The movement looks very clean, and it does well on the timegrapher.
Back to Finland free of charge – and I would have liked to take it apart so much!
Firstly, many thanks to Jon from Canada for letting me have this watch for a teardown and service. These are rare beasts, and the movement is quite unique. Shortening Butterfly to “Butfly” might not have been the best marketing ploy, but it certainly adds to the character 😉
Another watch with a bit of history … It all started off with saskwatch at watchuseek.com giving away this watch in a competition. I wasn’t even close, but Guan won the watch and I threw in a service.
The watch reached me yesterday, sent by Jon from Canada. And I couldn’t wait to take it apart and have a look!
The Chinese Mechanical Watch Forum on watchuseek.com has decided and Torsten has supplied it – the next teardown was to be a Sea-Gull ST7. A rare beast indeed, as it never went into production. and there are only a couple of thousand of these watches around. If you want one, you will have to part with the same money that buys you a stainless steel Rolex.
The watch was developed in the late 70s / early 80s, and, with China still a pretty much closed country, this might have been a great product without a market. In China itself, very few could have afforded such a complicated watch with 29 jewels, and outside China, not many would have bought a Chinese watch.
I feel very honoured to have been entrusted with this watch, considering its rarity, so I’m a bit aprehensive!
Firstly, thank you Torsten from Hong Kong for sending me this watch – it is indeed a very interesting Shuangling watch as it has 40 jewels. The high jewel count is due to their generous use in the autowinder mechanism.
And, congratulations, comrade, to your promotion to the higher echelons of the Chinese Communist Party! You were not the normal guy next door who had a hand-winding Shanghai – you were one class up! Like the guys on the poster, you had to be quite determined to get your mitts on one of these!
The movement itself is quite similar to that in the Shanghai 7120 watch as both movements are based on the Tongji Standard movement.
After having taken the watch apart, I put all the parts that can take cleaning fluid into the stuff for a couple of hours. Then all the parts are taken out and thoroughly dried. As I had a couple of days until I wanted to reassemble the watch, I put all the parts on top of a tissue into a dust-proof container ready for the day.
Today is the day, and I’m getting ready. Three types of oils in my oil tray – clock oil, watch oil and a super-fine watch oil for the escapement and pallets.
I got my new Sea-Gull 816.362 the day before yesterday – thanks to “trusthonestman” on eBay!
It has the ST2130 movement, which beats at 28,800 bph / 8 bps. It looks stunning and I love it.
Oddly enough, it’s half the price of the 816.351, even though, at least in my opinion, this one looks nicer.
So far, it’s 6 seconds per day fast, but constantly, so that’s very good news.
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First of all, I have to thank Joris from Amersfoort in the Netherlands for sending this one in. He took up my offer for a free service if I find the watch interesting enough. And I did 😉
This lovely Shanghai Shoubiao Chang 7120 (which stands for Shanhai Watch Factory) arrived in the mail yesterday, and I couldn’t resist taking it apart. The watch has the Tongji standard movement in the 19 jewel variant (with 2 jewels on the barrel) …
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