Omega Speedmaster 321 Movement Restoration

A (small) update on my Pre-Moon Speedmaster - the original thread is: 

omega.watchprosite.com

A very rusty movement - and quite a challenge for me, the last thread left me stuck on the screw from the operating lever that had rusted immovably to the lever itself due to the shouldered construction. 



I spent a lot of time with heat and releasing fluid - but in the end I was stuck on this for a long time. I really wanted to preserve the plating on the movement, so avoiding damage was the priority. I managed to source a new lever and screw - and ground the head off (I did try drilling, but the screw was made out of very very hard steel) down to the shoulder - as I decided this was likely to cause the least chance for damage. I apologise in advance to all the proper watchmakers who are horrified by this...



And then lever it off the screw stub



Leaving the stump, which was easily extracted by using one of my favourite tools



With the steel components finally removed, the plates had quite a bit of staining, rust marring and took almost a day to clean properly.



Even after a good scrub and a trip through the cleaning machine there was this funky white residue



That finally took a dip into silver dip to remove, I am happy with the final result - sadly with one gouge from me (those rusty screws really were a challenge) that will be covered by the chrono mechanism - plus some odd minor scratches and marks that I guess were historic.



So, finally with the movement stripped I started work on the steel components, crownwheel was the third.

As found in the movement



After a dip in rust remover 



Other side



After brushing and polishing on diamond paper