At this point it’s fair to say I have an affinity for vintage Tudor watches. I don’t quite know exactly why, but some guesses might be…
1. I like that they’re not quite a Rolex
2. I like that they’re still in the spirit of Rolex
3. I like the idea of “good enough”. Rolex precision? Not quite, but it’s really not necessary for a watch
4. I really like the Tudor Rose logo. Rose…n… Rosen?
To put it in synth terms, it doesn’t feel like Rolex = Jupiter-8, Tudor = Jupiter-6. It feels more like Rolex = Jupiter-8, Tudor = OB-8. The Jupiter is over engineered, discreet oscillators, and precise as hell. OB-8 is less discreet… relies on specific application chips, some help from the CPU, but still pretty damn precise almost to a fault. They both sound like 8 voice analog synths. They’re, for all intents and purposes, equals.
So that’s all to say the majority of my eBay searches lately has been for old Tudor watches with an emphasis on the ones featuring the Tudor Rose Logo.
Anyway, I was out looking for watches at a flea market when I was notified that an auction I was watching was ending in 15 minutes. Okay cool, I’ll find a place to sit and watch the price climb.. except it didn’t. Not the usual for vintage watch auctions on eBay where it feels like we’re bidding into the last 3 seconds. Perhaps more educated watch nerds noticed the thing I didn’t notice. Anyway, I won the auction without really trying. Hurray!
Weeks later it shows up from Great Britain.
I open the box and find a watch head and a spare crystal. Cool. I immediately take it to the bench as I’m eager to fix it as my first successful repair was a Tudor 390 movement in my Tudor 7928, and this one has the same movement. I feel like it’s a way to confirm if I’m getting any better at watch making by revisiting a familiar movement for the first time.
I was surprised to see I couldn’t get the seconds hand to sweep with a shake or a wind. Normally you can get it to do a little 3 second sweep or so even when in bad shape, but this one was in the same position as the eBay photos.
Once I opened the back, things became… quite clear quite quickly. The Tudor 390 movement seemed to be mostly complete, but it appears that someone had been in there who perhaps should not have been. Actually, this was the worst condition movement I’ve seen yet. I have seen some sorry movements already, usually do to rust and age, but never one that seems to have been purposefully damaged. I couldn’t think of another reason it would be in such bad shape. It seems deliberate. We shall never know for sure of course.
I tried to move the balance and it wouldn’t move. I thought okay.. maybe a bad pivot and I get to learn a new skill. I took the balance out to check it out and was happy to see the pivots were fine actually, but the hairspring was totally jacked up. Great. First time being faced with a damaged hairspring that actually was actually worth fixing, as the movement and watch are actually valuable. Passion and practice was no longer the only reason to hone my hairspring repair skills.
I removed the balance complete from the balance cock. When I put it under the microscope, I noticed the hairspring stud screw was a bit chewed up… again, damage seemed nearly deliberately done by the previous watchmaker. I wish I took photos of the hairspring while I was trying to fix it, but I didn’t. I spent some hours bending it carefully, dressing my tweezers, and trying to manipulate it back into round and flat. I was actually… surprisingly successful.
In this photo you can see my repair was… meh. I got it into flat (hardest part) but it was tough to get the coils to reliably appear correct. It would seem like I nailed it, then a few minutes later it would magically be back to how it looks in the photo. Wasn’t magnetism, and I cleaned it in both naptha and one-dip, so I don’t suspect oils either.
I put the now-repaired balance back in and of course, it still doesn’t work. At this point I think it could just be old oil, so I now am looking at the shock spring setting and see that it appears to have been attacked by a ravenous watchmaker with a dagger for tweezers. The KIF spring was kinda bent up on the balance side. I decided to remove the dial to see how the other side looked, and as the dial came out, so did the chaton for the dial side of the balance pivot. Not it’s extra clear why the balance isn’t running at all. At this point I set it aside, do my research, and prepare to head to the supply house, my friday morning tradition lately. I took the movement apart to check if any wheels need replacement and get the movement put through the watch cleaning chemicals.
The supply house guy couldn’t be more helpful. He treats me like a watchmaker even though I am not one, and my gratefulness is responded to with admiration that I am taking my time to learn the numbers and cross referencing. I am going home with new KIF springs and chaton/endstone sets… and a new mainspring :)…. AND a new balance complete, but for a different movement.
When I get home, of course I have to work on synths so I wait for Saturday. Once I get up Saturday morning, it’s time to maneuver some teeny tiny parts.
I started with trying to salvage what I could of the original chatons and endstone I did have (the dial side endstone was completely missing). Fools mission. The endstone I had was no good almost like it was covered in a shellac. I used my new ones after cleaning them, and reused my old chatons for them. Now it’s time to install the new KIF 2-3 flector springs. I did this much better than I expected myself to. I bought double what I needed after all expecting one or two to fly away.
Reassembling the movement went well. I was disheartened to see the inside of the mainspring barrel had tweezer (dagger) damager on the floor of it and the supply house didn’t have new barrels. I popped in a new mainspring and got it back together. I should mention that prior to cleaning the movement, I observed that the movement had been drenched in oils. It was disgusting. Luckily its clean now.
The automatic winding mechanism in this 390 is different from my 7928. It uses reversing wheels that are much less finicky to assemble. I suspect they changed it later to be more efficient for winding the watch, as this version winds the reversers as well while manually winding the watch. It’s a bit loud, to be honest.
The watch went back together very nicely all things considered and post my repairs. I was delighted to see the balance RUNNING! Nice! It looked like the rings of Saturn, though. Super out of flat. I maneuvered it in-situ knowing I had a new balance complete from the supply house as well as a new balance complete on the way from eBay. Don’t ask me how, but I actually got it running fairly convincingly albeit with low amplitude. It kept time well and I left it like this for some days. I noted it was running abnormally slow, but it was also too easy to set the hands, so I tightened the canon pinion and that was that for that issue.
Dial side work on these is no fun as the dial has Radium lume plots. I am cancer-averse and I don’t enjoy radium watch dials… Once I got the canon pinion tightened and a new crystal on this watch, I resolved to not touch the dial again. That said, the dial is beautiful. It definitely used to be white, but the radium burned it just enough to make a nice cream color.
At this point I put a faux Rolex bracelet on the watch and let it live for a couple days. It’s running surprisingly well considering the damaged balance and amateur repair.
After some days, it lost a few minutes, as to be expected especially with the mainspring barrel damage not to mention salvage title balance. Now it’s time to experiment.
In my research, I discovered the base movement for the Tudor 390 has some ambiguity, but could be the FEF 350 and 380. I got a balance complete for a FEF 380…. its wound the right way… but missing the regulating screws on the original tudor balance wheel. Hey, I have to try it anyway… and I did! It went in quite nicely actually, and immediately the watch is running with higher amplitude and almost no beat error whatsoever. The only downside I am finding is the regulator arm needs to be quite close to the edge for “fast” to work properly, but this is a quirk I can live with considering an original spare is $800 (more than I paid for the watch).
At this point it’s time to move on. I install new gaskets and clean it up for pics.
The fake jubilee bracelet looks the part for this watch. I really like the bezel as its neither smooth nor fluted. Gives it a nice old school charm.
Since it’s sort of “compromised”, I don’t feel right selling it. So I’ll either keep it or gift it. In any case, it was a nice experience with yet another Tudor 390 movement. Hey, and I get a new watch!
