Servicing a Rolex Sea-Dweller. Part 2: Polishing and inspection
As someone interested in watches you will most likely at some point have to confront a watch's need for service. Sometimes you know about it and sometimes it comes as a surprise. Eqotime's Ola Jacobsen guides you here through a step by step guide to what actually happens when a watch is serviced. In this second part we follow the watch through polishing and inspection. Come along!
Text & images: Ola Jacobsen
As someone interested in watches you will in all likelihood at some point have to confront a watch's need for service. Sometimes you know about it and sometimes it comes as a surprise. Eqotime’s Ola Jacobsen guides you here a step by step guide in what it actually is that happens when a watch is serviced. In this second part we follow the watch through polishing and inspection. Come along!
After the watch has been disassembled, as we showed in Part 1, it is time for polishing of the case and the link. This is included in the service cost, but is optional. I opt out of polishing because I like my watch as it is, but Peter's colleague has just taken in another Sea-Dweller 16600 so I follow along with her during the polishing work.
Out in the watchmaker's workshop Peter is working with the pre-washed movement. As he takes it apart every part is examined in the hunt for wear. Everything that deviates from the best condition is weeded out. After the whole movement has been taken down into its component parts the movement is washed one last time. Here the movement goes through an ultrasound programme as well as four rinsing steps.
In connection with the service work a running check is also made that the movement has received its upgrades and has genuine Rolex original parts.
If there are questionable parts in the watch these are replaced with parts from Rolex or else the service is declined. This so that the workshop can give the two year guarantee that comes with the service. In certain cases this happens in consultation with the customer. It can be about older dials, where the customer wants to keep a beautifully aged dial, despite it meaning that the workshop cannot leave any guarantee on the work since parts from the dial risk coming loose and damaging the watch.
Now it is time to test the function of the new helium valve. The purpose of the valve is to let out expanded gas out of the watch. The need arises when so-called saturation divers finish their shift and the pressure in their habitat is lowered from the working depth's pressure to normal pressure. Helium atoms that have found their way into the watch during the pressurised weeks then need to be able to get out of the case in a safe way.
The Rolex Sea-Dweller 16600 is supposed to be water resistant to 1220 metres depth. Normally watches are pressure tested in a chamber with both over- and underpressure. There they are subjected to an under- respectively overpressure that bends in respectively widens the case and crystal. Sensitive sensors then measure whether the case bends back or not.
This method does not work on a Sea-Dweller, since it is so robustly built. Instead the water resistance is tested in a water-filled steel chamber that is pressurised manually by the watchmaker.
In the next part we follow the watch through the phases assembly and adjustment. Don't miss Part 1 either!
