When servicing and restoring today's vintage watches, the odds are stacked against the watchmaker. Whether its parts availability, wear, abuse, rust, or shear complexity and of course economics, you are up against some large obstacles and you need every modern advantage you can summon. For this reason we have invested heavily in professional-grade stereo optical microscopes at each of our workstations so that we can quickly, and without hesitation, bring from 60x to 135x magnification to any part of a watch we are servicing. Below are some pictures of magnified parts and a summary of problems identified through microscopic magnification.
Damaged pallet stone - greatly affects watch performance
Shows improper meshing of chronograph wheels which caused the watch to malfunction and stop. Watch requires eccentric screw adjustment
Corrosion on a vintage watch hairspring causing timing issues
Balance wheel corrosion, impacts weight distribution and timing
Balance wheel screw corrosion, impacts weight distribution and timing
Hairspring manipulation