**** musing on the 6497/8 movement ****

[is that my watch]

Well as some may know I tend to build watches using the 6497 etc movement, well did say in the what to buy thread how I had a run of bad luck and bought two defective movement, well one was the right movement just did not go.

The other was a sub-six when ordering a sub-nine plus had the stem clamp missing so ...well got part refund on the missing parts one and full refund on the none working so thought to try and repair them anyway.

Been playing with them on and off the last few days trying to see why and have notice a few things.

One the skeleton movement seems to have a slightly shorter hour cog then the fully metal one ,

Two you have to be really careful of several things, one the stem cog when the stem is removed could come out (very much like the hmt 17 jewelled movement does ) and when unscrewing the stem clamp you have to be so careful not to un-screw to much or the stem clamp plate will fall off.

Whether you have a dial on or not , where as if you have a dial on the stem cog will not come out if you have pull the stem out in time setting position by mistake .

Also yes you have to be very careful when removing the stem. in as much as the stem need to come out cleanly if not loose enough it could come out pulling at the cogs changing the setting . when this happens it is more likely to have the stem cog fallout. plus then you have to mess to reset position (found it you get it fitting right on one then pull out to time setting then loosen the screw and push the stem in home and retighten the screw fixes it most the time.

Yes in some ways a great movement to work on but you have to follow some set rules with it.

And other times it can just do strange things .

Take the two faulty movement I got them both running ok the one had to modify it to remove the sub-seconds so both was working till put into a case.

where they would stop once the back was put on I thought case issue until I swap out the case .

I had an older 6497 had built with a larger case think 44mm where this was a 42mm so swap over the cases and the old watch work just as well in the smaller case.

kinda liked it so left it as it is. so went to put one of the movement in the large case and guess what yep stop once the back went on ..on both of them tried dial less thinking the dial might be holding the movement to tight somewhere causing it to stop but nope still did it.

Tried various 6497 dials and other ones no diff ..so the one, the full metal has since stop on my last try so going to strip it down to base plate and start again as have a spare base plate so might mix the parts.

Do have a donor movement I was using for parts .. it's where I nicked the stem clamp plate from for the fix on the skeleton movement.

At the moment I have one seemingly fully working one holds a charge, winds sets, holds the time ..but stops as soon as in case ..thats the skeleton movement.

And a full metal one stripped ready to re-build so will do a thread or two on certain thing to do with that when building it ... maybe.

Thinking on how to mod a 64** removing the seconds sub to go for a pan dial build.

How to strip and build a 64 maybe. and how to swap the barrel to maybe .

well hope I did not bore you to much.

As always ismy

[is that my watch]

so just writing the threads on modifying the movements and stripping one down did the pics and stripping down early so just got to sort the pics and proof read the threads .