My Friend's Gorgeous WWII Military Watch Won't Run, I Try to Restore It! 

And a "radio voice" as well !

Right? I'll bet the professional who didn't want to bother fixing this, would get quite uncomfortable seeing this.

@@flyboy3633 Marshall does professional commentary work

Sometimes, hobbyists are better at it than professionals just because hobbyists do it because they like doing it and these so called professionals do it for moneys.

@@Xsuprio Or perhaps the unnamed professional doesnt give a rat's ass about this UTube video, coz his business model doesn't revolve around technically obsolete low value curio watches.

My uncle was a watchmaker in the 40' & 50's. My dad once owned a chain driven pocket watch that my uncle repaired. He made a replacement link from a piece of superfine wire for it. My dad took the back off the watch and showed me the chain, which was about the same diameter as 8-10 lb. monofilament fishing line.

Truly, this was an exemplary display of skill and attention to detail of its time. I feel lucky to be able to see a part of history at what possibly is close to its original condition close to 80 years ago from now. And to imagine what we can do now in cutting and forming precision fitting parts, and all the components we could combined them with, I have high hopes for what we can come up with for the many years to come. Kudos here for a job well done!

You sure you didn't just make up all those names for all the parts? Fun to watch a skilled craftsman at work. Thanks

Seriously, how did they made watches 120-140 years ago? Something like 15-20 precision gears, everything precision cut, stamped and milled - probably by hand, even with a stencil. No power tools, no easy to get replacement parts... if your endmill broke, you were done.

Right, like how did all these parts come together in the first place? Totally mind blowing.

550k+ subs, i'd rather be a hobbyist than a pro lol

A professional saying something isn't worth their time makes me so angry. They are being paid for their time. It is worth it. The loose case screw just further sells the lazy uncooperative "professional"

I love it that you love to do these restorations and not because you have to. That is the difference between you and the professionals.

@@Ksweetpea The correct Answer of the 'professional' would have been: "There is a bend sprocket, can't repair it or source a replacement because of warranty issues" and giving the Owner a Picture of the Back of the watch with the damaged wheel marked. Professionals have problems of warrantys and using sourced used wheels is tricky for them because of it. But he had the clock open and should have seen the Problem. Giving the Costumer a good hint whats the problem and that he can't fix it thanks to warranty and used parts concerns would be adequat Service to the costumer. The loose case screw and the 'can't be bothered' is bad.

They probably didn't even open the watch. Not a lot to repair and to bill the client for.

HO Scale Kadee no. 5 coupler springs! I'm pretty good 😸😊 at replacing them!

Another scale model hobbyist here .. seriously makes me want to stop griping at .. well .. everything! :)

Hahahahhaha

Feel that. I have to repair small RC helicopters. Thrust bearings of a few mm. Painful

Most of it is not squeezing too hard and having REALLY high quality tweezers. The biggest issues I've found with holding parts is that most commercial tweezers are not flat. At all. In the slightest. And you also have to know where to grab the parts at. Screw heads? Grabbing large flat parts long ways? Bad idea. Grab a stable part

You play magic?

@@jeshuaadams5869 He is incredibly known in the Magic Community. Hosts a podcast called "Limited Resources", extremely popular show regarding the Limited format

Best unintentional ASMR channel eva!!!

@@jeshuaadams5869 do you know how RU-vid works? Why would you pay that question in this comment thread? LOL.

Just the sheer display of patience in this videos is what gets me. A good role model for many

"Not worth repairing" from a shop usually means that they could repair it but they would have to charge you several times the price of new ones to cover the costs and they don't want an argument with every customer who brings in old gear about the cost of repair. Sometimes if you explain the item has sentimental value and you're prepared to pay what it costs to fix they will take it.

