Mechanical watch repair/servicing recommendations?

Sat 27 Jan, 13:18

Anymore suggestions from anyone.  I hadn't thought about using a parcel delivery "remote" repairer still being stuck in the idea of your Local Town's Watchmaker physical shop! Times they are a'changing.

It's a very good quality basic movement - date, automatic, shock buffered or whatever that mechanism was called (incabloc?) put in a basic robust waterproof steel case.The making of movements for "big name" brands of watches were contracted out to these contractors and then encased in a distinctive. brand case.

At the time - the early 80s - mechanical watch market sales had plummeted due to the impact of increasing capabilities and above all price drops as chip fabrication plummeted costs by orders of magnitude. Electronic watches became heavily dominant.

A lot of movement makers were badly hit and many, many had to give up and went out of business. To hang on to survival, often marginal, very good movements of many jewels etc originally destined for a Big Name became put into sturdy but plain cases and sold off for whatever they could get on the market.

My local ancient Watchmaker from our 10 years of London residency was a very old chap in his 80s running a Dickension workshop in the Parade of shops just by the entrance to Brixton Prison (of all places). He'd bought a couple of cases of posh-movemented watches (looked like there were dozens of watches piled up in the early Victorian furnished shop and workshop - like something out of a British historical costume film or TV production with a fantastical collection of hand and foot powered mechanical devices for making Chronometers (sic) which he had done a few times subbing in his Journeyman days apparently . 

I wish I'd had the money to replace my hopelessly damaged high sentimental value device (alas strap broke meaning a long fall from a high builders' scaffold onto concrete) with a watch with an alarm or two and a stop/countdown timer function but the extra cost put one of those tantalising objects of desire out of my reach.  :-(

So I opted for a more basic autowinder with simple date function but an "Incabloc" device protection for clamping the mechanism in some way I don't understand if it suffers a "high-G" shock from a drop or blow, given the fate of my old one.

Given so many watchmakers were in similar straits - so if you have a Swiss made watch of that era it might be worth checking again to see if you also have a quality engineered movement stuffed into a nondescript sturdy plain casing!

 Even with a bland name like Majex on the face it could also be a 25 jewel incabloc autowinder of the tail end of the Swiss watchmakers' Golden Age whose movements would otherwise end up in Rolex or Tag-Hauer fancy status exhibiting devices.

First rate machines deserve regular cleaning and oiling so that the contact surfaces don't wear. Beware that the fine oil used loses the lighter fraction molecules from the oil, which wriggle out somehow from even waterproof casings. Even tightly wrapped if its been unused for some years get the gummy residue cleaned out and new oil put in before use again.

With modern phones and their functions electric watches function apart from time telling is redundant.

Oh, and the artistry of a good and fine machine and the respect the makers deserve.