I recently bought a batch of watches on line, just to mess about with them. One of them is a New Haven "dollar" watch, with pin pallet escapement and no jewels. It is in a nice deco-style rectangular case, with what appears to be the original (somewhat yellowed) crystal. Just for fun, I gave it a wind, and set it running. It was running very sluggishly, and when I popped the back, the smell of WD-40 filled the room. YUCK! So I decided it was time to give it a COA. (Well - CO, anyway - I don't know about doing much adjustment on one of these movements) Getting the movement out was no problem, and letting the mainspring down was a little dicey (really stiff click spring!) but I managed not to lose control of it. Comes time to pull the hands, and the hour hand will not budge on the pipe. I finally gave up, and removed the dial, with the hour hand and wheel attached. Then, of course, it fell out through the hole, but the hand is still very firmly attached. Does anyone know if these hour hands were staked on? It acts as if the hand was pressed down below the top of the pipe, and the pipe spread out over top of the hand. I suppose I could chuck it up in the lathe, and cut it off, but then, how would I reattach it? I really want to get the hand off, as it has a slight rust coating, and the luminous paint in it is completely gone. I'd like to relume the hands before I replace them.

Well - I gave up on waiting for an answer, and left the hand on the hour pipe. I bent the end of a needle and ground a knife edge on it, to make a little tool for cleaning the luminous paint from the underside of the hand. Here is the finished product. I wore it all day today, and from 9AM to 11PM, it gained about three minutes. Since I was guessing when I set the regulator, I am not too unhappy with that.

The dial on this watch was very dark, bt I was able to clean it up by scrubbing it with Rodico, kind of like using an artist's kneadable eraser.

SO here 'tis: a semi-restored New Haven "dollar" watch.

Looks good David, That's exactly what I would have done. (Leave the hand attached). I've also repainted the open spaced hands from the backside to replace the old crusty stuff that was falling out. If it's the correct thickness it will bridge the open space.