OK its not a CW as it happens but its the same movement. I recently bought an 11 year old ORIS Big Crown Hunter Team 38 Edition on everybody's favourite auction site for the princely sum of £585. This watch is getting rare, the last one sold in the UK in Feb 2023 for £753. The seller is a bit of collector so we exchanged quite a few messages before I decided to buy, one of which included a couple of Timegrapher snaps of the ORIS running at +10. On my wrist for the next three weeks it actually ran at +13.5s/day, still within spec for the standard Sellita SW200-1 but not to my liking. I have a couple of other watches with the same movement, and my CW Sealander 36 runs at -4 so I didn't see why the Hunter Team shouldn't perform a little better than it was. I contacted ORIS who don't regulate watches and yes, I know it needs a service but £450 and a 3 month wait is a bit over the top for a watch which is only worth £585. So I took it to my local 'qualified horologist' (as advertised on the website) who told me he couldn't regulate it and that ETA sold all their machinery a while back and their calibres are now made in China so the watch wasn't any good anyway (sic). To give him his due, he's an old boy in his late '70's and he did do a fantastic job on a carriage clock for me a couple of years ago, including cutting a new toothed ring for the going barrel. However, I received a much more interesting response from the next local 'qualified horologist' I contacted. I gave him full details of the watch, including the information that the movement was an ORIS 733Cal which is based on the Sellita SW200-1 to which he replied he'd do the service in the morning and did I have some shopping to do while I waited and the cost would be £100 including the replacement battery! If this is what we are to expect from the watch trade in the UK nowadays then I don't blame anyone for buying an Apple watch and turning to floral arrangements or dinghy sailing. So I looked up 'adjust your own Sellita movement' on YouTube – as one does for everything from how to diagnose a life-threatening illness, clean the cats teeth or change the spark plugs in a Ford Fiesta. I learnt that all you need is a very, very small screwdriver (blade width 1mm or <) a lint-free cloth to perform the operation on, a loupe (in my case I have good quality x10 thread-counter) and borrow the dog's favourite rubber ball. Only I bought a new one for £2 as I don't think how ever hard I washed it, even vestigial traces of slobber would be good for the watch. I took a photo of the back of the watch to make sure when I replaced the back it registered in the original position, quite easy with thus particular ORIS as the exhibition back has a nice Hawker Hunter jet (hence the name) inscribed on it. It does require a lot of pressure with the rubber ball with the watch face down in the palm of the other hand but eventually the back loosened and I could spin it off. Then using the screwdriver on the fine adjustment screw I adjusted a notch and a half back towards the -ve mark (YouTube instructions for the Sellita give 1 notch = 5 or so secs adjustment). Replaced the back and screwed down with rubber ball, checking that the Hawker Hunter was lined up on the runway correctly and we have take-off! A few days later and its running at +2.5s/day and I now know what cats feel like when they've got the cream.

You are a brave man @NigelS. 4 secs is great.

I took my battery watches to a chap on the local market, but the b****r screws the case backs on so hard, with a screw jig thing,, some are just too hard to shift. Some of them I change myself if I can get the back off.

My Seashade is a bit off, (Sellita), and I got the back off that myself. The fine adjustment won't quite fix it, and I'm a bit worried about damaging the spring (is that the hairspring?) So I keep putting off changing the coarse adjustment. If I can do this one, I've got a couple of others I'll have a go at as well.

JAFO wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 3:23 pm You are a brave man @NigelS. 4 secs is great.

I took my battery watches to a chap on the local market, but the b****r screws the case backs on so hard, with a screw jig thing,, some are just too hard to shift. Some of them I change myself if I can get the back off.

My Seashade is a bit off, (Sellita), and I got the back off that myself. The fine adjustment won't quite fix it, and I'm a bit worried about damaging the spring (is that the hairspring?) So I keep putting off changing the coarse adjustment. If I can do this one, I've got a couple of others I'll have a go at as well.

Most YouTube channels advise not to mess with the coarse adjustment - if you can't regulate it with the fine then the watch really does need a service. I will get my ORIS serviced after Christmas as its in mint condition and a longterm keeper but with the car needing MOT, a promise to help my daughter with finance for her house move in November and other commitments I can't afford it for a few months. As a pensioner I can't earn overtime - offering to do the washing up three nights running gets me some house points but doesn't seem to boost the cashflow somehow

Very enterprising Nigel with a good end result.

It's crazy though the run around you were given by local 'experts'; at least you were knowledgeable enough to spot the poppycock!

Guy

Excellent post of the week for me. Well done Nigel, I say…

Great work @NigelS.

It is pretty difficult to regulate the course adjustment without a timegrapher but it can be done. @MiniMpi has done it on a vintage watch he owned. The process is definitely quicker with a timegrapher.

The thing to remember is that the course adjustment requires very minute movements. Very small adjustments swing the timing a long way. You also want to make sure that you adjust the correct post as moving the wrong one will affect the beat error. That is very difficult to fix. In addition sometimes the course adjustment is covered by the selfwinding works and that needs to be removed before adjustment then reinstalled. It isn't hard (only a couple of screws) but can seem a little daunting on the first go.

