Another Tissot Visodate, this one slightly younger than the last one, dating to the late 60’s or early 70’s and rather than an automatic movement, this one was fitted with a manually wound cal. 782-1.
(Click pictures to enlarge)
The problem with this watch was pretty easy to figure out, as it would wind a little and then you would hear a ‘buzzzzzzz’ from inside and the watch would stop; all the hallmarks of a broken mainspring. In manually wound watches the spring is hooked onto the inside of the barrel wall and if too much force is applied to the crown when fully wound, the spring can break.
To prevent this from happening, it’s advisable to slow the winding of a manually wound watch as you sense you are approaching ‘full wind’, rather than crashing into the end point at full power.
With a new mainspring fitted, the rest of the movement was brought up to scratch with a clean and oil.
One other area letting this watch down was the hands, which had been badly treated in the past and were so bent out of shape that they had been rubbing together. At some time in the past I bought a batch of vintage Tissot hands which as luck would have it, were exactly the right size and length. Though they were a different style, they suited the watch nicely.
After sorting out the hands, all that was left to do was fit a new crystal. Although it’s not a visually exciting model, the watch has a great caseback and still has it’s original crown and bracelet which is always a bonus.
Rich.
