Many thks your reply.being 87 and shake to much,i retired.understand your thinking .her in s africa,customers wanr bright and shiny. Many hours in polishing. Here is a tip ii have not seen used before, inguaging condition of teethon wheel place wheel flat on white paper. Spray from vertical position. You can visual any variation in tooth shape. Helps imeasurably in straightening bent teeth. With our currency being terrible 1 pound equals about 25 of our rand i had to make lots of parts. Along with competeing with other" gentlemen who consider spraying with WD 40. Life was not ease. Many thanks your contribution blessings
Hi Lawrence. My practice is based on conservation principles - I am a clocks conservator - so try wherever possible to preserve surface finish as part of the integrity of the object. Hope this helps. Matthew. (1 Trest?)
This content is beyond measure. Your videos are what got me into horology and now I'm hooked. I had a legitimate fear of clocks ticking and your calming voice has been very therapeutic Thanks Matt
What a masterful repair work! That was a very instructive and enjoyable video, beautifully videographed and narrated, thank you very much. I have a working fusee movement but the motion works and dial are missing. What are the chances of cannibalising these from other scrap watches?
Thanks for your kind feedback. The chances of finding spare motion work wheels is really slim. Even if you were able to find wheels with the correct train count, because the watches were all hand-made, interchangeability really wasn't a thing I'm afraid. M
Hi Moses. It was a liquid spray grease containing molybdenum disulphide. I have used this brand Chemodex for 20 years or so now and find it really good! chemodex.co.uk/products/lqg-moly-liquid-grease. Hope this helps. M
Matthew, I really enjoy watching you work and your creative solutions. One piece of advice, leave your captions on a little longer. General rule of thumb, read them twice at your normal pace. Then it will be on longer for the viewer
If you want to turn it off, make an exact working copy of it so that people can still see an active version while you do what you need to do to the original. It's a machine. Machines NEED to work or they seize up and shut down permanently (see what happens to your car if you don't run it regularly!). With care, it can run for hundreds more years quite happily. It should not be frozen in aspic like a statue (as it was for many years).
What oil did you spray the mainspring with? Was the rest of the movement oiled with D-5, or was another Moebius oil or grease used? I wanted to know that for self-education purposes. Thank you.
Hiya. I spray the mainspring with Chemodex Liquid Spray Grease. Yes D3 and D5 on the movement. Today I would use 9415 on the pallets. Hope this helps. M
Absolutely beautiful work, careful precise but not so OCD that you ruin the parts that still exists, I need to learn about being able to say good enough on some of the old watches I've worked on. 😁
Thank you for your kind feedback. Yes I agree, it is good to decide an approach and work towards that line, re-considering/evaluating as you go, considering the implications of more interventions. The outcome is rarely the same as the intent, so again, it is useful to reflect on what happened and how you might modify your approach in future. Good to remember there is no must, should or have to. If you hear those words, warning! M
Someone may have already mentioned it, but your work here (both as restorer and videographer) has rescued a moment in history: a working watch from the intersection of the technology, craftsmanship and art of its time that lives again physically and virtually. Thank you!
Hi, very beautiful job. I am french amateur clock repair. I passionned with this. I repair lot of watch and 3 clock, my vedette winchester run 3 year ago my repair and uniquely quarter song not fonctionnal per moment. But it is very precise clock. I subscrib immediately after watch the first video. Sorry for my bad english.
Merci pour votre aimable retour ; apprécié. J'ai récemment essayé d'acheter une horloge murale à trois trains Vedette lors d'une vente aux enchères locale. Je vais continuer à chercher ! Bien à toi, Matthieu
Mr Read you have to be the best clockmaker I've seen. I've been at it over 30 years. I've watched a few on my smart tv and wasn't able to like. Love to see something on all of the important issues with the chimes on a Westminster clock. Going too slow etc. Cheers. Love your work. I'm from Nympsfield in the Cotswolds. Now in Australia 🦘🦘🦘🦘
Matthew you have way to many channels. Which you tube channel is your channel that you post to all the time? I advertise for you in my videos but I have been advertising "How to repair pendulum clocks"
Hi Mark. Thanks for your message. Yes I have 2 active channels at the moment. How to repair pendulum clocks which is workshop tips and techniques and tends to be quite technical. Then there is READ Repairs which is full projects which is meant to be a bit less technical and a bit more 'aesthetic'!!! There is of course cross-over. :=). In the background there is Open Clock Club archive which is only the livestream series of 50 events we did in lockdown. I am not adding to that series. Hope this helps. Thanks again for sending people my way; appreciated. If your members want any particular technique demonstrating, I will do that if I can. All the best. Matthew
Excellent video, thanks for posting. IMHO it is a great shame rolex are not producing quartz watches today for those of us living in the 21st century. Maybe it is harder to buy out a pre-existing quartz watch manufacturer than it would appear...
