DIY Rolex Oyster Restoration?

[guitarman]

Hi

Just came across this video on youtube for restoring a dead Rolex Oyster watch into a working one again. A fascinating video for the restoration of such delicate mechanism with hundreds of micro parts.

Would it be ever possible for normal DIYer to do this without any previous experience or knowledge just by watching the videos like this over and over again? Just wondering :D

I couldn't add the video link here because my post total is still under 10.
But if you search for "Restoration of a Vintage Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date - Ref 1500 Caliber 1570" in google or youtube, the video will show up.

[vh2k]

[fskywalker]

Very nice video, thanks for sharing!


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[csaltphoto]

When you are looking at this stuff close up on a video monitor it's different... When you see someone working on one in person it's hard to believe how fussy it is and how teeny those parts really are. Good practice would be to mix up the contents of a salt and pepper shaker, dump it on a piece of paper and spend a few days separating them all back with a tweezers and loupe. Then tackle a watch.

[zaphod777]

Check out the watch repair channel, Mark also has online courses but I would probably start on something cheaper than a Rolex. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7v...cYq0z8oiYFk0zQ

[Little machines]

Thank you ! Great appreciation to the quality of Rolex and the expert repair I just experienced !

[donq]

I am a professional mechanic who specializes in rebuilding antique motorcycles.
I do engine and transmission rebuilds regularly, along with carburetors and electronic components.

I consider myself fairly competent in dealing with mechanical objects.

That being said, all my forays in to watch building have proven challenging and mostly frustrating.
The skills in just being able to handle the incredibly small parts are considerable.
Your eyesight has to be good, and it is very easy to damage things.
One wrong move and a tiny screw disappears in to oblivion.

Anyone that is super experienced/talented can make something look easy when they do it.

Anything beyond changing a bracelet or maybe a crystal is going to get technical fast.

If you want to play watchmaker, there are tons of cheap ETA movements out there.
Or better yet, pocket watches which are much larger and easier to work on.

But I can almost guarantee that if your first project is a Rolex it will end up with a ziplock full of parts and a trip to the watchmaker.

[jbc247]

I purchased a watch building kit a few years ago, I believe it was from Otto Frei. It came with all of the tools and an ETA movement. Once I got the movement disassembled, I couldn’t get it back together. I recommend practicing with some sort of watch building kit.

[guitarman]

Yes, that is the video. Thank you.

Yes, I was thinking that it might look easy in the video, but in actual situation, it could all go wrong somewhere.

I am under impression that a daring amateur DIY restorer will definitely need a good watch repair too kit, and months and years of practice with other watches (cheaper ones such as Seiko or Citizen of some sort) at least before opening up a Rolex Oyster.

[Mendota]

There are great sites and other forums with Tutorials and picture tutorials, Youtube videos, and other limitless info online about how to do this stuff. This is where it really becomes a hobby versus just collecting, in my opinion.

You'll need a set of tools and make sure to get a head visor LED light with magnifying glasses. It's exhausting staring down at something this small while squinting through one eye using a loupe. The visor magnification glasses with LED lighting makes everything easier. Google watch repair kits and then go to Amazon and Ebay to purchase what you need. The basic kits are cheap and crappy, and will have some of what you need but also a lot of crap that you won't ever use. The kit won't have everything so you'll need to do some ala carte purchasing on top of it, otherwise there are much nicer kits that are actually put together by watchmakers that feature pretty much everything you are going to need except for the nice, padded leather movement pad that you can work on once you decase the movement. Also get a weekly pill box container or a small fishing tackle box with dividers, a little jar of silicone grease for gaskets, some latex finger tip protectors, a nice hand removal tool, a pack of dial protectors (some people use Post-It notes cut down to size, and a block of Rodico. This is like silly putty, for lack of a better term, and you'll use it to clean smudges off dials and also you can stick toothpicks into a wad of it and put your hands on those if you are going to be swapping hands or practice reluming them.

Go to Ebay and buy some cheap, shitty generic automatic watches with Chinese movements. Literally the cheapest piece of crap you can find because you aren't going to wear it. Your goal is to just trash it, because that means you are learning. You are going to want a few of those, and then buy maybe 3-5 cheap DG2813 movements to start. These are around $20 a movement. You are going to hose almost every one, just FYI, and probably the first 3 you are going to ruin within 5 minutes. Oh well, move onto the next and even if the movement doesn't work anymore you can still use it for practicing removing parts and putting them back on, removing and setting hands, removing the dial and putting that back on, etc.

Once you open the case and remove the rotor, removing the crown and stem is a little tricky at first but ends up being the easy part in the long list of things you can or may need to do. Putting it back in is so challenging that even experts can f#ck it up if they aren't careful or get distracted. You literally have to ever so gently and slowly depress a tiny little piece of metal within the movement that's down inside a tiny access hole, using a tiny screwdriver all WHILE you are carefully and gently inserting the stem and turning it. It's all based on feel. It's a very careful and orchestrated dance and if you mess it up the keyless works is shot. Game over. Move onto the next one until you build up your skills to the point where you can then go back to those hosed movements where you messed up the keyless and disassemble the movement by multiple layers of the onion to get down into where you can repair the keyless. So they aren't hosed for good; just until you get skilled enough to the point where you can go back and fix them. Until you get to that point, however, for all intents and purposes they are hosed for you.

Once you have the case back off, the rotor off, the crown and stem removed, you can remove the case screws and then that's where you use your padded leather case pad to set down over the back of the movement, turn it over, and voila your movement with dial and hands will be exposed and right there in all their glory to have fun with.

I bought a whole setup with the intention of learning and practicing so I could then migrate over to working on vintage Rolexes, since you USED TO be able to find beaters all the time that needed some TLC. You could also easily find vintage parts online - case sets with plexi crystal and case back, 15xx movements, Datejust dials, hands, etc. and my goal was to also practice building a piece all from spare parts. Then we had our 3rd son, I got super busy, and by the time I came back with renewed interest the vintage Rolex market just exploded and none of this stuff was reasonably priced anymore. We are talking thousands of dollars just for the parts to build an old Datejust because parts are just becoming more and more rare and difficult to find. It's a different game now. We'll see. I might get back into it when I have more time since tools don't go bad, with the end goal to be able to actually work with Rolex parts.

It depends on what your endgame is. If you don't care about branding, there is a ton you can do with unbranded dials and stuff. The sky is the limit and you can build your own custom watches. There are even dial printers who will print your own logo or design onto a dial face. Do you like model building or LEGO building? Do you like the collecting aspect of it? Or do you want to have the satisfaction of knowing that YOU took an old and distressed piece, took it apart and worked on it, and now it is working again for you to enjoy?

Good luck!