The patient:
According to it's owner, someone sat on the watch. The crown stem broke, crown was lost and the entire screw thread part was seared off!
Was happy to find that the Parnis Big Pilot crown can fit the IWC, both of which I owned. And the Parnis crown is more interesting with a Fish logo!
Can't believe it was so diffficult to find a replacement crown tube of this size here but found something anyway; only to be challenged again to discover that the IWC has a step crown tube. (The replacement tube is shown on the right):
As I had tried to put a screw into the old tube to anchor and pull it out, it actually opened up the top part and the new crown tube can get through a bit! (see comparison below).
So now the plan is to grind away the smaller end of the old crown tube and open up the bottom part as well and use the step as a support.
(I used the small plier from a Swiss Army Knife eventually to pull out the IWC crown tube as only a small plier has enough grip around the crown tube top.
Finally for the assembly:
My local hardware store do not stock Loctite. He offered Wessbond Thread Locking Anaerobic Adhesive TL271 (there is a weaker version with a smaller number) instead. It took quite a while (around 10mins for the bonding to start) and boy it was really firm. I hand tightened the new "Fish" crown to the max and tried to "wreck" it by overturning, the new crown tube refused to bulge and held up well and good.
+1 for Wessbond!
Shown here is the patient with my own BP at the bottom. Nice thing is during the repair the fish can be set to the right orientation as you allow the Wessbond to set:
Mission accomplished! Cost wise should be lower than getting a IWC crown and you probably can't buy just the crown tube without the case.
Patient is discharged.
According to it's owner, someone sat on the watch. The crown stem broke, crown was lost and the entire screw thread part was seared off!
Was happy to find that the Parnis Big Pilot crown can fit the IWC, both of which I owned. And the Parnis crown is more interesting with a Fish logo!
Can't believe it was so diffficult to find a replacement crown tube of this size here but found something anyway; only to be challenged again to discover that the IWC has a step crown tube. (The replacement tube is shown on the right):
As I had tried to put a screw into the old tube to anchor and pull it out, it actually opened up the top part and the new crown tube can get through a bit! (see comparison below).
So now the plan is to grind away the smaller end of the old crown tube and open up the bottom part as well and use the step as a support.
(I used the small plier from a Swiss Army Knife eventually to pull out the IWC crown tube as only a small plier has enough grip around the crown tube top.
Finally for the assembly:
My local hardware store do not stock Loctite. He offered Wessbond Thread Locking Anaerobic Adhesive TL271 (there is a weaker version with a smaller number) instead. It took quite a while (around 10mins for the bonding to start) and boy it was really firm. I hand tightened the new "Fish" crown to the max and tried to "wreck" it by overturning, the new crown tube refused to bulge and held up well and good.
+1 for Wessbond!
Shown here is the patient with my own BP at the bottom. Nice thing is during the repair the fish can be set to the right orientation as you allow the Wessbond to set:
Mission accomplished! Cost wise should be lower than getting a IWC crown and you probably can't buy just the crown tube without the case.
Patient is discharged.