@@raccoontrashpanda1467 I agree! Which was why I brought the reels in and explained I had inherited them and was motivated to repair them since I now had the money to do so. My story is accurate. The most skilled and knowledgeable person is who the younger staff sent me to and that person told me point-blank they *couldn't* be repaired, not they *shouldn't* be repaired or he *wouldn't* repair them because it would be cost-prohibitive. I actually would have been ok with any of those three choices because the outcome would have been the same with me getting reel maint. supplies. My point is, trying to repair something that's broken is okay if it's not exceptionally dangerous to do so. I know I'm glad I did. :)

@@uqox You should've taken them in after you got them back in working condition just to rub the guy's face in it. lol

@@number3665 Maybe, just maybe....Uqob is a gentleman without an axe to grind. ie. He's not a dick.

P

The canvas straps are still available if you wanted to put the watch back to the way it was during the war.

My thought was that perhaps the professional figured out what was wrong, didn't have a donor watch lying around and decided it would be too much of a hassle tracking a single part down. Then they still screwed up by forgetting to actually screw down the case screw but still, might not have been just a straight up refusal.

​@@rjoac09seems like it's more likely that he didn't know how much those watches are actually worth today and just assumed it was a couple hundred dollars at most. I mean, you can get busted ones for 2-300 but nice ones are well worth ones time.

​​@@J.C...That's my guess. Figured the guy who brought it in was an idiot and he was doing him a favour by refusing the work.

They might of thought there was a risk of radium paint on the hands.

@@rjoac09 no he was just lazy or most likely he is not a pro...you dont just give up if you are a pro you search for the problem and you tell your client how he wants to proceed that "professional" has only experience with battery replacements on quartz

lol

Funny, but so very true!

I did the same with my dad's business calculators. Never got kne back together. Finally thought just put the buttons back on. He found out during an exam I put them on in wrong spots lol.

I used to take people apart. They can't be put back together. I stopped before the law caught up to me... Don't worry, the people I dealt with were not good people. It was made clear though that should I be caught I'd be disavowed even though I was doing work for bigger people.

Just because you're retired doesn't mean that you have to stop breaking stuff!

Good observation.

NEW OLD defect stock might be worth checking out hmmm

Bingo!

Could be! I don’t know anything about watches. Might the factory have left that screw out? Might that screw be what damaged that gear wheel?

You're probably right. When i see something on ebay new old stock, whatever it may be. Makes me think there's something wrong with it from the get go.

Dont work in a room with carpet.....

Years ago I modified a version of an old "jeweler's table" for fine electronics work. The integrated lens hoods and sweeps and catch drawers are a big time saver, they've caught all sorts of tiny parts which would've disappeared.

That is a shame

@@ferce889 I found that out the hard way. It took me about 15 minutes to search and find a small part that I dropped in a 12" x 12" area!

In another life, I used to be a aircraft instrument technician, working on general instruments - like RPM, compass, etc. Lots of small screws and pivots. In our shop was a guy who claimed to have the best eyesight in the world, and whenever one of us drops a small part on the tiled floor, we'd call out "Argus!" (Argus being the multi-eyed mythological god) which our friend responded to. He would crawl around for hours sometimes, until he found the part and triumphantly yell "Argus!!!" when he finds the part. Ah well, we were young and bored... One day I will tell you about the dragsters we built out of tachogenerator bearings for wheels with heatshrunk sleaving tires and copper pipes usually used to to evacuate gas from the instrument casing. Spin it up with an airgun, and be prepared to be awed by the speed!

Hey that's what we all hope for when we buy a junker on eBay! Nice find :)

That's awesome. I'm not a watch guy but I'm a bit of a history buff and I bought a Waltham ww1 trench watch with shrapnel guard for like 50 times what you paid. So congrats on the find. Did you keep it or did you end up selling it?

Right on! I did end up selling it, don't know for how much but I'd wager a bet on significantly more than $25.

