This has been a really great couple of weeks for me on the bench because I’ve had the pleasure of servicing some classic and beautiful chronographs. Last week was this beauty, and this week was the infamous Omega 321!
Now this is classic watch movement and there are many reasons why it has received such praise and admiration. The Omega 321 was the original movement inside the famed Speedmaster but was not the movement that went to the moon with the legendary Apollo crew. It has some lore indeed and collectors love it for many reasons. Check out this article by Quill & Pad that goes into more detail.
While this particular watch is not the speedmaster, it’s awesome nonetheless… It came across my bench because it was stopping sporadically. Having assessed that the watch was very dirty, I suggested we give her a nice cleaning and full service.
The service went very smoothly and she gave me very nice readings on my timegrapher afterwards. I just needed to make some small adjustments to the eccentric screws for the chronograph to make sure that when the driving wheel clutch engaged with the chronograph runner, the teeth meshed properly and efficiently.
The chronograph portion of the movement is such a fun puzzle to put back together. The plates and springs must be re-assembled in a very specific order. An awkward part of this movement is putting the return hammer spring back in place. It is one of the last things to fit but it can be tricky. I had to make sure the hammer was pressed flush against the chronograph wheels heart cams thereby giving me the smallest amount of clearance to fit and engage the return spring. Tricky indeed.
Here’s a little TikTok I made of assembling the dial side. My buddy Rich says TikTok is where it’s at…What do you think?
Now she’s back on the wrist of her owner and I get to sit back and reflect on the time we spent together.
The Dialed In Watchmaker 