Restoration of a 1945. Rolex Oyster watch

This family heirloom was in need of major repair and was taken to Rolex Service Centre for a quote. Unfortunately, the watch was rendered as beyond repair because allegedly, Rolex does no longer have spare parts for their vintage models.











The entire restoration project took over 4 hours where most of the time was spent on realignment of the hair spring which was badly damaged by previous repairers.

The end result was rewarding. The watch now ticks at a rate of +1 second a day and ha a healthy amplitude of over 300 degrees. Not bad for a 64 years old watch!




The features of the watch are its original "quarter hatch" dial and its early screw lock crown.

Small restoration project: Panerai case polishing

This Panerai Daylight belongs to a fellow watch collector and was brought in last Friday.

As you can see it had a nasty dent right on the edge of middle case.

I made a promise to publish photos of the watch before and after polishing, so here they are, for your enjoyment.

The entire polishing of the middle case (body) was done by hand using a metal file and various grades of sand paper and took less than 15 minutes, including bezel polishing.
Panerai watches are made of quality steel and respond well to both machine and hand polish.

Watch case half way through polishing

Final touch: photo of bezel after polishing on a buff wheel.