• Tired of adverts on RWI? - Subscribe by clicking HERE and PMing Trailboss for instructions and they will magically go away!

The 'swiss' 2836 teardown

acharria

Put Some Respect On My Name
26/10/09
5,147
9
0
Great post... awesome pictures....
And finally.... HEAR NO MORE PEOPLE ASKING "SWISS OR ASIAN".
THIS IS THE FINAL ANSWER...
Thanks S...
 

Mattfrombelgium

Known Member
11/1/10
128
0
0
Thank you so much for doing this and sharing with all of us, great work ! definitely should become a sticky imho
 

aratron

Active Member
8/2/11
241
1
0
I have 2 German watches that are both chronometre grade movements and the finish is unreal on both of them. This is where a genuine Eta will part company with any clone. But in the rep world I would never pay more for a so-called swiss movement. If you want to insure a swiss movement, then buy it separately and install it yourself.

Aside from the finish the chronometres are each numbered. Here is one of them.
Stowa8Large.jpg

Truly amazing, mate.

In a single macro shot you can see all marks of high quality. Blued screws (not chemical blued I assume), sand blasting, beveling (anglage) and circular graining (perlage). Stunningly beautiful.

Not to say that Chinese made stuff don't have similar if not equal finishing at a fraction of the price.

Seagull M199S (ST19 with true moon phase)

M199S-3.jpg


Seagull ST36 (seen in many IWC and PAM reps)

104959d1210653830-seagull-3620-movement-helenarou-dagger-2-jpg


Seagull ST25 (This one is mine) Modified version of this thing are used in many reps.

tn_IMG_4232.jpg


In reps, just buy higher grade chinese movements. I really see no point at paying for any franken "chino-swiss" junk like this 2836 painstakingly taken apart by our fellow Smidsy. There is no way to distinguish them easily, why risk it at all?

I am wondering if Japanese movements like Miyota and Seiko will be a good alternative for the "high end" Swiss reps. Hand sizes are not compatible and seconds are non-hacking. But I truly respect Japanese QC standards... something that rivals any mass produced Swiss movements at a fraction of the cost.
 

cybee

Legendary Member
Supporter
23/11/06
11,134
28
48
Great pics aratron...The Seagulls are a fantastic value and beautiful too.
 

amptor

Banned member, the goat does not approve
Banned
1/5/07
871
0
16
I've always known that "swiss" was a waste of money ever since joining this forum. clone is good, saves money and you can use the saved money to buy another swiss clone watch complete later. good deal, good deal. I recently sold a clone to a board member and it was a really good piece. I hope he is enjoying the movement. It never had any issues. And that is what it is all about folks, enjoyment of the watch as well as the movement.
 

Wiz

Mythical Poster
9/8/09
6,708
21
0
Nice teardown, very informative.

Is it your work or has it been done by your co-worker?
 

SMIDSY

Put Some Respect On My Name
DO NOT TRADE WITH ME
15/9/09
4,413
4
0
Nice tear down. Is this you doing the work or one of your employees? I am glad you made this post. It raises more questions about our hobby and the ole ETA vs. Clone questions for sure. :)
Where is the serial number? I ask because I didn't see it. Usually the manufactures use their own engraving or at least I thought.
I personally don't mind a second hand ETA in a rep as long as it isn't this dirty. I bet the rep factory cobbled this one together which is a shame.


Sticky?? We will see. ;)

This one I actually did myself; hence the poor quality of work :D

the serials are located by the balance. In this case it is: DMA5E

all swiss eta movements will have these codes ;) this is how you can track where and when it was made and if it's a 'repaired' one.

img0348dh.jpg

#
you can see it here :)
 

QinetiQ

Banned member, the goat does not approve
Banned
6/8/09
4,585
0
0
Great post!!!

P.S. Is it just me or does this brass wheel seem to be polished (prior to being scratched up and all)
img0345t.jpg
 

SMIDSY

Put Some Respect On My Name
DO NOT TRADE WITH ME
15/9/09
4,413
4
0
Yup that wheel is sometimes polished on the swiss movements ;) I have a 2824 with the same polished wheel... so it seems that is NOT indicative of a clone.
 

seanf

Mythical Poster
Advisor
29/11/06
6,011
18
38
Smids-- great, great review. It's been Duly stickied.

Your review confirms something that I've long suspected about the quality of ETA movements in our reps.

