Elgin Model 6, Grade 305, 16s

 Here we have an Elgin 16-size, Model 6, Grade 305 with a fancy dial, in a solid 14K Lissauer & Co. case.  The watch was made in 1905, it belonged to the client's great grandfather and he wanted it restored to the greatest practicable extent.  It was not running, had considerable internal corrosion and the crown was jammed.  Additionally, the crystal was missing completely and the engraved inner caseback was deeply scratched, along with assorted other case damage.  It had been serviced in the past, as evidenced by the multiple screwdriver slips, damaged screw slots, missing dust shield and "graffiti" scratched into the inside of the case.  Why scratching a code into the watch case (or even the movement, in some cases) was ever acceptable is far beyond my powers of understanding.  Imagine if your mechanic scratched his own personal, indecipherable code into the body of your car every time he worked on it.  My guess is that most would disapprove of such a practice.  I also have no explanation as to why dust shields are so often missing.  Let's get to it.

The watch, as it came in...

The rust-pitted ratchet wheel was corrected by lapping the pitting out, then "snailing" and "raying" in the lathe.  The rayed teeth are also beveled.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get a photo of the snailing setup, though I did photograph it when refinishing the pallet cock.  Sorry.

The pallet cock had multiple screwdriver marks that had to be removed before snail finishing.

The other steel parts that suffered from corrosion pitting were the screws, the arm and scale of the Moseley regulator and the counterpoised pallet lever.  Again, the pitting was lapped out, then these parts were flat, or "black", polished.

The third wheel and balance pivots needed to be burnished.  The balance staff ends also had to be cleaned up, which necessitated resetting the endshake by altering the depth of the pivot and end jewel settings.

With all of that done and everything scrupulously clean, the movement was reassembled and lubed.  A new mainspring was of course installed and lubed as well.  The movement was left to run for a day before checking it on the timegrapher.  Unless the watch is marked as being adjusted to X number of positions, it was originally likely adjusted to three positions, those being dial-up, dial down and pendant up.  After a day of running, these were the positions that were adjusted.  I also like to get the beat-error as close to zero as possible.  

With the movement finished, it was time to turn my attention to the case.  The scratches were very carefully removed and the stem mechanism was repaired.

I cleaned the dial, (though I could do nothing about the cracks), cleaned and polished the hands, and installed a new crystal.  The watch was then reassembled (with a new dust shield in place), the time was set and the job is finished.