Repairing a Remington Pocket Watch

July 5th,
2009Posted in Off-Topic at 6:35 am

[ Continued from Page one... ]

Also make sure the face roughly lines up with the movement; 12:00 should be lined up with the place where the stem goes into the movement. Now is a good time to make sure that the sweep of the hands don’t conflict. The hands should be level to the face, but sweep past each other without touching.

Line up all three hands to 12:00 in order to keep the hour hand calibration correct, otherwise later on when the watch is running you may find that the minute hand will indicate the top of the hour, but the hour hand will be off a bit.

Now gently slide the watch body over the spacer and movement, and line up the holes where the stem enters the body. Check the following set of pictures on how I got the movement to line up correctly in order for the stem to go back into the little hole.

Again, the little bracket on the watch body gets in the way, so you’ll need to fiddle with it to get it to line up right. Just go slow, and be careful not to jam the stem into the workings of the movement — it took me a few tries before I got it, and I think I got lucky, so just be wary.

When you get the stem in, hold the spacer and movement steady, and push the stem home. It should just click in and stay seated.

Now, just like in the beginning, hold the movement down with one finger, and gently pry out the spacer ring. Replace the battery, and put the spacer ring back in, seating it firmly.

Quickly check that the face is aligned correctly to the watch body. If it needs to be adjusted, use the pin to align it through the holes in the spacer ring, using the embossing of the numbers to push against.

Check to make sure that the winder operates correctly (i.e. you are able to set the time), and that the hands sweep without hitting each other. If all is good, pop the rear cover back on (make sure it snaps down tight!) and set the correct time.

I sincerely hope this has helped you. It’s been a fun learning experience for me, and I am glad that I had a chance to share!

Updates: After I repaired this watch, I noticed that I had inadvertently bent the minute hand, causing the hands to stick at a certain time of the day, and when I opened up the watch again, I found out something interesting.

Apparently, one does not need to push down the “pusher,” as indicated to release the stem — it just popped out with a twist of the screwdriver blade. Now, it may just be that this watch is old, and the stem retainer is worn, allowing the stem to release without the use of the pusher, or the pusher is not needed to release the stem. I’m not sure which.

Just be aware that I am not a jeweler, and this is just an attempt to get an old watch running again, so don’t do this to your watch if you put a lot of value in it and are afraid to break it — take it to a real watch repair shop. They aren’t too expensive, and I won’t get angry e-mails!