This Seamaster has quite a bit of dial damage, but Adam wants to leave it as it is, and I’m with him. As I always say, you can’t un-restore a dial…
Ouch – that doesn’t look too good. The balance is hardly swinging.
The dial is glued on with dial pads, as the dial feet are broken off. Normally, I solder on new feet, but in this case, the dial is too fragile and would show damage if I tried that.
Both screws holding the date plate aren’t original, and I will change them for original Omega ones.
The wheel bridge is missing a screw.
Time to take the movement apart.
Looks like it’s growing hair under the click wheel 😉
The mainspring is also quite dirty with caked-up grease.
Taking apart the bottom plate.
Everything ready for the cleaning machine.
Epilame treatment for the escape wheel, pallet fork and cap jewels.
The new parts (original Omega mainspring, generic crystal and generic case back gasket) have arrived, and I can put the movement back together.
The new mainspring goes into the barrel.
The gear train and pallet fork back in place.
The movement is ticking again.
That looks a lot better than before.
The bottom plate comes back together.
The date cover now has original Omega screws.
And the date ring is back in place.
And the missing screw on the wheel bridge is replaced as well.
Back in the case with a new gasket.I polish the markers and hands as well as I can, but I have to be careful not to break the lume off the hands.
At a later date, the dial can always be restored, and new dial feet soldered on. But for the moment, the watch is back in good shape, and original.
Hi Master!
I’m servicing this watch caliber now. The customer apparently bought it a year ago, “serviced”, and it was now losing up to 30 min/day, but he only wore it once a week.
Now, I found dry jewels, oiled pallet fork jewels, lots of grease and a hair 🙂
BUT, and here I’d like your opinion: the barrel wall doesn’t have any indentations to ensure locking and slipping of the automatic spring…Sounds bizar! As if they replaced the barrel with a non-automatic variant…which also explains the low amplitude of 150° when I received it.
Can you confirm that there should be some indentations in the barrel wall? Thx in advance!
If it were from a manual wind movement, you would surely have a place for the mainspring to lock into, so that can’t be the case. Some automatic barrels are completely smooth, and, if the mainspring is ok, and you apply braking grease, all should be well.
Best regards,
Christian
A newbie question:
If you hand-wind this automatic calibre, will it wind continuously or will it still hit resistance at a certain point like a manual wind?
Thank you
You will not feel any difference, and you can wind forever. The mainspring will start slipping in the barrel once the movement is fully wound.
Thank you.
I asked because I have a 565 movement that, for reasons unknown to me, winds manually to a certain point and then the resistance increases and you can’t wind anymore. I’m unsure what the problem is, as it’s an automatic movement that is behaving like a manual.
Hi Christian,
Great work with this watch! I have a similar movement and I am struggling to attach the stem and crown back to the movement. Could you let me know what screw I need to use for that purpose?
Thanks,
Tiago
Hi Tiago.
There is no screw for this on these calibers. You depress the tiny button closest to the stem in order to accomplish it.
Take care and leave all work to trained guys. A valuable 562 is normally a bad place to start practice. Do find something cheaper since we untrained guys normally does more damage than good when we start.
Cheers!
Anders
Hi Tiago,
I’m with Anders here. It’s quite likely that your yoke has slipped off the clutch wheel, so it might be impossible to get the winding stem back in without taking apart the winding/setting mechanism. I really don’t advise to try to push it back in yourself. If you do, please don’t use any force.
Best regards,
Christian
Thank you Christian and Anders,
I may be out of my depth here… I will leave it to someone trained for the job.
Best regards,
Tiago
Nice job! I have the same 562 watch with the silver face.
Can you tell me where I can get that gasket to hold the movement in my case?
I have the 166.002 reference and someone years back didn’t use that gasket.
Thanks,
Boris
Boris,
Try http://cousinsuk.com/
Best regards,
Christian
My view is that if I’m looking to buy a vintage watch, I’ll get the most pristine example I can find/afford. After that, any ageing or patina that it develops is part of my story, and I’m happy to have it.
Similarly, if the watch is an heirloom and coming from a family member or friend, I’d be happy to have any amount of patina on it.
I guess I like a watch to have a story, but preferably my story!
A lovely watch with a great feel to it. I like reading about peoples feeling, opinions of redials, polishing etc. I think Cirrus made a good point about newer and better in the same sentence. My own feeling is that the dial shows to much marking on one side of the dial which upsets my feeling of Ok. I like Patina myself but even that has it’s rights and wrongs to my mind.
As an example I like the dial patina on the Omega cal351 sent by Anders a few weeks back.
But….as Adam says it’s a story and that is what makes this watch it’s life.
Would this look better with a pristine dial? I don’t think better just newer.
Interesting non the less as i would always look to buy a watch with a clean dial over a marked or redial…so maybe it’s from what point of view falls on why you own or collect watches? Monetary value, Wow factor or just because you like it due to it’s story or if you are lucky a heirloom. Just depends on the way the light falls.
Thanks for sharing.
Nice watch! Can’t agree on the dial. This is just the kind of plain dial that restores really well! It would almost look NOS after a restoration IMHO.
But it isn’t NOS – it is a watch that wears it’s history in plain sight. Restoring the dial would make it look newer, but I don’t think that is always the same thing as better…
I guess its a matter of opinion. I’d prefer a nicely polished watch with slightly less sharp edges to a scratched and scuffed watch with razor sharp edges! I know many would disagree.
Its all opinion I guess! 😉
Absolutely – everyone has their own idea of what they want their watch to look like, and there isn’t really a right or wrong.
This is my watch. I’ve got many ‘new’ watches that are kept nicely polished and I try to keep scratch free. My reason for buying this beauty is that it actually shows its age, it’s 47yrs old, but it’s grown old gracefully in my opinion. It looks like it has a story to tell and creates a talking point.
I’m really grateful to Christian for giving it a new lease of life for me to carry on its story.
I think it was absolutely correct not to touch the dial in this case… some dials show their age gracefully, and this is one of them.
Did you have to dial-dot the dial back on in this instance?
I was actually lucky, and didn’t need dial dots. The dial fits very tightly around the movement, and it snapped into position nicely.