Just a brief refresher for the benefit of people who don't know the history of ETA. For many years, the Swiss ETA movements were the best quality (and most expensive) movements. The company, ETA, was purchased by The Swatch Group (which owns a huge chunk of the world's high-end watch brands) several years ago. Here's a brief write up:
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_SA"]ETA SA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:ETA_SA_logo.png" class="image"><img alt="ETA SA logo.png" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/ETA_SA_logo.png"@@AMEPARAM@@en/0/0e/ETA_SA_logo.png[/ame]​
Long story short, ETA supplied the automatic movements (called ebauches) for years for most of the high-end watch makers. Back in '06, Swatch announced it wasn't going to allow ETA to sell ebauches outside the Swatch group anymore. This triggered an EU monopoly investigation, and ETA settled. They agreed to continue selling ebauches until 2010. Well, now that 2010 has come and gone, real ETA movements are pretty rare in reps now. But because everyone knew this was coming, Chinese manufacturers have been preparing for this, and have created their own ETA ebauche copies (perfectly legal, because ETA's patent expired several years ago). These copies--made by different companies, the best known of which is probably Sellita-- are virtually identical to ETA movements. So much so that most ETA parts are interchangeable.

One other thing to bear in mind-- since ETA ebauches haven't been sold by ETA for about six months, there is a very good possibility that if you order a rep with an "ETA" movement, you'll get either a reconditioned crap ETA movement, like the one Smids just reviewed, or (more likely) an Asian ETA clone.

 

tom5

Horology Curious
26/1/11
6
0
0
Wow, great teardown and explanations. Very helpful for noobs (like myself).
 

SMIDSY

Put Some Respect On My Name
DO NOT TRADE WITH ME
15/9/09
4,413
4
0
Thanks sean :D

I have some modifications to make to the info you posted.... if OK?

ETA will not supply BLANK movements to people any-more BUT they are continuing to make movements for people like Breitling/Tag who use decorated branded 7750s.

What Sean says is 100% correct finding genuine ETA movements is getting tricky so IMHO stick to the clone. With the swiss you may get lucky but in all likelihood you'll get a fish like I did :)
 

seanf

Mythical Poster
Advisor
29/11/06
6,011
18
38
Smids, maybe you can explain something that has always been confusing to me. What exactly is the difference between an ETA movement and an ETA ebauche? And what effect does ETA's refusal to sell ebauches have for reps? This has never been clear to me. In theory, since our reps use movements, and not ebauches, it shouldn't have any effect. The reality, however, is that ETA movements in reps have become scarce to the point of being virtually extinct.
 

donaldejose

I'm Pretty Popular
20/12/08
1,196
2
0
Ébauche (French: meaning blank or outline or "sketch") is a term used in art to denote the first preliminary underpainting or quick sketch in oils for an oil painting. One early criticism of Impressionist painting was that its practitioners sought to elevate the status of the ébauche to the level of finished painting. Horology, clockmaking and watchmaking appropriated the term ébauche to refer to an incomplete or unassembled watch movement and its associated components. The French term is regularly used by English-speaking artists and art historians, as well as horologists and hobbyists.

The modern ébauche is a jeweled watch movement, without its regulating organs, mainspring, dial, or hands.

Ébauche French term (but commonly used in English-speaking countries) for a movement blank, i.e. an incomplete watch movement which is sold as a set of loose parts, comprising the main plate, the bridges, the train, the winding and setting mechanism and the regulator. The timing system, the escapement and the mainspring, however, are not parts of the "ébauche
 

SMIDSY

Put Some Respect On My Name
DO NOT TRADE WITH ME
15/9/09
4,413
4
0
Smids, maybe you can explain something that has always been confusing to me. What exactly is the difference between an ETA movement and an ETA ebauche? And what effect does ETA's refusal to sell ebauches have for reps? This has never been clear to me. In theory, since our reps use movements, and not ebauches, it shouldn't have any effect. The reality, however, is that ETA movements in reps have become scarce to the point of being virtually extinct.

I have to disagree slightly with the above....

An ebauche is basically a 'blank' movement. No modifications special details engravings or brand name. These can be either assembled or loose pack so they're assembled somewhere else (the movements' serials say which are which).

ETA basically claim the blank movements are used in reps...

E.g. Breitling DO NOT use ebauches. Their movements are made by eta entirely and therefore ETA (apparently) will continue to supply people like breitling as they are not ebauche movements.

The feeling is if they supply Brand X with 2000 ebauches movements and brand X only use 1000 of them for their watches ETA's concerns was that there was a lot of potential for these movements to end up in dodgy/replica watches.

Their feeling which I agree with is that when they supply finished movements to people like Brietling then there is less chance of them being sold out due to the expense of the movement and/or brand reputation.

I have to say for the most part they're probably right....

It's a confusing topic....
 

stiff muckler

Known Member
26/8/10
110
1
0
typical? your thoughts?

Schmidsy, at da intuitive level (or from the anecdotal) do you think dat this level of da "Franken" modification is da norm these movements?

Are they all this dirty or do you suspect dat dis example is an extreme one?

sm iiH!