I recently bought a second year Illinois miller in a silver hunting case in need of some help. What drew me to the watch was the 5oz coin silver case. The case was missing the crystal and the pushing button. The movement itself was very dirty too.

Here is a picture of the movement before being torn down, cleaned, and oiled. You can see the dirt caked on the jewels and the mainspring barrel.

I had to repair the dial too. Someone had glued the seconds bit in at some point and the glue was shot. It litterally fell out when I removed the dial. Here is a shot of the back of the dial after resoldering it in. This is something I've practiced some on poor dials and feel I am coming along quite well this. double sunks will be the next challengr.

After a couple evenings of on and off work on it, I installed a new pusher, a new crystal, repaired the dial, and cleaned the movement. I added a German made chain I had with a couple keys and a 3 cent piece. I think it just sets off the watch even more. Even though I have some other 5oz and 6oz coin cases in my collection, I don't think I have any that are larger in diameter than this one. It is measuring 2 1/2" across the main body.

Here is the movement after cleaning. I ran this one over the last couple days and it has been keeping time less than a minute over the last couple days, pretty good for an oldie like this.

Nice job, looks good!

Fantastic results, Jared. Excellent work on the dial repair, too.

Great Save Jared. I'm glad to see another one saved.

Awesome! I love these big, old, keywinders.

Well done Jared!

Nice looking watch.

Not sure I would be brave enough to solder on a baked porcelain antique. Pretty impressive.

What tool or process works for this?

Guys-

Thanks for the comments. I actually have a soldering torch along with a low temp solder I used on it. I then had to file the excess solder off. Maybe I'll give an updated thread on this as I started a thread a while ago when I was trying some soldering of dial feet and also the dials too.

Thanks,

Jared

Gene, this is just great! I know the satisfaction level from restoration like you are providing is huge.

Jared: I appreciated the post, and like very much what you've done with this watch. I, for one, would much appreciate your sharing methods for attaching dial feet. Thanks again. -Gerry

Jared,
How do you shine up the gilt plates? Do you soak then brush? I have a gilt Howard and the plates are a bit discolored.. I notice your turned out nice and bright..

Bruce-

I use zenith cleaning solution in an ultrasonic cleaner. Seems to work very well. I typically take gilt plates out after about 5 minutes or they start to get very light in color. seems to work well but sometimes some gilt watches don't clean up the best etiher. this one did.

Jared