Thank you :)

Forrest does work with more care than many 'professionals'. Its a joy to watch him, and also the Nekked Watchmaker. Entertaining and educational, good production values too.👍👍

I wholeheartedly agree! You’re not a hobbyist… @@WristwatchRevival Marshall…how would you feel about servicing and re-luming a birth-year Tudor Prince I’ve just bought for my 40th? It’s in the states waiting to be shipped to me in the UK, but perhaps it could come via you first? 🙂

He is only a hobbyist in the sense that you can't make a living doing these exquisite restorations -- his standards are too high for a professional...

Wristwatch Revival is our sensei.

I've had many jewelers and watchmakers tell me that a stopped watch was unfixable. I have concluded that that they are either lazy, incompetent or both. Very disappointing.

It helps to take picture as you go. Once you did one though, you can kind of do the rest easily. Manual watches all share same/similar mechanism and automatic is just that + auto winding complication at the top. other complication just add more shits in the dial side.

Yes and they also make them for 5 dollars in china. How is that possible?

@@1marcelfilms Automation and parallelization. If you construct a factory line that efficiently solves a difficult part, you can then simply multiply it, which denominates the price. plus, obviously, you have cheap labor doing one thing at a time. "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs" - Henry Ford. Here "hard" really means delicate/expensive. That said, what people miss to appreciate is the attention that goes into tooling. That part around 17:30 when Wristwatch Revival is putting the main spring back is one of those moments that are typically very difficult for the rest of us, because of two key concepts: 1) the man's patience, 2) the actual tool he uses, which he wouldn't have had if he wasn't already into wristwatch repair. That tool is a piece of engineering and a lot of thought and experience got into it. Now imagine tools like it that help you build the watch from the scratch... Well, in many ways it is easier to build a new watch than to repair an old one, let me say it this way. Now imagine such tools in series with a half a dozen of human labor stations along the way. Now copy these parallel to each other... Congrats, you can now build hundreds of these watches per day. In the end, all you care about is quality assurance which becomes the core facility of your watchmaking enterprise, simply because your tests need to be prudent and efficient. This is what truly differentiates your business from anyone else's. And it is especially hard to estimate how long the watch will run without waiting for that much time, and this will directly affect the brand's market position and value... Obviously if we move past the subjective beauty of the actual design. So what's essentially the hardest thing in this business, people rarely even think about, everybody fixates on that one thing that's actually solvable -- precision and miniaturization -- and it has been solved, obviously. The other part, well, umm, not so much. Everybody kind of moved into electronics, exactly to move away from the tiny winy mechanical parts, and you don't need as much human labor, the QA tests are much easier, the design is more open towards form, and the actual function is several magnitudes more accurate and robust. It is only now that we can truly appreciate the precision mechanics of the past. Back then everybody understood what went into it, and it wasn't really that special, it was a craft like any other, nowadays it looks like Willy Wonka's factory, exactly because we have to reinvent not only the mental attitude, but the tooling as well, the two components that make this job much simpler to comprehend.

Same here!

@@1marcelfilms Easy, pay your workers like garbage.

I'm right there with you. The precision and mathematics required in the gear ratios alone boggle me.

Yes

He may have been competent, but just didn't want to mess with it.

I wonder how long this took, and then compare the cost of that time to the value of the watch? It is sometimes the case that it isn't worth the time/cost to repair. On the other hand, as it's a military watch with sentimental value, I'm surprised the watchmaker didn't just put a figure on it anyway to sort it out.

@@scottspeig I thought that, also. He could have given the man a price and the choice.

@@scottspeig I'm thinking it was just clickbait

We have customers nearly everyday who want old watches like this fixed, then you give them the price, The biggest problem with fixing watches to day is time, and getting parts You spend 2 hours restoring / servicing the watch the get caught out owing to one $2 component you can't get, Sure you can spend 2 hours o the net trying to find the parts and 3 weeks later when they arrive there the wrong bit It is easier to hand them back and work on the easier paying jobs. Send an old watch of that era to Omega or Rolex and the quotes start at $2,000 So I think the watchmaker did the right thing and we don't know if he did a quote.

I tried to have a full service on one of my grand dads seiko provitas done. Not a valuable or rare watch by any means, but still a proper watch that I cared for. No one wanted to do it in my area. I have a feeling that a watch shop today is totally based off replacing battery's and Crystal's. A reall shame since a reall watch is such a nice pice of engineering. yeh it's still not as accurate as a quartz lock style. And you have to wind it every day. But there's something nice about wearing something so intricate and delicate that it keeps time within a 1/4 minute a day. I'm no watch maker but I keep all mine running decently. I wish there were more options of good service to send a watch you really care about today. If I don't have to wind a watch, or walk with it so it winds itself, Well then to me it's not a reall watch. By the way a clean provita movement is a damn good watch, like a few seconds a day watch that you never have to wind and is pretty bullet proof. Probably my go to one since I don't have to wind it, just wear it

It's not just stupid arrogant watchmakers that are the issue. There are many "professionals" who are basically snobs - I'm perfectly happy with someone telling me it's not worth it to ME because of the expense, but I'm NOT happy with these sorts of idiots telling me it's not worth THEIR time - I don't give a flying monkey's if it costs more than it's worth in their opinion if I'm prepared to pay what it takes to get it done. They can charge the same overheads and hourly rates if it's a cheap TIMEX that has sentimental value to me, as if it would if it was a higher end 6 figure watch.

@@gordowg1wg145 a sekio provita from the 70s and back is a proper watch tho. Well deserving of a few hundred bucks in service. I get not wanting to service one of my weird soviet watches or something that's super weird or cheap. The trouble is there's just no one around who is actually still a good old school watch maker in my area. I don't think any of them know how to do a proper full service and fully strip one. Even when I've had one done the thing comes back still running pretty badly, and I know that the internals are good, they just probably stuffed a main spring in it and dropped a bit of oil on the jewls. But I guess today with how few people would ever want one serviced it's not surprising. And of course you can mail them out to tonnes of people who actually know what their doing.

You're not the only one.

It'd be nice if they _COULD_ change batteries. I was headed for a Japan trip but needed new battery for my Casio AMW 330. (It is a watch that I later had several of but, only owned this one at a the time.} He buggered the change and ruined the watch such that I could not set it and had to convert from PDT to JST in my head. I was extremely made and when I returned, I gave him hell in no uncertain terms.no

Couldn't agree more, I really want to try it, but its like any pro, they make it look easy. He is amzing and so humble and the detail, would love to try it, but i guess some of those tools are not cheap.

It’s the Bob Ross effect ! Very calming to listen to and observe

I think there are many of us on here on Marshall’s channel who stumbled unexpectedly on watch repair like you did. Marshall single-handedly sparked a passion in me to begin hobbyist watch maintenance/repair! It’s loads of difficult but rewarding fun.

Crazy they still have this type of stuff tucked away. I did a similar detail in old store rooms, no watches though. Might have taken a few if I did 😜

I figured it was new old stock or something. There is no way that watch say combat or event a speck of dirt.

Agreed a watch maker saying eh this isn't worth my time to fix does seem 1) a rather ironic statement and 2) fairly ignorant or short sighted to turn away business but who knows. There's good reason I found a local to me watchmaker that can do this kind of work for relatively inexpensive rates and he makes a good living restoring and selling vintage pieces.

@@icalexander it could also easily mean that “I think you’re too smart of a customer so I doubting can upsell or overcharge you.”

@@icalexander To an extent, I can see why it wouldn't be cost effective for a professional shop. First of, they usually require buying a whole watch/movement just to get replacement parts, and the more rare and unusual movements can end up costing more than the watch itself. Another thing is that and a lot of vintage movements aren't shock resistant, so that makes them tricky to warranty. Still though, if I were a vintage watch collector, I would have done the same thing and found someone who specializes in repairing vintage watches.

Furry lol

@@xiopia3940 Hehe, that's cute. You think I'm ashamed of being openly furry.

