Hello everyone,
I am new to the club as well as new to watch repair. I have looked over the site and I am very impressed with the level of knowledge, discussion and willingness to help one another. Anyways, about the watch.

I have a waltham wrist watch I received in a bulk lot of movements for practice work. The face says Waltham 21 Jewels under 12 o'clock and Selfwinding Shockresistant above 6 o'clock. The movement is marked 233UT twenty One (21) Jewel. The rotor is marked Automatic 21 J. The watch will not wind by means of the crown and I assume this is meant to be. I have found no markings whatsoever of the country of manufacture.

I am wanting to clean and oil the watch. I would like to replace the mainspring also. Why lube an old main spring?

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Rusty,

Welcome to the club, a couple of photographs on the movement and with the dial removed would help. Firstly I would say this is not really a watch to start out on, it is not so much the difficulty of disassembly & reassembly but there is a lot to be learnt about how to service this watch and clean correctly, apart from the movement section itself and the whys and wherefores of a auto watch, you have the correct cleaning of the auto mechanism and its lubrication if it is to ever work again, typically you would use about 5 different specialized & expensive oils. Not to mention the initial cleaning required.

I have not been of much help so far, sorry, but if it is a junker go ahead and take it apart and study what you see, with photographs I could tell you more about the movement etc, If you want to keep the watch I would find a few basic watches non auto non date watches to get the feel of the movements first practice taking the same watch apart and re assembling it checking it to see if it still run and keeps time. Would be my best advice,

Chris

Chris,

Thank you for your insight and advise. I will have to borrow a digital camera and post some pics of the movement. Am I the olny human who does not own one of these yet? I am in the process of purchasing the proper materials for cleaning and lubricating movements. So far I have disassembled a number of movements(mostly non working ww movements and a few pocket watch movements) and reassemled them. Of course i am not sure of my accuracy being that they are were not working in the first place.

I have a few working movements now which I intend on disassembling and reassembling starting this week. I bought the Bob Tascione watch repair course which has been very helpfull. I have also purchased "The Practical guide to watch repair" and have been reading through it. Any advise on other bokks or courses available would be appreciated. Thanks again.

I will wait to start on the Waltham as you advised. I like the watch and would like to clean and lube it for my own use.

Hi Rusty,

Yes you may be the last one not to have a digi camera! , A couple of good books are by H Fried, there is a copy on ebay,
Watch Repairer's Manual Watch Repair Book by Fried Item number: 270215130963

Good luck with the new working watches, once they get a bit past it there are lot of good parts to practice on, removing the jewels, setting the pallet stones, hairspring to remove & straighten, a lot of this "how to" is in the Fried book above, one of, if not the best watch repair book.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the additional info. I will get the digi camera only after getting the book. Priorities!!!

Thanks again,

Hi Rusty,

I had a look in the cupboard and found the other book these are the only two you should need for a long time.
The companion to the one above is “Bench practices for Watch and clockmakers by H Fried”

Hi Chris,

That's great. I will be sure to buy both books. Thank you again for your help.

Rusty, In 1970 I started working on watches in PA. My teacher gave me a pocket watch , and showed me how to disassemble it and put it back together. Before I touched another watch, I must have done this at least 50 times before I ever saw another watch which was a customer's. Then I would just do the same on each watch he gave me, and he would put them in the cleaning machine for me. From there I did a few stem and crowns. Then I worked into mainspring replacements. I never saw an automatic watch for months. Good luck, mike

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the reply. I would love to have a teacher or mentor who could show me all the proper techniques in person. I enjoy the work and enjoy the challenge regardless.

Chris, I am going to try and attach a pic to this post. I have been having some trouble doing so. I think this is probably a Japanese movement. I could very easily be mistaken.

Hi guys. I am unable to upload the pic of the watch on this forum. The file size is too large. I was only able to take a pic of the rotor side of the movement as I am so far unable to remove the crown. It is on the stem quite tight. I can email you an image directly if youy are interested. Any ideas on crown removal?

A Waltham automatic, it's not Waltham Mass. It sounds Swiss to me.
Brian C.

Debbie,
Thank you for the info. I will try to download software tonight.

Brian,

You could very well be correct. I thought it might be Japanese because the case back said Hong Kong and the movement does not have as fine a finish as the basic swiss movements I have been working on. I hope to be able to post an image in a day or so.

Thanks,

O.K. Here are the images of the Waltham movement.

Second image.