A mistreated Vacheron & Constantin... 😫

hello watch lovers welcome back to the channel my name is the young and today we have a beautiful version Constanta on the bench but and there is a butt it has been let's say work done in a strange way so we'll see a little bit about that but it is a beautiful 1940s watch a simple dress watching 18K gold and it's running but not particularly well the interesting thing is that that John the owner of the watch said that the watch had last been worked on by version themselves he was however not entirely sure and I would think it's actually not the case because there are some things that have been done to this watch that uh not pleasant to see let's get the hands up first this beautiful golden blue dance and to get to the movement itself we also have to take off this spacer ring and there is some debris there already looks like some small brass shavings yeah there's no need for that quite yet we will get to that sadly with the dial off we see this beautiful 466 movement was the first brand given the Geneva seal which is a very high quality Mark and one of the tenets of that Mark is that you cannot have any wire Springs in your watch and even in this relatively modest Movement we see those beautifully shaped Springs but we also see something else It's just sad to see and someone just used a too big screwdriver and shared the brass around the screw let's turn to the worst answer Pope there were a lot of really wrong answers most of them perfectly confident in their answer and some of them also a little bit disturbing to be honest so thanks to everyone who participated and I just want to say two things well played and get help now back to the watch there were also some marks around the driving will for the second opinion so some things have happened to this watch we'll just say that when we take out the pallet Fork the train just doesn't run very freely which would certainly contribute to the low amplitude and we also see that the driving wheel for the second opinion is wobbling quite extensively and that means that the pivot which the wheel is placed on is bent but wait you get more I see the jewel in this for the second opinion is loose it shouldn't be so this is a bit of a strange movement no we're not done yet we're gonna take off the driving wheel for the Second Spin in we use our special tool for that this wheel is so close to the bridge that it's difficult to get any protection underneath it and we can see the result of that from previous watchmakers hey enough of that already this is not a cycle So to avoid marks like that we highly polish the ends of these tools and then they will not make marks like that so taking off the train bridge we see that the third wheel with this extended pivot for that driving wheel is also stuck in the hole which is of course also impacting time keeping and amplitude and that's likely then caused by this bent pivot so much raw is often considered the oldest watchmaking brand there is a little caveat they are the oldest brand with uninterrupted business oh what is that there's no Works where does that piece go peace is the viral Bridge called why it's called the bear Bridge yeah because it's a bridge over the barrel this is the barrel and the bridge is like a piece that goes over it [Music] yeah it says that you put it down yeah Sasa was saying I was working sometimes not the oldest watchmaker but it is the oldest watchmaker that has been continuously operating so they started back in 1755. so they're getting relatively close to a 300 year anniversary and they've continued operating ever since so while companies like and so forth are actually older they were all uh out of business for one time or another they are of course part of the Holy Trinity of watchmaking and looking at a simple detail like this screw on the underside of the barrel Bridge this is a black polished screw that no one will ever see black polishing means that the surface is so perfectly Polished that all the light is reflected in One Direction only thus you basically either see the light or you don't so if you see the light then the surface is very shiny and if you don't it looks black so that is black polishing and I did that with a screw hidden underneath a bridge so getting the mainspring out of the barrel we see it does not lie flat on the table that could also be a cause of the bad amplitude so we are gonna try to find a new mainspring so coming back to the Holy Trinity so uh Trinity is of course three and the other two brands are Patek Philippe and oddmark piguet okay so this is actually the second version I'm doing on the channel I did the one protect so far to be able to do an AP quite soon as well of course one that can argue that maybe those three aren't the Pinnacle of watchmaking anymore they've certainly contributed massively to the trade with numerous complications and Innovations whether or not Brigade for instance even long and zerner and so forth should be counted as an endless discussion for all intents and purposes the Holy Trinity is all right let's get the movement into the cleaning machine and then we're going to turn our attention to the case the case is 18 karat solid gold John doesn't want to do much to the case and I fully support that the thing is every time you polish a case you are removing metal and you don't really want to remove a lot of gold from your case foreign [Music] let's get the case into the ultrasonic and yes the ultrasonic makes a horrible sound so consider yourself warrant all right time to