It took a little work, but I found a picture of the A. Schildt 873 movement that replaced the 730A/780 after Elgin abandoned domestic production in 1964:
I believe this is the same 1604B that was in the early Ball Trainmasters.
I confess I didn’t work on wristwatches much – mostly 16/18s with the occasional ‘project’ 12s. Helps to have a Keeler operating microscope or equivalent, and good tools.
I’m mostly a 12-18 size pocket watch guy also, but at the end of the day yes good magification and good light are your friends.
Tweezers are quite literally your hands, so top quality ones kept properly sharpened are a must. I don’t necessarily go for fancy alloys-regular Dumont stainless steel, or carbon steel demagnetized regularly serve me well. People will argue over their favorite pattern-I have probably 20 pairs in the drawer, but my primary ones are a set of Dumont #2 in stainless that are probably an inch shorter than a new set of #2s because they’ve been sharpened so much. I also keep #5 and #7 close at hand on the bench-the others are in reach if needed, which is rare.
I see a lot of people on Facebook buying cheap Chinese tools. Used American and Swiss tools are often less expensive and so much better in every way. I’m partial to my Levin staking set, which IMO is nicer feeling and nicer to use than the more common K&Ds, but it blows my mind to see people spending $200 on a new Chinese staking set when a really nice K&D set would be half that…
1 Like
There are now specialty microscopes for electronics rework that provide a wide, clear view with decent depth-of-focus on a large LCD screen. These usually have decent stage lighting plus the inherent sensitivity of a camera at 60 Hz. These are far better for quite a bit of watch work than a loupe or stereo visor was.