u/Gucci-Caligula

I just made a post like a week ago whining about destroying movements. in that thread I got a LOT of really great support from everyone saying to keep at it. Well today I finished my first full service that DIDNT end in disaster!

this is my seiko 5 7009-8210A that I got as parts not running off eBay and I have brought her back from the dead. granted she’s still kind of on life support but that’s definitely an upgrade from dead!

is it a good service? no, this level of performance would be pretty unacceptable if done by a “pro”. BUT she runs and keeps pretty accurate time BE and amplitude issues aside!

I’m gonna bask in this victory for a while before I start the next one.

for my own education. a couple questions for you more experienced than I.

looking at my time grapher trace does that look like an escape wheel issue to you? I don’t have the tools or expertise to try and get it back in round but I do have a donor movement I could swap the escape for next service.
that beat error is pretty bad but thats with the BE adjustment arm moved ALL the way over. to adjust further I would need to mess with the actual stud screw correct?
for anyone who works on/ has worked on these old seikos, my quickset date isn’t working but the date ticks over fine through normal time progression. what could cause that? it feels like the clutch wheel kind of just skips past the date advance tooth rather than fully biting it.

title basically.

I’m just getting started with learning watch repair as a hobbyist. I’ve ruined my 3rd movement so far and I’m just starting to get a little depressed about it.

my first movement I ruined by losing parts, I had my escape wheel disappear on me (I had my parts out on the bench when I was removing my mainspring and it jumped out of my hands, I assume it hit the escape wheel and sent it to the shadow realm then)

my second movement that I ruined was because the click spring went bye bye AND I snapped the shock spring on the balance bridge.

for both of those I know they arent “ruined” but the replacement parts would each cost more than I paid for the whole movement (at least from what I can find on eBay)

the third movement I don’t know is ruined but I can’t figure out what is wrong with it and it seems likely that it’s ruined.

it was my first whole watch disassembly (a runner too). everything went so smoothly on the disassembly clean AND escapement reassembly, but then it all went to hell at lubrication of the balance.

the cap jewel flew away on me. I searched and searched with a black light for like 2 hrs and I cannot find it. I tried to sub in a jewel from one of my other failure movements but the spacing is all off. now when I remove the donor cap stone the balance doesn’t move freely at all. (the watch was running at reassembly prior to my attempted oiling of the cap jewels). I assume somewhere in my ham fisted attempts I must have bent the pivots (though I cannot see a bend at all under magnification I don’t have poising jaws to test)

what’s a normal amount of movements to mangle before you stop well…. Mangling them? I really enjoy a lot of this hobby but I feel like turbo shit taking running movements and turning them into trash.

should I just chalk those movements up to the cost of tuition and start working on another? I should I try and source parts and fix my fuckups?

I do feel like I’m learning at each mistake, but at the same time each mistake makes me more gun-shy to try again for fear of fucking up and toasting yet another movement.

First success!

How many movements is it normal to ruin?