Service + Restoration: Zenith Sporto calibre 2542

IMG_8214I’m back from my holiday in Cornwall, and we had a lot of luck with the weather and lots of sunshine.

This Zenith came all the way from Singapore, and Gerard sent it in.

He wants the dial restored, and the case polished.IMG_8215

The case back has terrible scratch marks, and some run over the case number.IMG_8216

The movement is in good condition.IMG_8217

The winding stem is bent, the pendant tube damaged, and the crown needs replacing as well, as it’s not original.IMG_8219

The dial goes off to David Bill & Sons for restoration.IMG_8220

I scrape off the paint and luminous compound from the hands.IMG_8221

Then it’s time to take apart the movement.

IMG_8230

All looking good, with not too much dirt.IMG_8234

The mainspring barrel.IMG_8235

Ready for the cleaning machine.IMG_8237

One of the case screws is broken off, and I have to get that out of the plate.IMG_8239

Time for some alum.IMG_8240

The hands repainted and re-lumed.IMG_9203

The new mainspring has arrived, and I can put the movement back together.IMG_9204

The barrel and barrel bridge back on the plate.IMG_9205

The base movement is ticking again.IMG_9206

Not fully wound, this is looking good.IMG_9207

All ready for the dial.IMG_9208

David Bill didn’t have the original template, but used the one from the sub-second version of the Sporto.IMG_9209

A new pendant tube. A bit too long, and I take a bit off on the lathe.IMG_9210

Charles did a great job polishing the case.IMG_9216

That does look rather nice!IMG_9217Charles excelled himself on the case back. As the scratches were so deep, he had to re-engrave the case reference.

 

19 thoughts on “Service + Restoration: Zenith Sporto calibre 2542

  1. Hi,

    I have a Zenith Sporto Caliber 2542 which requires a new mainspring. Could I please ask if you know of a possible supplier. I now live in Bulgaria and my watch is with a great watch repairer in Sofia but he can’t find a replacement mainspring to complete the repair.

    Thanks in advance for your time,

    Kind regards

    Andrew

  2. I really like that caseback engraving. Do you know if a computerized engraver was used? It looks deeper than a manual engraving machine. Thanks!

  3. Hi there,

    I was just wondering what mainspring you used for this watch?

    I can’t find one the correct size at Cousins.

    Thanks, Steve.

  4. You don’t happen to have any old reference as to what spring you used do you? Found some supposedly correct dimensions but can’t find anything close!
    Cheers!

  5. Hi

    I wanna to service my zenith Manuel and dial a little faded .

    How can I go about ? sending address? please advice..

    Rgards
    peter

  6. I’m not sure I understand why it would be OK to change the dial from the original to the sub-second version if that isn’t what the watch was originally. I have my father’s Zenith and would like to restore it but would want it to be restored to original specifications. Would I be able to request that?

  7. Beautiful job. The watch looks like new. I’m curious about how big the watch is, sans crown. It looks to be in the 32 mm to 34 mm range.

  8. David Bill and sons seem to do excellent dials, but they do like their Lume. I see lots of their work with lume at each hour marker – which often wouldn’t have been there on the original dial.

    The case back looks stunning.

  9. Amazing work Chistian 🙂

    I would just like to take this opportunity to thoroughly recommend David Bill & Sons.

    I sent watch dial to them a few days prior to Mother’s Day. I explained that the restoration of the watch I was doing was a Mothers Day gift and that I had left it a bit late but was there anything they could do? To my surprise that Saturday morning the watch dial arrived fully restored and good as new.

    I would never have found out about David Bill & Sons if it had not been for Chistian creating this blog. A massive thank you to Christian too.

    Best regards

    Nick Perkins

  10. Did you do any testing before starting to use alum to see if it ate anything else? It’s just there doesn’t seem to be a lot of information around to suggest anyone else has…

    I very much like the polishing and new engraving on the case-back – very crisp. It’s a shame about the dial template, though the alternate one does work I think.

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