Amateur Hour Watch Restoration

Where it’s from

I bought this movement at the Alameda Antiques fair for around $25.

What it looked like

It seems to be in relatively good shape. The initial trace is pretty straight, with a decent amplitude. The hands are set incorrectly, with the hour hand aligned with the minutes on the 30 minute mark. Setting the time and date seems to work. A couple of the links in the band seem to be replacements, which have been marked over to match the other links. I’ll likely replace the band with a leather one anyways.

After opening the case, I can see a PUW 363, so this is a PUW 363 movement. It was in production between 1966-1969.

How I restored it

Jan 12, 2026 7:05 AM

The case back has one watchmaker’s mark: “LZ 71”. Given the date of production on the movement, I think it’s a good bet that the mark is from 1971. I love seeing marks like this, even though people don’t do it anymore, because it means someone cared about the watch enough to get it serviced.

Unfortunately, it looks like the case screws are missing, but it was probably OK because it’s a front loader. I really don’t like front loaders; they’re a pain to get the movement out.

Jan 12, 2026 9:44 PM

OK, I got it nearly completely disassembled. A few things that I saw right away that needed addressing: there was this weird tin-foil shim under the cannon pinion, the pallet bridge screw was pretty rusted, and one of the pallet stones was chipped:

There was also a fair bit of hair floating around in there, and I spotted some weird blue-ish tarnish underneath the balance on the main plate.

Fortunately, the donor movement I got for the Tasso 17J (a PUW 360) had the spare screw and pallet fork. I have no idea what that tin-foil was for though; I’m assuming I’ll find out when I try to reassemble it, ha. My best guess is that it was keeping the cannon pinion elevated, because the minute hand wasn’t able to grab on to it above the dial? Time will tell, I suppose.

Jan 15, 2026 6:50 AM

I’ve completely disassembled it now, including removing the mainspring from the barrel and removing all the capped jewels.

The mainspring looks pretty new and in really good shape, so I will just clean it and put it back in:

 Next up is polishing the pivots, and pegging the jewel holes. Here’s a picture of everything laid out:

Note to self: don’t forget to free the hairspring timing lever when trying to remove the balance! I always forget to do this, and every time I’m confused why the balance doesn’t fall out when I free the pin.

Jan 15, 2026 8:22 PM

Got through manually cleaning about half the movement. After I’m done, on to the ultrasonic.

Jan 24, 2026 6:58 AM

I put the movement through the cleaner. I initially absentmindedly put the balance in one of the baskets, before remembering that the alcohol rinse would absolutely nuke the shellac on it. I also almost lost a couple of pieces due to them being stuck in the baskets; when I put everything back, I noticed a couple of pieces missing, but thankfully they were still in the baskets.

All I managed to do just now was put the mainspring back in the barrel. It’s something I enjoy doing, but I have been thinking lately of maybe investing in a mainspring winder.

Jan 24, 2026 2:51 PM

I started reassembly. It’s been going pretty swimmingly, and I’m particularly pleased with the quality of my capstone oiling. But, I just wanted to hop on here really quick and note that I forgot to put the setting lever screw in under the train wheel bridge! Argh.

Fortunately this movement is really, really nice to work on, so lining up the train wheels on the bridge is actually downright pleasant.

One other note: I figured out that the cannon pinion was indeed pretty loose, which is what the foil must have been for. So, I went ahead and used my GIGANTIC snipper pliers, gave the cannon pinion a gentle squeeze with them, and put it back on, and now setting the time feels correct on the crown. Woot!

Jan 24, 2026 5:50 PM

Successfully reassembled! However, I forgot that I had wanted to re-lume the hands, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to finish up. I did a quick timing + regulation, and it looks like it’s much happier:

And that was before oiling the jewels, so I’m hoping it will be even better. Here’s some other process shots:

Jan 25, 2026 7:45 PM

The hands finished curing. When I attempted to set them though, it turns out that the lume was way too thick, so that the hour and minute hands interfered. So, I very gently scraped away some of the excess with an Xacto blade, and then rubbed them on a Post-It to very carefully “sand” away the rest. This worked really well!