do some repairs we see this third wheel is really not running through the wheel itself is uh somehow bent out of shape and we also need to straighten the pivot so getting a shape back on this wheel is very difficult we could heat the wheel up that will allow the metal to be shaped a little bit better but then you also risk it deforming the teeth so I'm trying to uh just uh flatten it a little bit by way of the hammer way of the hammer that sounds like watchmaker's autobiography right there would obviously be adapted to the big screen as an action movie kind of like if someone would cast me for that role of course the sequel would probably be a way of the hammer too the wife's Revenge out of time unfortunately coming to a bedroom close to you very soon so we're gonna have to straighten that pivot also sorry the image isn't that great maybe I need to get a new phone so when you see a bent pivot like this the first inclination might be to just bend it back because you know if it was bent one way it might then the other right the thing is that when metal is bent it's actually work hardened so that means that the point of Bend will actually be more brittle so if you try to bend it back you're gonna break it so we need to first heat the metal so that it becomes more pliable and then we use a pair of tweezers you can use a pair of thick brass tweezers maybe even better than what I'm using here to straighten the pivot and by the way if you want to learn these kinds of techniques a little bit more in depth than that joining the channel is a great idea you can click the join button here on YouTube and you will see what the different tiers are for you and if you would rather prefer patreon and yes you can join there also join the same Discord server the same community and have the same benefits you are perfect but at least better the second repair we need to do is to put the jewel for the seconds pinion back in these things are pretty small that is the jewel you can see there at the center of the table so this tool has some two parts an anvil and pusher The Pusher has a spring-loaded center that fits into the drill hole and this centers The Pusher and it also needs to be the size of the jewel basically if it's uh too small then it might crack the jewel and the Anvil needs to have a space for the Jewel on the other side otherwise you can also crack or yeah crush the jewel so we gently screw this down until we have the jewel back in place and then we have to test it to make sure that the wheel still has enough space under it all right let's continue with assembling the rest of the movement see even on the inside of the barrel there's a beautiful finishing so yeah it is certainly a waste in a lot of ways to spend so much time and thus inevitably also money for the buyer on finishing places where it will never be seen by anyone with the watchmaker let me know what you think in the comment section one common way of looking at it in a positive way is that if a manufacturer spends This Much Time on finishing the Aesthetics then they also of course must have spent a lot of time on the overall quality because it wouldn't make sense to have a product that isn't really that good and then just finishing it over the top and there are those who will say that no no the finishing has a very important function because it stops the dust from gathering in the watch that's largely not true that's a completely different level of finishing we're talking about if the parts are roughly machine then you have not the bird the parts and so forth then sure but that's just not the case with modern watches all right let's do some watch porn this is the level of finishing we're talking about even the tips of the Escape wheel teeth are black polished yeah next level boss level all right we're going to put some of these parts in escapement into this epilom solution called the fixodrop that simply helps the lubrication stay in place by the way you might notice I have some blue ink on my right thumb there I had to change the printer ink and had a little bit of an accident my hands are clean as clean as they were possible to get but I think just has to be worn off I think so in a watch it's very very important that we minimize the friction as much as possible because there's very little power in the watches just the mainspring so we put the tie in a little bead of oil in the center of this Capstone and then we can screw it back on and yeah these are tie in these groups in more modern watches the Capstone would typically be held in place by a little spring so you wouldn't have to take off the balance wheel and so forth but uh that's the way it was done in this one the stud holder in this balance is also a little bit unusual well unusual for most watches not for all the Trinity level so we have to slide the stud into this little slot and then we can screw it down afterwards since this is a brigade over coil hair spring we also need to make sure that the spring is between those two index pins with a balance in place we need to go to the other side of the movement and then also lubricate the Capstone on that side careful all right tiny screws and Tiny screwdrivers and that looks beautiful all right with the balance oscillating here nicely we can then continue with assembling the rest of the movement as you might remember the winding works so the ratchet wheel the crown wheel are all on the underside of this Barrel Bridge it's very important we'll lubricate any place it might be friction as that of course will prevent wear