I just stumbled across this channel. Not sure how youtube never recommended your videos since I watch tons of other watch repair channels. This work is brilliant. Thank you.
I've had a few of those "swingers" come through my shop (including the reproductions from China). Your video, with all the closeup shots, were truly well done. I got a lot out of your video. Thanks!
thanks for your passing on your extensive knowledge, its very much appreciated,. you didnt go into choosing the strength of the suspension spring, other that the obvious far to weak or strong.. how critical is the strength of a suspension spring ?..
Hi Shaun, thanks for your message. The suspension spring strength is important. Like all leaf springs, it is the thickness that is the main value as this relates to the cube of the strength. In most clocks, the suspension spring adds to the effective value of gravity. The stronger the spring, the higher the restoring force and the more the clock will gain and vice-versa. When fitting a new spring, chose one that allows the crutch pin to be reasonably in the middle of the slot and allows the rating nut to be reasonably in the middle of its travel. If you find the rating nut very near to the lower point of adjustment, the spring is too thick and vice-versa. Hope this helps. I'll do a video in it when I get time./. M
I went to a Rolex boutique last week to have my battery changed. After couple of days after they call me saying that all is good, the watch is ready to pickup. After 5 days I arrive to the shop for pickup and when they give it to me it is not moving. The salesman was surprised and said “it is probably broken”. Now I have a watch not moving and an invoice saying: battery replaced, watch checked and impermeable. What should I do now? What is your opinion? The watch is in perfect conditions and was running exceptionally since many years before running out of battery.
How long ago had the old battery expired? Was that boutique a Rolex Authorised Dealer or Rolex authorised service centre? If it was, I would just return it and ask for a written report of the faults/fault. If you feel it is unreasonable, take legal advice of how/if to pursue a claim. If it was not a Rolex authorised centre, take the watch to a Rolex authorised service centre and ask them to prepare a written report (you may have to pay for this). Then you can decide whether to take legal advice of how to pursue. One of the major issues with these watches is the cell (battery) being left in the watch once it has discharged. That had happened to the one I worked on. Get everything in writing. Hope this helps. Matthew. If the centre was independent, they may be a member of a professional body, in which case, if things are not resolved to your satisfaction, you make approach them for advice.
hi thanks for the reply. The previous battery lasted a few years and expired 1 month ago. I brought for a replacement about 2-3 weeks after it stopped. It was an authorized dealer, they did the replacement in the shop but they don’t service watches there, they send them to another center. They won’t even give me a report of the problem without sending it to the other center. I have a trusted service center but I am abroad for a few months. I might take it there later as you suggested.
Thank you so much for your excellent videos. They will be invaluable when I finally take my three fusee bracket clock apart to clean and oil. I was very intimidated by the thought of doing it, but after watching your videos I know that I can do it! The only thing I'm bummed out about is that the clock you worked on does not have the silent strike lever, as mine does. My silent strike is not working. I still do not know why. It quickly, almost violently, moves left and right one time, as the quarter hour starts to chime (and it seems loose). When I first saw your video, I was so much hoping that your clock had the strike silence lever. I will have to figure it out on my own. 😥
Hi READ repairs, may I ask you why the cleaning between watch-restorer is not very good? I mean why don't you polish shiny surfaces as bridges or weels? It's because you can bend it or erode it and change the functionality of the watch? or something else? Lot of thanks.
Hi Andrea. Thanks for your feedback. Yes it is a good question. I'm a conservator by profession so tend towards a minimal approach. My first station is to broadly decide what level of intervention I am after and aim for that. I wanted to restore function here but only that, ie check the bearing surfaces are clean and little more. In addition, this watch and components are finished with mercury fire gilding which, unlike electro-plated gold is very soft and has a particular texture that can easily be disturbed. On top of that, I see the watch restoration world is increasingly aware of 'original' surface finish, particularly on cases and dials. It is the same in the clocks world. Clocks that have been extensively mechanically/chemically re-finished are ofter/typicaly worth significantly less in monetary terms that their non re-finished counterparts. I dont have a set way of approaching things, just some guidelines and believe practice is (should be) fluid etc. Hope this give some insight to my approach. Matthew
I would imagine that a person would want the running train power not too strong so that when there are problems with the clock, it will stop running and not ruin itself further. Purely rookie speculation.
On my 1820s triple fusee clock, the top of the spring is held in with a very small screw instead of the pin in a v groove. Not a quick process to remove the pendulum. But it has a brass thumb screw to hold the pendulum while transporting. I've looked at a lot of clocks and haven't seen one with the screw, but of course I have not seen them all. Anyway, it would be the same process as you do in the video.
