In working on my own watches, the question of whether a repair or restoration is justified rarely elbows its way into the conversation because by and large, I am driven by whimsical considerations such as: do I like it?  does it present an interesting challenge? will I use it? However, in working on watches that belong to other people, it is sometimes the case that a repair appears to be economically unjustifiable.  On one occasion recently, I found myself repeatedly advising against proceeding because the likely cost was going to comfortably dwarf the value of the watch.  The watch in question is a King Quartz 4823-8050 dating from October 1976.  The photograph sent to me by the owner when he made his initial enquiry was this:

It was clear immediately that water had made its way into the watch at some point and that the condition of the dial did not bode especially well for the interior.  However, the owner wanted to put some love into this watch and, if possible, return it to, if not quite its former glory, something that could be used and enjoyed as a tribute to its former keeper.  The watch was dispatched and made its way across the Atlantic in short order.  My initial assessment upon lifting the lid did not bode better than I had anticipated – in fact rather worse.

The rust on the antimagnetic shield portends potentially for worse to come beneath.  That expectation is rewarded in spades.

The movement is welded to the case by a sea of rust that evokes the ropey quality of a solidified pāhoehoe lava flow.  The steel antimagnetic shield is a write-off.

The water intrusion extended to the interior of the electronic circuit which was wet and littered with rust debris.

My immediate problem though was liberating the movement from the case.  It appeared well and truly stuck, the abundant quantities of corrosion from the steel dial ring acting as a cement to weld ring and hence the movement to the case.  My only option was some sort of small scale excavation, chipping away at the encrusted layers until I saw signs of movement of the movement (ha!) within the case and a suggestion that the two could become two once more rather than a conjoined one.

Eventually, the movement parted company with the case and I was able to take an unobstructed look at the dial and hands.

This is about what I was expecting from the original photo aside from the liberal amount of general contamination by debris from the corrosion.  The hands appear to be in pretty poor condition, not from the effects of moisture but from past attentions from slapdash watchsmiths.  Removing the dial and hands provides a view of the rear and the full extent of the damage to the dial ring.  The 99 imprinted on the dial is in fact a 66, indicating a manufacture date of June 1976, four months prior to the watch production date of October 1976, indicated by its serial number.

The story beneath the dial looks somewhat grim.

Many of the setting parts, being constructed from steel, are beyond salvage.  It is perhaps worth observing at this point that while this looks pretty bad, the main plate is made from plated brass and so the appearance of corrosion of this core component is misleading – any staining to the main plate is just transfer.

In dismantling the movement, I encountered another problem unrelated to the effects of water and this was the condition of the second jumper mounted on the train bridge.

This had suffered some past abuse, having been twisted, resulting in the jewel not sitting in the same plane as the teeth on the fourth wheel.

The problem I was faced with at this point was that in order to return this to a functional state, I was going to need parts and this being a mid ‘70s Japan domestic market quartz produced during a period in which the sophistication of quartz movement design and engineering was at its zenith, virtually no parts at all were available from my local watch materials house.  In fact Cousins fails to recognise either 4823 or 4822 as a calibre number.  The only 48-series listed is 4826 for which four items appear, all of which listed as discontinued.  A much more potentially promising source of parts should be the Yahoo Japan auction site but that returns virtually nothing in the way of individually listed movement parts.  The only option therefore was going to be to buy a complete parts donor watch, and given the state of the dial and hands, I figured it worth holding out for as cheap an example of the same model as possible.  The owner agreed to this as a way forward and so within a few days, I found a candidate, bid on it and won it.  Two weeks later I had it in hand and could move forward with the rebuild.

Before submitting the movement parts to the multi-step cleaning process, I wanted to remove as much of the corrosion transfer as possible from the main plate.  This required a combination of elbow grease and ‘rustaway’-type products.

The subsequent cleaning yielded a very presentable collection of parts, a number of which from the donor.  Reassembly ensued as follows:

The fiddliest part of this process is refitting the train bridge which is best accomplished with the seconds jumped either removed or swung out of harms way.  That then requires it to be repositioned and then adjusted to ensure that the jewel at the end of the jumper is positioned correctly between two of the teeth of the fourth wheel.

With that done, the remaining parts can be fitted and the pudding proofed.

Much to my relief, the supply of some electrons resulted in the movement jumping to action, a licence to move into the finishing straight.  It is worth noting that we find ourselves at this point as a result of the sacrifice of the donor watch, an example which in most ways was fitter of fiddle than the patient.  Nevertheless, the cause here was a sentimental one and, in my opinion wholly justified.  The parts that found their way from organ donor to the recipient were:

In spite of the havoc wrought on the innards, the case itself emerged relatively unscathed and responded very well to a thorough clean and general defuzz.  Fresh gaskets and a new crystal and it was ready to receive the serviced movement.

One concluding misstep on my part, the result of a misunderstanding with the owner, was that I initially fitted the dial from the donor rather than refitting the original dial.  While this resulted in a cleaner end result, it undermined the spirit of the enterprise.  The owner wanted this watch to be a testament to its original owner and that meant keeping as much of its original patina and history as possible whilst yielding a functional outcome.  This was absolutely the correct decision and with the substitution complete and we can survey the end result.