Homage Forum

I feel that i am very fortunate to get to know unreformed66 aka David from HF forum.

He has been helping me in fixing the troublesome 240 and Rolex Elinvar.

This time, i feel so proud on his effort to resurrect a dead Heuer cal 12. It’s been stuck in the mud for so long till recently my brother in law found it back and sent to me.

It arrived filthy with jammed pushers, cant even turn the crown properly. Opened the case back the movement patched with rusts and filths. Without further ado i sent directly to Dave.

I think it deserves to be posted here as to acknowledge and appreciate his efforts and skills.
This looks like main spring barrel shiny cleaned and oiled.









Base movement cleaned and oiled awesome.







Completely “unreformed” whole movement.



Thank you Dave....










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great job and work, good that he could safe this beauty movement. the watch nice too

Dave has done many watches of mine and his work is phenomenal. I'm happy you found him, Since 2014 I have worked with many watchsmiths. Daves work has been equal to or better than the best I have ever met.

Thrasher wrote:Dave has done many watches of mine and his work is phenomenal. I'm happy you found him, Since 2014 I have worked with many watchsmiths. Daves work has been equal to or better than the best I have ever met.

“Phenomenal” is the word that i was looking for. Sorry English is not my first language.
His dedication on the work with watches is the thing cannot described by words, except by example.
Friend of mine purchased 6152 based converted 240 that built by Gordon. Turned out the movement is a “lemon” that swing and stop uncertain. Sent to 2 different local watch smiths ended up the same.
Finally i sent to Dave. It takes awhile to find the real issue and we nearly gave up on it. Recently Lee is kind enough to donate the original alarm bridge, since Dave certain that the Chilean plate is the issue.
After he received the gen plate, he observed and found the culprit. And somehow he managed to fix the conversion plate and now working fine (finger cross as currently still on Dave’s wrist trial).

It took more than 6 months and i am totally feel his frustration. Dave is really has passion and no give up attitude. I really salute you Dave...




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Congratulations to getting the Heuer back!

Regarding the SF240, yes converting can be a pain in the ass. I have seen many conversion parts over the years and they are all different...

Plating a bridge plate will mean that the theaded holes will have to be threaded once more. The holes in the train plate will need attention before inserting the jewels, the hole for the center wheel in the barrel bridge plate will need some attention as well.

This is why it is called a conversion, the devil is in the details. Where would we be without the parts from Jorge?

Yoda wrote:Congratulations to getting the Heuer back!

Regarding the SF240, yes converting can be a pain in the ass. I have seen many conversion parts over the years and they are all different...

Plating a bridge plate will mean that the theaded holes will have to be threaded once more. The holes in the train plate will need attention before inserting the jewels, the hole for the center wheel in the barrel bridge plate will need some attention as well.

This is why it is called a conversion, the devil is in the details. Where would we be without the parts from Jorge?

Thanks Master Yoda.

You are absolutely right, pain in the ass.
I am sure you familiar with this 240, as i sent to you nearly 2 years ago to take a look. But I didn’t want you to put more efforts to find the real issue due to your health. Remember?
The issue with the conversion plate as Dave mentioned is very common. But on this one he tried many times adjusting the fitting of the hole as you mentioned but no success.
He can explain more details on the issue. He is very dedicated and very smart person. He mentioned something wrong with the sitting of the plate that is not correct. Something like that.


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Sevanata wrote: ↑August 5th, 2019, 10:53 pm

Yoda wrote:Congratulations to getting the Heuer back!

Regarding the SF240, yes converting can be a pain in the ass. I have seen many conversion parts over the years and they are all different...

Plating a bridge plate will mean that the theaded holes will have to be threaded once more. The holes in the train plate will need attention before inserting the jewels, the hole for the center wheel in the barrel bridge plate will need some attention as well.

This is why it is called a conversion, the devil is in the details. Where would we be without the parts from Jorge?

Thanks Master Yoda.

You are absolutely right, pain in the ass.
I am sure you familiar with this 240, as i sent to you nearly 2 years ago to take a look. But I didn’t want you to put more efforts to find the real issue due to your health. Remember?
The issue with the conversion plate as Dave mentioned is very common. But on this one he tried many times adjusting the fitting of the hole as you mentioned but no success.
He can explain more details on the issue. He is very dedicated and very smart person. He mentioned something wrong with the sitting of the plate that is not correct. Something like that.


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Thanks! Yes, I think that I remember that particular SF240. Thank you for defending me, but I am afraid that health wasn't the whole explanation and my only opponent, Dave is the way more experienced watchmaker and he has been doing this for about four times longer than I have.
I admit that I have learned a few things over the years, but I am not in the same league as Dave - not even close, that's a fact.

Well thanks for the kind words gentlemen, I really do appreciate it. And Yoda, don't sell yourself short. You're good at what you do and are a valued member of this community. This particular "conversion" was a real problem child. The Chilean's plates are never the same twice. I've had exactly ONE that dropped right on and didn't require any other alterations. This one was the worst of all. Not to mention the fact that people keep putting incabloc balance assemblies and balance cocks on movements that were non-shock protected. They're not plug and play guys. Sometimes they'll work "ok" and sometimes they won't run consistently. This one had endshake problems as most of them do but was far harder to correct than usual for some reason. I think that the balance cock had gotten bent a little at some point. Lots of little problems and each of them would stop the watch. Once I would find one and fix it another would rear it's head. I shudder to think how many hours I put into that thing, I'm sure it's over 20.

As for the Heuer it really was a mess. I'll post the "before" pictures here so you can see where it started.






Rusted in screws that required soaking in oil for a couple of days to be removed, rusty operating levers, and etc. The one operating lever holds the little gear that is made to come into contact with the center seconds wheel and the gear itself was rusted as well. That's the part that worried me the most and I spent a ton of time carefully cleaning it up. If you read the service manual on the caliber 12 it says to just remove the chronograph module and clean it whole in the ultrasonic machine. Obviously that wasn't an option here and it had to come completely apart. The rust on the operating levers was so deep that I cleaned it up as much as I could and made sure not to leave any active rust and had to stop. I would have liked to have had new ones to install but obviously they're nearly impossible to find since there was no parts source for them ever. You were just supposed to replace the whole module if something went wrong. I'm kind of proud of my work on this one, it was a challenge. Oh, and these have a very delicate pivoted click pawl with an attached spring that was broken in this watch. I was glad that I had a salvage Buren movement with a good one. My salvage pile saved me yet again...

Dave you are the man !

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Good job Dave!