which will then also increase the longevity of the parts and of the watch itself all right let's get the train back together and I am forgetting something uh just about here let me know in the comments what I'm forgetting whenever we have a wheel with an extended pivot like the third wheel here it's of course important we get that wheel through the jewel through the bridge first and it's a shortfire way of breaking pivots if we don't check that the wheels are nicely freely rotating before we screw it down the bridge that is and if you still haven't seen what I forgot maybe it's clearer now I did put it back in later I just didn't show that I took everything out again and I put it back the Escape wheel is also quite easy to break pivots on I use a microscope to make sure that I see the pivot clearly before screwing anything down if you check frequently that the train is running freely then that should also suffice and with the train all in place we're going to put together the keyless works so that we can wind the watch and see a train rotate so for some of these parts there is not as much rotational friction as there is pressure friction and for those parts I use a different kind of Grease so this is obviously not a complicated movement in any way has a long history of ground complication ground complications ground complications are watches that incorporate a lot of different uh well complications which complication is anything besides time keeping so uh like date is probably the most common complication but you have things like triple date triple calendar moon phase chronograph and actually in 1770 mercero introduced a watch with chronograph with the moon phase and triple calendar so yeah long history in doing these things and that's of course why they're a part of the Holy Trinity and as we assemble the rest of this simple Movement we can just enjoy this wonderful finishing of the parts here you can see the bevels on the parts so instead of having sharp edges the edges are sloped so that is someone sitting with a small file in the loop and just by hand creating those bevels and polishing them if you saw me turn the train there it does not run as smoothly as it should so that's a little bit of a cause for concern very often after simply cleaning the watch the train will run very freely and when we give just a little bit of wind on the watch the palette Fork will flip from side to side you see that's not really happening here so what I did was to disassemble the train again check all the different dual depth things make sure that everything was running entirely freely and with that extra work which did take a couple of hours then we are finally able to see that the path Fork flips nicely then we can put the balance back in and hopefully the watch will run as it should last thing we're going to do before putting the watch on the time grapher is to lubricate all the different bearings so these red Jewels we see are synthetic rubies in general you have one Ruby for the top pivot of the wheel and one for the bottom pivot so one on each side of the movement if you will we have to lubricate both of course that helps the wheel rotate with very little friction and thus not steal so much power from the mainspring just for the sake of not keeping this video too long I didn't show all that work but we can see the result on the time grapher so that looks good I did clean the dial a little bit as well it's not too much we can do with the dial itself but the indices and also the hands and then we can press the hands back on and notice here that the minute hand is a little bit too close to the dial that's uh the reason why I lift the movement up a little bit like that and then I use a different type of tool to just make the minute hand go a little bit higher around the tile last thing then is this beautifully blued second sound that is a really beautiful combination very simple it's a very elegant all right let's get the movement back into the spacer ring and thereafter into the case itself in this old case has this really nice teardrop lugs a lot of gold in those chunky lugs [Music] was also quite common for these old watches to have this dust cover inside the case and gold is of course a very soft metal so it is more prone to being deformed which impacts the overall uh dust proofness this of course was never a waterproof watch not that any watch is really waterproof but it's a separate discussion before seeing the watch on the wrist I'd just like to remind everyone that that vintagewatchservices.eu you'll always find more than 100 beautiful watches and as a subscriber you can use this coupon code for 10 off and there we have it beautiful 1940s dress watch now also running a several Constantine should as you can see John also has the original strap or an original strap and the original buckle I hope you like this video if you did then click and like And subscribe will help and you will get notified when I upload new videos we'll be back with another video shortly until then Tata

Channel: Vintage Watch Services

Views: 11,034

Keywords: vintage watches, watch repair, watch servicing, mechanical watch, old watch, vintage watch, horology, watchmaker, watch services, watch restoration, watchmaking, old watches, oddly satisfying, relaxing video, legendary watches, mesmerizing videos, wristwatch revival, nekkid watchmaker, red dead restoration, vacheron constantin, vacheron & constantin, 466

Id: ML1o-Q0SF3c

Length: 26min 1sec (1561 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2023