Dr No
[Moderator Omega - Wristscan]
37745
Abel's Flightmaster had the same issue with a melted gasket . . .
. . . which was resolved satisfactorily initially. My watchmaker cleaned the residual goop by hand; unfortunately, he didn't have the tool required to remove the GMT crown, so when he was ready for final assembly he placed the case with the crown attached in his ultrasonic cleaner, removing the original blue paint. I had to find correct paint at a hobby shop to restore the crown to correct condition.
I don't have pics in my files, sad to say.
Art
Ploprof 600
Recently acquired an original 166.077, bit of a survivor from son of original owner, sadly it seems no one serviced it for a very long time and gasket turned to sludge, thought some of you would appreciate some pictures from my watchmaker! Condition on ar...
Most of it is covered by the retaining ring, which is why the parts of dial peeled.
Here it is with cleaned ring on the dial: The crown is all good, if all works out it will be ready for scuba diving trip in September ...
Tremendous find….
and a good project to service and save this watch for the future. The good news is the hands have a nice original patina and the dial hasn’t reacted and bubbled. The case looks very good as does the bezel.
Yup
It is the later dials with depth rating between Seamaster and Professional that bubble, serial number seems to be in the known Ploprof batches and EoA has been ordered :] I really like the bezel and case as well. Here is a UV shot. ...
This probably deserves its own thread but…
If the watch is circa 1970’s does the lume still function?…what do people do if restoring and using as designed?
Depends on brand, back then tritium was used to excite the luminous material.
70s Doxas still glow a little bit same for the ploprof above, 80s-90s Rolexes were utterly dead in my experience.
Yes I agree
Your watch is not worse than many I have seen; it looks frightening and it's certainly not desirable, but it's not abnormal and will be resolved by your watchmaker. Cheers, Cazalea
Abel's Flightmaster had the same issue with a melted gasket . . .
. . . which was resolved satisfactorily initially . My watchmaker cleaned the residual goop by hand; unfortunately, he didn't have the tool required to remove the GMT crown, so when he was ready for final assembly he placed the case with the crown attache...