Well done Nigel !!

Great personal feeling of achievement doing this yourself.

I did my first regulation on a vintage watch and recently on my also vintage but considerably more expensive 1970 Omega Speedmaster Mark 2 Racing Dial.
Taking your time is key and doing much research beforehand also.
Excellent lighting too is also key.
Being prepared to do it a few times before getting it where you want.

Of course a service is the ideal option but as a stop gap in certain situations it's perfect.

Gar787 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:43 pm Excellent post of the week for me. Well done Nigel, I say…

Thank you kind Sir, for the nice comments . . .that is exactly why I like the CW Forum

Nice job! I love having a fine adjustment screw to work with, it's so much easier than nudging the regulator stud. I have a few watches that were bang on accurate out of the box (mostly the Miyota 9000 series), but I regulated all the rest. Like everything, it becomes less nerve-racking the more you do it.

I would suggest a watch case holder while using a rubber ball/case back remover tool. It makes the process much easier as your non-dominant hand holding the watch in the case holder has much better grip, allowing for better leverage and torque using the ball/tool.

rkovars wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 3:23 pm Great work @NigelS.

It is pretty difficult to regulate the course adjustment without a timegrapher but it can be done. @MiniMpi has done it on a vintage watch he owned. The process is definitely quicker with a timegrapher.
The thing to remember is that the course adjustment requires very minute movements. . . .

Thanks so much for the kind comment. I did actually get a couple of pictures of this watch on the Timegrapher showing +10s, from the seller before I bought it. I found in practice it actually ran at +13.5s/day and I figure thats probably because my wearing habits differ from the 'norm' in some way; I prop the watch up at night so the dial is almost vertical because as an old person I don't sleep very well and I need to see the time to determine whether I'm going to sneak downstairs for another wee nip of malt to help me sleep or tough it out 'til dawn when the dog needs to go out! The other variable in the equation is whether the chap who took the Timegrapher readings set up the lift angle, had it wound properly etc etc? The way I have judged the accuracy is to set the watch at a precise time against my iPhone clock. OK so I press the crown perhaps +/- 0.5s either way but then I carefully check the reading up to 5 times to ascertain any variation and note that down. Precisely 72 hrs later I check the comparative readings again and dividing the difference by 3 we have the daily gain or loss. I'm not sure - and those with far wiser heads, more brains and knowledge than I have will correct me - but I feel my approach to judging whether its running correctly is perhaps closer to the real life wearing experience than the Timegrapher??

Bident wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 5:28 pm . . . . I would suggest a watch case holder while using a rubber ball/case back remover tool. It makes the process much easier as your non-dominant hand holding the watch in the case holder has much better grip, allowing for better leverage and torque using the ball/tool.

Thanks for the encouraging comment - and I shall certainly take your advice and look at getting a case vice. Unfortunately my budget doesn't stretch to a Bergeon, I'm more in the Wallmart plastic toys clearance basket at the checkout end of the market!

Yes, a timegrapher gives you a single reading in a single position. The holder is made to adjust into many different positions. When I am regulating I usually check dial up, 12 down and 3 down. I try to get all three of those positions as close as possible to each other. These positions are pretty close to my wear patterns. After I get the timegrapher measurements where I want them I wear the watch over 3-5 days using the Watch Tracker app to make timing measurements because I am too lazy to do the math plus I get to keep historical data that way.

I always leave my watches dial up at night but it would probably be worth the effort to figure out how each watch behaves in each position over night. That way I could do some minor 'self' regulation that way.

There is definitely some art to regulation. The timegrapher isn't going to automatically get you there but it will get you there quicker.

That's a great post with a good outcome.

NigelS wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 5:43 pm

Bident wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 5:28 pm . . . . I would suggest a watch case holder while using a rubber ball/case back remover tool. It makes the process much easier as your non-dominant hand holding the watch in the case holder has much better grip, allowing for better leverage and torque using the ball/tool.

Thanks for the encouraging comment - and I shall certainly take your advice and look at getting a case vice. Unfortunately my budget doesn't stretch to a Bergeon, I'm more in the Wallmart plastic toys clearance basket at the checkout end of the market!

I actually use two cheap case holders from Amazon. They all pretty much work well. Some cases with offset crowns at 4 o'clock (or other places) can necessitate the purchase of a case holder that accomodates the odd configuration here or there, which is why I have two. But I think the first one I purchased was less than US$10.00 and fits most cases. Bergeon products are definitely worth the money in my experience, and I have upgraded to several of their products over the years. But since the cheap case holders are working fine for now, no plan to upgrade yet.

It's always nice to be able to apply some self help. Good result!

There is obviously a lot more to regulating than this, but these movements are robust and stable, so relatively easy to regulate (don't get me started on the Seiko 6R35!).

FWIW, a service for a three hand swiss automatic, such as this, should be in the ballpark of £250 and depending on the amount of work involved, could be turned around in a day. I've sent in an Omega Seamaster for service and have a lead time of 10 weeks, which can only be down to volume of work that the watchmaker has.