WHAT IS INSIDE A WATCH AND WHAT IS IT CALLED?

Starting on the journey of vintage watch repairing as a hobby, one of the first things to learn is what is inside your watch and what it is called.

I have been involved in vintage watch repair as a hobby now for a number of years. Although I have always had a great interest in watches it was, in the main, what they looked like on the outside and not on the inside!

When I opened up my first watch to practice on, an old Sekonda mechanical watch, I was a bit overwhelmed by what was inside. Even with an unpractised eye I could see that some parts of the watch were damaged and would need to be replaced. I realised then that I would need to know what I was looking for and what it was called.

WATCH MOVEMENTS

The watch movement is the mechanism that drives the pointers round or powers the digital display on the watch face

There are two main types of movements inside wrist watches: Mechanical (wind up) or Quartz (battery). Each movement is usually identified by a manufacturer’s mark or name and reference number. In identifying a specific watch movement, it is usually referred to as its Calibre. The Calibre will be the maker of the movement and the movement reference number.

Mechanical Watch Movement

Quartz Watch Movement

Mechanical watch movements

A watch movement will not necessarily be manufactured by the supplier of the watch. Historically there were numerous factories, predominately in Switzerland, where watch movements or ébauche were manufactured before being finished by the watch supplier. For example, a Swiss made Rotary mechanical watch will not have a Rotary movement, it could have one of a number of possible movements supplied to Rotary by different manufacturers for use in their watches.

Some watch companies however made their own movements in house for use in their watches for example Oris.

On a mechanical watch the manufacturers mark and movement number can be stamped into the metal of the watch on either the plate behind the dial, the plate under the balance wheel or the barrel bridge, in some cases more than one place.

The below images are of the same watch.

This image shows the manufacturer’s mark under the balance wheel.

This image has the manufacturer's mark on the plate under the dial.

The following images are of another watch by a different manufacturer, however the manufactures mark is stamped in the same places.

The manufacturer's mark on the plate under the dial.

In this image the mark can just be seen under the balance wheel.

A closer view of the mark situated under the balance wheel

In this image the manufacturer's mark is stamped on the barrel bridge plate of the movement.

Once the manufacturer’s mark has been found the next step is to find what it means. Thankfully a Reference of Manufacturers Marks is freely available on the internet, usually a PDF copy of an original from the 1950s or 1960s. A copy is available on this website here.

Another excellent resource is the following link for a website created by Dr. Andreas Schröter http://www.mikrolisk.de/show.php The site has searchable alphabetical manufacturers’ mark index. The site is by default in German but thankfully much has been translated into English by Dr. Schröter.

Referring to the manufacturers’ mark reference; the first images are manufactured by Baumgartner Freres referred to as BFG and the movement number is 866.

The second set of images are manufactured by Meyer & Studeli referred to as MST and the movement number is 372. This is an in-house movement used predominantly by The Roamer Watch company under the brands Roamer and Medana.

The Third image is manufactured by Oris and the movement number is 296. This is an in-house movement used by The Oris watch company under the brands Oris and Bentima.

Although Switzerland is most famous for its watch production, movements were also manufactured in a lot of other countries for example France, Germany, USSR, Japan, USA, United Kingdom, etc.

There is no manufacturer’s mark on my watch movement

This is not unusual. Some movements have no marks whatsoever, or may have some random numbers which do not correlate with anything. It certainly makes life more difficult when trying to identify a vintage watch movement to source a replacement part.

All is not lost however. A publication produced in the 1960s called the Bestfit 111 Encyclopedia of Watch Material also known as the Bestfit Catalogue, has a section to identify vintage watch movements. It comprises of pages of silhouettes of specific watch parts sorted by movement size size and shape. The specific parts are from the winding and time setting area of the watch movement i.e. the set bridge, setting lever and yoke. Matching these parts on the silhouette gives an indication of the make of the vintage watch movement

Another resource to use in conjunction with the best fit catalogue is the Ranfft Watches website. This site has a database of thousands of vintage watch movements, including images and technical information.

Identification of a vintage Fontainemelon (FHF) watch movement

I obtained a number of vintage watch movements from the internet. My aim was to check them with a view to offering them on this website as starter/practice watch movements for those embarking on watch repair as a hobby. My thought process was that although it is relatively easy to get hold of practice movements on the internet, you don’t always get what you expect. Parts can be missing, balance wheel broken etc. leading to disappointment and wasted money.

I started by trying to identify the movements. Some had no markings at all, but I managed to narrow them down by using the best fit catalogue. One of the movements however had a mark which looked like an arrow through a globe or ball see image. The mark was on the base plate on the dial side.

There were no other markings other than four stamped numbers around the plate but they did not seem to be calibre identification numbers rather they looked like serial numbers. I decided to do some research to try and identify he mark. As mentioned above, an excellent reference site for this type of research is www.Mikrolisk.de created and maintained by Dr Andreas Schröter.

