Breitling watch repair. Valjoux 7750.
This watch was recently serviced incorrectly. I found several issues and one glaringly obvious fault.
First of all it was aparent that the balance wheel was not turning correctly (sort of sticky) – this is usually due to a bent pivot (quite unlikely with Incabloc settings), or lack of lubrication. The real reason is illustrated below.
I also found that the watch was heavily over-oiled especially the train (train of wheels) pivot holes. A huge (in watch terms) blob of grease was found on the escape wheel.
With the dial and hands removed I can see the person who worked on this was either in a hurry or using poorly maintained screwdrivers. The scratches are poor. See the close up…
Whilst this does not affect the running of the watch – it reveals bad practice in my opinion. But when I took out the calendar mechanism I see that they had also used the watch as a notepad!
This is actually bad practice. I guess they were making notes (on the movement) to remind themselves where parts are located. The problem is that burrs caused by this scratching CAN prevent smooth operation of the return hammer (in this case). I will smooth this over later.
So here we have the cause of that sticky balance I mentioned earlier. The highlighted portion of the image above shows the Incabloc shock setting for the balance wheel. The spring is NOT located in the setting correctly and the endstone is almost falling out. On investigation it seemed that the spring itself was actually bent inwards. A simple fix – but not without fully stripping the movement. See the close-up…
Once this watch is cleaned and oiled properly I have every confidence it will work fine until it is due the next service.