LOL Mike, I think it's time you checked that wait list again! I felt exactly the same way you did before I started the hobby, but someone with your experience and expertise will be able to pick it up fast I bet. Go for it I say :) It's also not a bad hobby for the rainy PNW days :)

@@WristwatchRevival - Well, thanks, I will. IF I could get in that would probably be a better use of an old retired fart's time than sitting around watching RU-vid videos all day.

I bought a Hamilton vietnam(my) era mechanical watch this year.

O

@@mikeohandley6765 Why not check out online horology courses while you're waiting too? It never hurts to get your head around the basics like terminology, history, etc before you start a course... and the one positive this pandemic has gifted us is a plethora of online courses & content from professionals _and_ passionate amateurs wanting to engage with people who want to learn 👍

Vostok watches have a fascinating story. I personally love the Slava Medical Pulsometer watch.

I had one a long time ago And I lost it like an idiot. Had like the little Soviet star on it and a air plane emblem which I think it might have been some kind of Soviet air men or airborne watch.

Comes from repeated repetition...Like, how you take a transmission to a specialist if you wan't it fixed right...%95 of all reputable mechanics wont touch a transmission, because of their detail required in re-assembling them...

@@brentfarvors192 b/c automatics are garbage and should be banned

@@TheGuruStud Not all are "garbage"...

As a transmission builder and lifelong DIY automotive tinkerer. Working under the scope on PCB level repairs I find relaxing. Takes a bit of practice on junk you don't care about. Soon you catch on.

it’s very common for professional watchmakers to pass on low end watches. I doubt he even opened it.

@@MrMadvillan Why would they do that for such a nice historical piece? Don't they charge the same either way? Or is it the assumption that they won't be able to fix a junky watch?

@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 sure, you could charge more than the watch is worth for the service and that’s the clients prerogative, however a good watchmaker will be busy enough to have a choice of what they take, like some only do Swiss pieces. The misconception is that the watchmaker is waiting around for that job. More so, service is very different than restoration, it’s a ‘project’ and objectively these ww2 watches are fairly generic and some would argue not really meant to be serviced - being that it’s destined for war. Marshall is doing a disservice to profession watchmakers’ with this kind of video, I suppose to feed the ego.

@@MrMadvillan Wow, those are pretty harsh words. He seems to care about what he's doing and constantly says he's a hobbyist. What more do you want? I very much doubt that he's cutting into their business by showing his personal projects, in fact some professional channels have offered him high praise.

@@stopthephilosophicalzombie9017 its even in the description: the "professional couldn't do it, but I, the amateur can." As far as what's on my bench, no matter how hacky the previous work was done(or in this case not done), it's not fair to make assumptions. But yeah marshall sure is making assumptions to make himself look good. And tbh I've been a sub for a while and have had no problem with his work.

You are a good person

@@gavenowens7154 Most of us are. Just too much noise in the world today. Its theraputic to remember the veterans who faced immense challenges and soldiered on.

You mean the "battery replacement specialist" ?

@@SurgingApocalypse They usually are able to fit the bracelets plus change them and straps too, so not THAT Specialist. ;)

Took my Bulova Devil Diver to a ‘master watchmaker’ for full service some years back. 10 minutes after I picked it up, I checked the time. Couldn’t see a damn thing through the crystal- completely fogged up. Pretty sure he had just dunked the whole movement in his ultrasonic cleaner and done nothing else. Went straight back there and told him to do what I’d paid him to do. Ran ok after picking it up the second time. Needs servicing again… Marshall?😉

the youtuber dunked his finger in the grease jar, contaminated. you should use a clean screwdriver.

Visit NYC. There's dozens in Manhattan.

Thank you!

*Funny, had similar watchmaker experience with a 1952 rectangular Elgin. Repair shop had it 90 days, called me up and said it's free but they've done nothing to it and just have no time. Came back with a giant replacement screw and locked in position. Never sorted it back out, but ... life. 70 year old micromachinery hard to bring back to perfection.*

I'm going back in time to watch more videos (new subscriber) and I'm finding them very entertaining. So very interesting and articulate. Yes Marshall, Thank you!