In the search field you can search for objects but the search must be in German, there is a translation list available to assist in using the correct search terms.

I used the search for Arrow (Pfeil)

There are 5 results for arrows which were through a circle or globe as follows:

I felt that the closest to the mark on the movement were the two representing Fontainemelon (FHF).

With that in mind I decided to use the Best Fit Catalogue watch movement identification pages to see if it was possible to confirm the manufacturer and identify the caliber.

The watch movement measures 9.75’’’, so going to the relevant page in the catalogue I checked the set bridge (setting lever spring) against the silhouettes on those pages.

As can be seen from the images below, the set bridge was a perfect fit for the Font (FHF) 1144 caliber. It can be seen that the yoke and set lever match also.

As an additional check I decided to see if it could be verified on the Ranfft watch page. The following link http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?11&ranfft&0&2uswk&FHF_1144_10_5 indicates that it is the correct movement.

Unfortunately, the balance wheel pivots on the movement are broken so it will be just used for spares, however it was a useful exercise in watch movement identification

I would like to thank Dr Andres Schroter for his kind permission to use the screen shots of his website in this article.

Quartz watch movement identification

Quartz watch movements are a little easier, predominantly Swiss or Japanese made. Usually the information is printed on the movement with the name of the manufacturer and the movement number. Below are images of movements by the major Japanese manufacturers Hattori (Seiko) and Miyota (Citizen). The information can be clearly seen circled.

The movement information can clearly be seen on this movement. S Epson Corp is part of the Hattori Group that manufactures movements for the Seiko Brand as well as Lorus and Pulsar.

This is the Miyota watch movement number 2115. Miyota is the company that manufactures movements for the Citizen watch brand

Some quartz watches also have the movement information printed on the bottom of the dial or stamped on the case back. This makes it easier to determine the watch movement without having to take it apart. Quartz movements are made in various countries but mostly the high-end movements are Swiss or Japanese. A lot of historical Watch companies such as Accurist or Sekonda may use Japanese movements in their watches especially in the chronograph models.

This image is the case back of an Accurist Date watch, the calibre number can be clearly seen circled. This movement is manufactured by Miyota.

Now that I have identified the vintage watch movement what are the parts called?

Mechanical watch parts

Most constituent parts of vintage mechanical watches use the same generic names. For example, all mechanical movements, no matter who manufactured them, have a mainspring. The mainsprings for different calibres of watch movements may be different i.e., in size, thickness etc. but they are still mainsprings. All watches have a winding stem, again different sizes etc. but still a winding stem. There are a number of watch movement diagrams on the internet giving an indication of the names of the core movement parts. In addition, a lot of You Tube videos relating to watch repair are available from which the core movement parts can be identified. I saved a few of my favourite you tube videos to my Watch Repair Pinterest board It may be worth studying some of these to familiarise yourself with the basic watch parts.

There is also a generic swiss parts numbering system where each part is given a unique number. For example, the winding stem is number 401, the mainspring is number 770. There are numerous full numbering references available on the internet, there is a PDF copy of The Swiss Parts Dictionary available on this website which you may find useful.

An example of a part from a specific movement would be:

BFG 866 – mainspring 770

or

MST 372 – mainspring 770

Individual Vintage Mechanical Watch Movement Technical Sheets

Each individual watch movement will have its own specific parts. It is easier to identify a part required if you already know its correct name and the swiss part number. Manufactures provided technical sheets for watch movements, which included a diagram of all the parts with the relevant Swiss part number and below, a list of the part numbers with the name of the relevant Part. This is an example of the BFG 866 Movement parts list and technical information.

A full index of the technical sheets for mechanical watch movements on this website is available here

Quartz Watch Parts

Quartz watch parts are different from mechanical parts as quartz watches are powered differently and they do not have a generic numbering system as in vintage mechanical watches. A lot of smaller quartz watch movements do not have much in the way of moving parts and it is easier and cheaper to replace the whole movement as opposed to repairing it. The main part which can be easily replaced is the battery and stem.

.

A Hattori PC21A watch movement. High quality but cheaper to replace than repair.

The larger movements, including chronograph movements, do have a lot more parts consisting of Circuits, coils, step rotors and multiple wheels. The most efficient way of identifying the relevant parts of a complicated quartz watch movement is to refer to a technical sheet.

Below are images of a Seiko Chronograph.

This image shows the watch movement with the dial removed.

This image shows the inside of the watch movement and its component parts.

As can be seen the parts are numerous and very small. Thankfully there is a technical sheet available for this movement here

The technical sheet clearly indicates the various parts of the watch movement and indicates the part number unique to the manufacturer, in this case Hattori. The difference in the numbering of the parts can be seen as compared with the Swiss numbering system in the vintage mechanical watch.

There are a variety of parts for vintage mechanical watches available on this website and a smaller number of quartz watch movement parts .