One of Anders’ watches, and it’s a pretty rare military Eterna watch with the 520H movement.
You can see the luminous compound in the usual “military” style, e.g. generously and not too carefully.
The timegrapher image shows that a service is in order.
The dial is in pretty good condition, taking the age of the watch into consideration.
Look at the gunk next to the barrel arbor on the plate – that doesn’t look promising…
The barrel bridge has a lot of gunk on the barrel arbor, too.
Under the microscope, you can see the damaged plate where the barrel arbor has ground into the plate.
And the same on the barrel bridge.
I order a set of bushes in the right diameter.
To fit the bush, the hole for the barrel arbor in the plate has to be broached. The biggest problem here is to stay centred, as otherwise, the barrel will not sit correctly in the movement, and touch the plate or bridge.
You can see how the broached hole is properly centred in the plate.
Now I can press in the new bush and carefully rivet it into the plate.
The bush is pushed in, but needs to go up a bit further.
Once it’s sitting correctly, I broach the inner diameter for the barrel arbor. Slowly does it.
The new bush is thicker than the plate, so I will have to take off some material.
With a milling bit, I take off what’s too much.
In order not to damage the plate, I will leave a tiny bit of the new bush to stand proud of the plate.
Here you can see by how little the new bush protrudes from the plate.
Now the same has to be done to the bridge.
… and ready to be put back together.
Now I hand over to Mitka, who is putting the watch back together.
The gear train and barrel are in, and the bridges are on.
The set lever spring was broken, and we find a new one.
That’s looking pretty good already.
The shock protection has an interesting construction.
Dial and hands are left original.
The crystal is a stepped crystal, that is screwed in with a ring from the back.
A nice dust cover for the back.
And the watch is complete again.After a bit of running in, this is as good as it gets. Proof that the barrel arbor is running very smoothly indeed in its new bushes.
As requested, a photo of the case back!
Everything ok? You haven’t post anything in two weeks!
Yes, we are both fine – just very busy! I promise we will add a new post this week 😉
honestly, in all your repairs, have you seen more consistent timographer results than a freshly serviced eterna? a lot of beautiful flat lines.
No, I haven’t. I put it down to re-bushing the bridge and plate of course 😉
And not to forget the very good adjusting of beat error done by the apprentice;) (To hit 0.1 on a collet adjusted balance is mix of skill and in my case luck)
just look back at all of your posts that involve an eterna. its timographer porn.
Eterna is porn;)
A question about broaching out the plate holes. Is there a reason one doesn’t drill them out to slightly under the desired diameter, and then finish with a broach? Would the existing oblong and presumably now off-centre hole throw the drill bit off? Perhaps I’ve just answered my own question.
It doesn’t take a long time to broach the hole to the desired diameter, and whilst broaching, you have full control about staying centred. If you take a drill to it, chances are very high that the drill will go off-centre, and then you have ruined the plate. So you did indeed answer your own question 😉
If one were looking for a reason to justify the purchase of a lathe faceplate to a significant other, this may be it 🙂
An impressive result for the timekeeping btw.
Very nice watch, and a awesome work with those bridges! I have a civil version with the same movement, great watches that can be bought for pocket change.
On the picture with the hands fitted to the dial, is the minutehand fitted wrong or is it supposed to have that much lume?
That’s the way military watches have luminous compound applied. They guy doing this was a butcher/mechanic/shop keeper in is civil life, and was suddenly applying compound to hands…
haha I bet he was! 🙂 Thanks for the info.
Great dedication and skill to repair this wonderful old Eterna, congratulations. I must send you my Angelus Datoluxe for service…
supreme job guys! very beautiful watch indeed.
Lovely thing. I need to ask: what does Anders do with these watches? Do you have an online store, or are you a collector? If so, you have some really great watches!
Anders is one of my best clients, and a private collector with a very enviable collection…
Some are kept and some are sold. A watch collection is a dynamic thing that changes over time.
😉
Watch arrived and I love the looks and work.
Another great achievement! A big Thank You to Christian and Mitka for their “never give in” attitude:-)
I love the look of the movement with the curved and beveled edges on the plates. I like manual wind movements more than automatics too. Of course that movement looks a lot better now that the plates have been repaired! Nice work as usual, guys!
Did you fit a new crystal or polish up the existing one? I believe the MOD style stepped crystal are pretty hard to come by these days?
John from obsoletewatchandclockparts.com had one!
wow, lovely watch and skilful work. The movement seems quite nice quality for a standard military watch.
This is not a standard watch as such. The ATP watches was for general use. The WWW was ordered with precision adjusted movements matching the chronometer spec. They were intended for special duty.
These WWW watches was ordered for WW2 service, but mid to late 1945 deliveries meant they were not actually used then. The British military ended up issuing WWW watches in various conflicts up to the Falkland war. Also loads of surplus was sold to the general public.
Altogether 12 makers ever produced WWW models. All to the same spec These are known by collectors as “The Dirty Dozen “. Loads of info to be found on.the internet
Cheers
Anders
A nice watch – and very nice to have what appears to be an issued one… did it have any MoD type markings on the back?
Re-bushing looks like one of those things that is simple in concept but difficult in execution. I’ve seen it done in old clocks, but rarely in watch movements.
Sorry, we forgot to take a photo of the case back! You can tell that we aren’t military watch collectors 😉
Doh 😉