@@WristwatchRevival Marshal any idea where I can get a replacement winding stem for the 539? Or are they similar enough to an ETA that I could use one of those?

What does he use to open up the back? A magic 8ball?

Great advice. Thank you for that.

As long as he doesn't repair them on a regular basis and not chip paint of the watchhands it should be fine. Unless inhaled or ingested these old paints don't really pose a threat. That's what killed the Radium Girls btw. ingesting Radium on a regular basis, not the radioactivity of Radium by itself, alpha decay isn't really harmful unless you are exposed to a large quantity (radiation burns) or ingest them. α-particles get blocked by skin.

There's not nearly enough radiation to be harmful, and it's not the most dangerous type of radiation either.

I have the original 8 day clock in my 1947 Cessna 140….and it still works!

@@TheAirplaneDriver Not surprising. Personally I love old aircraft analog instrumentation. Most of it was surprisingly simple like the bar-alt just being a bladder hooked up to a needle or the AoA indicator lights just being cams on a shaft pushing on mechanical switches. Even the turn rate indicator was just a 2-3" gyro that'd even function when we hooked up a couple of the wires backwards (granted it did point the wrong way, but it did so very accurately!).

@@Najolve It is amazing how the airplane and systems have held up over the past 75 years. There is a small pile of light powdery stuff from the dials sitting on the bottom of the clock behind the glass (I assume radium? 😳) but otherwise it works just fine.

Dive in I say :)

Mechanical marvels and human lives alike

Crazy to look back on.

Or how low quality modern stuff is "/

Yes, but I usually do that off camera. What you see is the best I could get it usually.

@@WristwatchRevival I think we all would like to see this process once. It sounds very satisfying to see a watch becoming more and more precise.

Hi Bob, I am just getting into these WWII watches and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I'm still learning my way around this subject; for example, I really don't know which ones are more "significant". Hack or no hack movements? I personally enjoy the hack function.

@@AutobahnVault I started with the A11 because of a family link to the AAF crews in WWII. Luckily, I wound mine and discovered it runs better than I remembered. I've been wearing it all week. I'm looking for someone local to service it so I can pass down a working piece.

And in another 50 years they'll be worth a ton more!

I'll try to weave that into future videos more, but the short answer is ebay

ETA movements mean that "the finest" of Swiss movements are pretty average

​@@boredincan No they're not. ETA is not bad at all, like it or not, the watch industry is probably better off with it. In-house movements may be more interesting, but most of the time won't be better. I think the word 'average' as we tend to use it doesn't really apply to a lot of the watch industry.

It did make me feel good! And that's awesome! Post some progress stuff on Instagram or something :)

Those "professional" are often just there to do battery replacement and nothing else,watchmaking is becoming a lost art.

Are you the Groot that peruses the Elkhart rail cam?

@@johnstudd4245 *sweats profusely* I am Groot

@@iamgroot3403 LOL I have not been looking at the rail cams lately, but used to, and would comment now and then. Every time I bookmarked Elkhart, the next time I tried to go to it, it would not work. I don't know what the deal was with that.

I have my doubts that they didn't know what they were doing: I know of many instances of artisans deliberately damaging or verbally condemning an item to _devalue_ it so that they can make a bargain purchase. Pretty dark, and I hope I'm wrong...but it happens.

You should try it out :) What could go wrong? ;)

@@WristwatchRevival ahahaha....I can think of a million things:) a watch mechanism, with all those tiny parts, isn't something that would dare:)

Computer mice with scroll wheels usually have a click spring. It's such a reliable solution for a simple tactile feedback.

The Antikythera mechanism is an amazing & fascinating machine! It's the ultimate example of the human affinity for using gears, wheels & levers to produce mathematical outputs like 'time' going back millennia... and proof positive that our ancestors were as equally inventive, intelligent & astute engineers as we are today 👌

Wow... that's deep. And very likely correct. Thanks for sharing this. 💯🙏