Hello Everyone;

Since I was already talking about this old case I have in another thread, I thought you'd like to see the end result. I've just finished cleaning and detailing it and let me tell you, was it rough. I won it recently on eBay and it arrived a couple of days ago. It's a Waltham, size 18 Model 1883 with a lot of miles on it.

Anyway, the movement looked pretty clean so I wound it up and have done every day since it arrived and I can't believe it but it's keeping almost perfect time. No exaggeration either. It is keeping near perfect time.

Here's a few photos of the watch. The before photos I took right off the listing, and the after photos I took about a half hour ago.

Oh, and I almost forgot........ this watch, without a crystal, cost me............. $59.00 and $3.02 to ship it. It just doesn't get any better than that.

There is no crystal. I have one coming from the Crystal Master, Mr. White and can hardly wait until it gets here.

Bud

Beautiful!!!

Nice job Bud...Looks great.

Hi, and thanks for the comments.

Can anyone tell me about these "pressed" dials? Are they also percelain or another material. Also, is there a way that one can easily tell the differences.

Bud

The Waltham looks great. May I ask what you used to clean it. Looks like new almost. Thanks.

jg

Great job Bud, yes can you please share what you used to detail the case? Francis

Thanks John, sure thing, I'd be glad to tell you.

First of all, if there are deep scratches, stains or substances that are really hard to remove, I use my bench grinder with a 6" buffing wheel and jewellers rouge. Then, to remove all the buffers' micro-scrathes I use a product called "Pre-Lim" from Renaissance Wax. The Pre-Lim also removes all the old wax, oil and whatever else is on my firearms or watch cases. Being a Colt collector as well as other makes, we need to make these fine items last as long as we possibly can, and ever since I found "Pre-Lim" I use nothing else. It's actually a very "kind" stripper that removes all the old dirt and grime from just about any type of surface. I've even removed light scrathes from (glass) watch crystals with it.

The idea is, you use the Pre-Lim first, and then coat it with Renaissance Wax. Two or three coats gives the best results. If you try it on one of your silver cases you won't believe the results.

Renaissance Wax and Pre-Lim is used all over the world by major museums to protect their investments, whether wood, metal, leather and numerous other surfaces it works on everything.

Anyway, I'm beginning to sound like a spokeman for them so I'll quit now, but go ahead and Google it and you can find out more about it.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Just one word of caution. I have never used it on any dials so please test it on a worthless (if there is such a thing) old dial first.

Bud

quote:

The Waltham looks great. May I ask what you used to clean it. Looks like new almost. Thanks.

Bud, i'll send about 50 cases to you and, as a favor, you can polish them and pay the Canadian Postage return

Bud I am not sure about Walthams but on Elgins these type of dials I have always heard called "ground center" dials and to me it looked as thought something might have been used to grind the material down slighly since most times the center portion is a bit duller than the other portion. If you look at the break in the center area with a magnifier then you can see that it is not a two piece construction. With Elgin they appear more on the mid-segment 17j types.

Mike, it would be a pleasure to polish those cases for you and I would of course be glad to pay for the return of all 40 cases to you when they're done.

Thank you very much Mike and I look forward to seeing them soon.

Bud

quote:

Bud, i'll send about 50 cases to you and, as a favor, you can polish them and pay the Canadian Postage return.

I've never heard that term Claude. That's why I used the term "pressed". That's interesting though and it makes sense that they could be "ground" in that way.

Bud

quote:

I have always heard called "ground center" dials