Eterna Centenaire/Calibre 1429U

The movement is very dirty and the rotor bearing is worn causing it to rub against the inside of the case back.

Removing the rotor your can see all the dirt and grime.

The dial patina and the scratches where a little too much for my taste and I tried removing the old varnish. The lettering was too sensitive and did not survive the clean. I then resorted to my backup plan and sent the dial off to Danafi in Spain to be refinished.

It took 3 months for the dial to come back from Danafi. Here I’m applying new luminous compound onto the hands and the dial.

There is a fair amount of grime stuck to the base plate that I need to remove with a fibre glass brush.

Look at all that dirt! It’s amazing that this watch was ticking at all before I took it apart!

The old mainspring is very dirty.

All the parts cleaned and ready to be put back together.

I fit a newly oiled mainspring into the barrel.

I fit the cap jewels to make sure the balance moves freely.

The movements bear some scars from the rotor rubbing agains the base plate, but is otherwise in good condition. (note the new winding stem has yet to be cut to size)

Winding/setting mechanism back in place. (Now that cleaned up better than expected)

Movement back together and ticking.

Before the watch was ticking but I could not pick up a signal, but now it’s keeping time again!:)

Now that looks more like it! I still need to sort out the slack in the ballbearing causing the oscillating weight to scrape against the movement and case back. NOS ballbearings are hard to find so I need another solution.

After some experimenting I found out that the ball bearing can be tightened in the staking sett, with great results.

Now the oscillating weight is working like new with no slack at all. And what a difference from before!

The dial restoration from Danafi is not 100% like original, but looks very good and in my opinion better than a lot of the competition . Definitely worth the waiting time as the dial will stay like this for a long time to come.

Feels good bringing this classic back to life and to be able to wear it!:)