However! When I put one of the crystals from my big bulk purchase on it, it turns out that it didn’t have a high enough dome, which ended up mushing the second hand a little bit and stopping the movement. Boo! But worse, when I tried to take the crystal back off, I ended up really mangling the second hand:

I managed to bend it back into shape, but I don’t have any other crystals on hand that fit. So, I had to buy another one-off crystal. And unfortunately, it looks like the movement is periodically stopping, so there’s still an issue with it. The second hand seems to be stopping right around the 20 second mark. Tapping the watch seems to unblock whatever is causing it to stop. I think I’ll put this on the backburner for a bit until the crystal gets here. Pretty disappointed with my progress here.

Jan 26, 2026 1:52 PM

I decided to see if there was anything I could do about this movement while waiting for the crystal. So, I opened it up again, took off the dial, and decided to remove the brass washer I had put there above the day wheel. I had put it there because it seemed as though there was nothing holding the day wheel in place, but on second look, it looks like the dial fits quite snugly. I had a hypothesis that this was somehow contributing to the movement stopping, but unfortunately it didn’t help. In the meantime, I went ahead and trimmed the stem + put a new crown on. I am at least happy with my trimming job on the crown, it fits perfectly flush with the case. Back to waiting on the crystal, although I may just attempt a full disassembly/reassembly while waiting.

Jan 26, 2026 8:57 PM

Well, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I took out the balance and pallet, gave the train a few good spins, and reassembled. I couldn’t reproduce the stopped movement without the case on, but it doesn’t seem to be stopping any more. Unfortunately, setting these hands has been an absolute bastard. The minute and second hands seem to be a bit loose. I tried to tighten the second hand tube, but unfortunately I squeezed it too much, and now I can’t fit it on the seconds pin. And I bent the second hand again, to boot. What a disaster.

Jan 27, 2026 6:40 PM

Well, I think I managed to fix the hands, maybe. I used a pin to open up the tube on the second hand (in addition to straightening it out (again)), and I used the jewel press to make the minute hand a bit tighter on the arbor. However, I’ve left the movement alone without any hands, and it seems it keeps running just fine. So unfortunately, I think it might have something to do with the actual hands on the movement that’s causing it to stop. I think I’ll leave it alone for a little bit longer, but if it’s the case, I’m really not sure what the problem could be.

After letting it sit awhile, it stopped. But I noticed that when I picked it up and twitched it, the balance could still swing freely, and when I touched the crown it kicked back up! Then I realized that the crown was still in the time-setting position, which made me think: does a watch eventually stop running if it’s in the hand-setting position?

Jan 30, 2026 10:57 AM

Ya, so it seems keeping a watch in hand-setting position eventually causes it to stop. It makes sense to me, because setting the hands is basically keeping the hands in a specific position, so if the hands can’t move, stuff will eventually stop.

But anyways, I spoke too soon about the state of the hands though. I think I got the minute hand nice and tight, but the second hand is still kinda loosey-goosey, which causes it to interfere with the minute hand since it sits too low on the dial. I already tried tightening it once, but I way overdid it. I think what I really need is a pin vise; I’ve been using a junky collet from my Dremel for this purpose, but I don’t think it’s tight enough for the second hand tube.

Jan 30, 2026 12:05 PM

Well, I futzed some more with the second hand, and I think it’s a good tightness now. But, it seems it’s sitting a bit too high above the dial, since as soon as I put on the crystal, it stops (I’m assuming because the second hand is rubbing on the crystal). So, I’m hoping that the crystal I ordered (the third one now! argh!) will sit a bit higher above the dial. I did order the “extra high dome”, so hopefully it provides enough space. I honestly don’t know how all the hands fit in there before, though. I feel like I’ve got everything fit super super close.

Feb 5, 2026 5:51 PM

The new crystal came in, and it looks like it fits perfectly! I had got a band for this awhile ago, and I think overall it looks pretty sharp, and I got it adjusted pretty well too: