Last week I acquired a very rough 327 South Bend from Ebay. The movement was in pore shape, but I thought I'd take a chance on it and bought it. You can see below what it looked like before starting into it.

After a tear down, cleaning, new staff, mainspring, and hand polishing each of the frame jewels, she is back to purring very well! Fortunately none of the hard to get interior gears were damaged, so I was able to fix it. I did have a donor movement for a few screws and plated parts. I was even able to polish up the balance and use it without issue!

A diamond in the rough you might say I'd love to see some other people's diamonds in the rough too. always a great feeling to bring them back from the edge of being worthless!

Nice work Jared.

I wish I had taken a before photo of the waltham riverside maximus I just fixed. It was a wreck but is very functional now. It always feels nice bring something back from the past

Nice work .

Great Job. Jared

Great results!

WOW!!!

Jared it is beautiful. I love to see what some might dismiss as a parts watch clean up and look like yours. I did the same on an 18s private label 15j Hampden. It looked so filthy I had set it aside, but upon closer inspection of the screw heads I saw that the fire blued screws appeared about perfect and I cleaned it up and was amazed that the clunker was as close to new as one could find. Not a valuable watch but for me a good reason to look carefully before dismissing a watch as parts only. I will try to post a picture latter.

Jared, that is some very nice work. Great save.

Very Nice Work !

Feels good, doesn't it?

Thanks guys for the comments, and yes Eric it feels great to bring it back. Now the task of finding one of those can't ever find monty dials for it that is in usable condition for the watch...

Jared

Exceptional work Jared. Every watch brought back to its former glory is a wonderful thing. It takes a special eye to see what can be.

Jared, I would like to commend you on your ability and great concern for restoring a piece of American history. A job well done. Some of these old beaters are just waiting for the right person to come along and realize that they can be fixed. Before we scrap any movement we should check it out and be patient. Sooner or later the parts will come along and Wa-La, another movement restored. I've got movements that are worth $30 -$35.00 and have $60 to $70.00 in them just to get it going again. But some day some one may say look, this thing is 200 years old and it still runs. You did a fine restoration.

Completely agree. It is fun and rewarding to restore a piece of history, and to get it working too! Just seeing the balance wheel go from frozen to moving in a blur in those pics made my day!
Dan