I haven’t had a Vixa in my workshop yet, and now is the time 😉
Where exactly Vixa Uhrenfabrik is I don’t know, I’ve googled around, and found everything from an address in Italy to posts that the company doesn’t exist any more… all that doesn’t matter too much, as it has a bog-standard Valjoux 7750 inside.
Bob sent it in for a service.
And a service it needs!
First look at the movement…
A fair amount of dirt on the side of the movement.
The bottom plate looks nice and clean, though.
Quite a bit of dirt in the chronograph layer of the movement.
I have ranted about it before, but I still don’t like the click/click spring construction of the 7750.
The gear train with the slider for the hacking second feature.
Have a look at the top pivot of the fourth wheel! There is a huge blob of dirt. My only interpretation for this is way too much unsuitable lubricant – e.g. a gallon of whale oil that somebody put into the jewel to re-lubricate the movement.
Even though the watch only has a date display, the wheel for the day wheel change is present on the bottom plate.
The pushers get a clean as well.
Reassembly starts with the usual new mainspring.
The base movement back together and beating.
I do a first adjustment of the movement.
And now it’s time to put the chronograph layer back together.
Then it’s time for the bottom plate with the hour recorder and date mechanism.
With the movement back together, I can put the dial and hands back on.
The movement gets cased, and I install a new case back gasket with a bit of silicone grease.
Some of the black paint in the engraved numbers on the bezel has come off during cleaning, and I touch them up with a tiny bit of black paint.
What a gorgeous looking watch!
Thanks Christian, I really liked to see the progress of the work online. And it certainly needed that service. Good job 🙂
The vaguely Hanhart/XX style and the dial attracted me to this watch. Also, I didn’t have a 7750 so this was an inexpensive route to ownership.
The shades of black in the dial look great with the white hands and give a real feeling of depth to it.
I found this review with some VIXA history…
http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?11919-Review-Vixa-Pilots-watch
Phantom watch companies are an odd thing… I have a handful of perfectly nice, well executed watches made by companies that don’t seem to exist any-more – and may never have done if you believe the internets.
That dial is really nice… they must have had some history and experience behind them!