Andrei has sent in his Soviet classic in the hope of getting it working again as it should. This model has a lot of history in the Russian air force and a modified model made it all the way into space with Juri Gargarin.
The watch is not running and has received a lot of action in both the hands of the owner and previous watchmakers so I knew this would be a challenge I was accepting.
The movement does not look too bad at first glance.
The dial removed and you can see the winding mechanism. The centre second pivot is broken.
I take apart the non-shock protected balance cock.
Balance and pallet fork removed.
Train bridge removed you can see the gear train and the hacking lever mechanism.
The mainspring is in good condition and I will use it again, as I can’t find a replacement.
All the parts are cleaned and ready to be put back together.
The mainspring has been cleaned and is back in the barrel.
I start putting the watch back together.
First problem I notice is that the jewel over the centre wheel is out of position. This jewel holds the centre sweep second pinion. I realign this jewel by unscrewing its support.
I start putting the setting mechanism back in place.
Now here I have a running movement, but to get there I had to reshape the bridge as it was bent downwards blocking the gear train. The sweep seconds wheel came from a second donor watch as the first donor watch had the same broken part. The pallet bridge needed reshaping as it was bent downwards just enough to brake the pallet but not stop the movement. The hacking lever needed to be reshaped so it did not constantly block the balance.
When the movement was finally running it was showing -300 seconds a day, the second balance was wonky and finally with the last remaining balance and some collet adjusting of the beat error I have a preforming watch!
As the old luminous compound has been replaced with some bright yellow C1 at one point Andrei decided it was a good idea to change the compound to something a little more toned down to match the aged dial.
The setting mechanism is in place and the movement is ready for the dial.
The dial and hands back on the watch, the minute hand was very loose so I had to tighten it in the staking set.
At last the movement is back in the case and looking good. I like the cote de Geneve; it’s unusual to find decorated bridges on a soviet watch.
It took 3 donor watches to get this beast running again.
Nice looking watch with a cool history.
An absolutely brilliant job by Mitka! I can’t be happier and so glad to see my Sturmanskie in all their glory again. Very sensitive and challenging repair this definitely was. These watches have an I nteresting history and were never on sale in good old USSR as were only issued to the Soviet airforce pilots. Hence the Gagarin connection (although Gagarin must have had a later 17 jewels shock-protected version). They were produced between 1949 and late 50th I believe. As far as I know the lineage can be traced back to the French Lip R26 caliber (USSR bought French machinery and rights) and further to the American Hampden-Dueber company movements. As Dante mentioned the caliber is 2608, but in Russian/Soviet system caliber numbers are not unique. “2608” simply means 26 mm diameter movement, while 08 code stands for manual wind sweep seconds. Hence, hacking and non-hacking versions can be found. However, Sturmanskie, being military watches, are always hacking. I just might have another one lying around for Mitka to have a look at 😉
The caliber on this is 2608. The 1-54 just means that it was made in the first quarter of 1954. Sometimes these have hacking mechanism sometimes they don’t. Not common for Russian moments to hack only the Vostok 2234, the first Moscow watch factory 2608 and the poljot 31659 chronograph hack.
Hi Dante, thanks for the information. I have updated now;)
Great job!
I’ve never seen a russian movement with more then 300 degrees of amplitude!
Bogdan