I just F'd up a superb vintage Omega

A few months ago I won a 1957 Omega in solid 9K gold (0.375) cased by the renowned A.L. Dennison in England.
I won it at a real bargain price. You can see the case is not only a signed Omega case, but also signed by A.L.
Dennison and assay stamped for Birmingham, England in 1957. The dial was in fairly bad shape so I had my master
watchmaker, Richard Rogers, send it to Kirk Rich Dial Company, where the original dial was refinished. Richard got
the dial back, reattached it to the movement, which he had adjusted to near perfect accuracy. He then polished the
solid gold case to what you see below.

I got it back yesterday and took photos today. My story continues below the photos.










So, I had to remove the case back for my photos. I have a couple precision tools for this, but I sometimes approach
the task like a mechanic prying off a hubcap rather than a watchmaker carefully removing a solid gold case back
covering a delicate mechanical marvel. Well, I applied too much force and when the case back popped off my tool
scaped into the movement. D'oh!

I scraped and bent the spring stud downwards, stopping the balance wheel. You can see the scrape and downward
bend on the left side of the movement. Like a dunce I used my case back tool to pry the stud back up (what an artisan!).
The balance wheel began oscillating again, but it's now gaining maybe 15-20 minutes/day.

I dread taking it back to Richard as he will have further evidence of my stupidity. Me with a watch is like a seven year-old
at the controls of the space shuttle.
I gotta man up, I suppose, and go see Richard again.

Idiot!

Now that sucks Tom....Hope it all works out because it looks like one he!@ of a time piece

I bet your watchmaker will turn the bad into good...........Now, as for you, Only wind and wear your watches or else

man that SUCKS!!! i hope your guy can get it fixed up. its a beatiful watch and they did a great job on it. this is why i dont work on any of mine, soon as this would of happened to me, that watch would have been flying across the room. steve

Funny and yet not funny at all.

Since I do a lot of buying and selling of vintage watches on eBay, I have a continuing
need to open them up, regulate them, change straps, etc. I can't go to my watchmaker
every day so I invested in a few basic tools and try to be careful. But these vintage
watches are so fragile that it really takes a skilled and experienced watchmaker to do
these tasks without screwing them up 1-2% of the time. I usually handle these tasks
fine, but my techniques could use some fine-tuning to avoid this occasional disaster.

OUCH!

That sucks! It will be like new again in no time!! I have some stuff like this....I hide it away in my project boxes. I can't imagine doing it to something this nice.....

Sorry that happened Tom ! The watch DOES look beautiful though, and
it's lucky that the scratch is on the inside of the watch like that. You can
basically squint, and the scratch blends in with the rest of the movement
sir. ..Great watch !!! Scratch, and all !

That is a beautiful watch. Good luck getting it fixed.

First off -- beautiful watch! It makes an Omega fanboy like myself drool!

Second - Holy crap, that is a tough one! Hopefully things will turn out fine...well minus a ding in your ego

Screws ups make us stronger they say...

...I should be breaking Lou Ferigno!

If I tried something like that, the result would be a puncture wound and a trip to the hospital!!

Watch looks great, Tom. Hope you get it sorted out.

I'm sure it's an easy fix for a watchmaker, you will have it on your wrist soon.
Great watch Tom!

pacifichrono wrote:

I scraped and bent the spring stud downwards, stopping the balance wheel.

stiff generally tries to turn da blind eye to dis kind of activity, but since this isn't da first problem you have had with da watches . . . . stiff is going to have to file da report with da P.E.T.O. . (People for da Ethical Treatment of Omegas).

stiff muckler ist im Haus!

That sucks, too bad the cut-out to pop the caseback off wasnt on the other side of the case where less damage could happen! Every time i screw something up its sticking something into the balance wheel be mistake, it just doesnt like screwdrivers in it too much!

cali kid wrote:

That sucks, too bad the cut-out to pop the caseback off wasnt on the other side of the case where less damage could happen! Every time i screw something up its sticking something into the balance wheel be mistake, it just doesnt like screwdrivers in it too much!

Still looks great regardless, so don't fret.