Omega 351 or fun with sourcing watch parts.

So one of the first images I posted when I joined the forums was this.


One thing was evident when I transferred the parts to a see through box was that there was no balance. (or balance jewels. I also thought the 4th wheel seconds pinion was snapped off. (Look again -- this is center seconds.)

I have been watching auctions for a 330 1327. I missed out on one with broken staffs for 35 bucks. AKA the fish that got away. Most balance completes for this caliber are in the 220USD price range.

edit: I decided to rewrite much of the opening post. This has turned into a multi year project. The initial post rambled on a bit. Much of it repeated in the postings below.

The project also started with one movement and has expanded into a dozen or more movements. Over the last few years these got mixed together. Parts swapped in hopes of coming up with some wearable watches.

A reason for rewriting this opening post is to create a table of serial number plates and possible case references and such. The forum supports BB code tables, so why not use them. (did not work -- had to caputure a screen shot. from the post preview.)







the rest is a rededicated version of the OP to reduce some of the rambling ...

These projects started when I got a BIN for the partial movement at over half off. Which put it at the low end of what these balances tend to be offered for. So I impulsed it.



Bit more watch than I need, still a good way to pack a balance complete. And it even has the jewels and a few other parts which may be of use.

So I set out to see how much a watch I do have.


Almost there. But for some missing parts. Years ago I bought a collection of omega spare parts. As can be seen there are a lot of 330 parts.

The rest of this thread remains a multi year document as I sort through this stuff and see what comes of it.

Sorting the parts on the bench. Missing quite a few screws. I decided to clean what I have anyway. Once of the screws in the existing plate had cosmetic rust on it so I decided to soak it in Alum.

In the meantime I thought I might test fit parts to the new balance plate. This came with a winding clutch, and a broken stem. I transferred them. I think the plate may be worn as the stem keeps jumping out. The set lever wobbles. Looks like there is quite a bit of wear where the stem axle fits into the plate.

Being this is a watch the yoke spring vanished when I went to oil it. So much of the evening was sweeping the floor. I did find the missing Val-72 eccentric as I swept behind the bench with a magnet. So there will be at least one more update on that watch. I also found more AS 1187/94 screws.

In the mean time I found a spare yoke spring that is close. So I can continue with the re-assembley Which will at least keep the parts together. Did find a canon pinion but I do not know if it is the right one. Still missing the hour hand.

Omegas are great watches to work on. Everything is so nicely made.

The old goat lives!

New (old stock) mainspring and an eBay balance. As noted I had a lot of spare parts for this caliber. Not sure why I need ten winding stems.

Some how most of the bridge screws vanished. I thought I had an assortment of Omega screws, but they are probably for a different caliber. There are enough to get the basic watch ticking. Which is the best part. That moment when the balance starts up on it's own.

Next up will be to attach the sweep seconds assembly. The cannon pinion though is missing. It is hard to match the ones in the spares. I also as I have repeatedly written found it strange the hour hand is no where to be found. I do keep finding hands on the floor. (Which seems to be swept daily.)

Looks like all the automatic stuff is there (apart from the missing bridge screws.) Since I do not have a case for this, those parts are not really a high priority.

Always curious the spares. I got this assortment of spares years ago. There were 3 mainsprings, two escape wheels and as noted 10 winding stems. There are also a number of set lever springs. Too bad there are not more set lever screws as one is missing.

The plate that the balance came on turned out to be worn in the winding arbor pivot. It did however have good screws in the banking stop spring box. The screw on the good plate was rusted. So I suspect that there may have been some water inclusion. As noted the balance plate movement did have the needed winding parts.


I did get lucky on this as the balance was as advertised. Still it does show hazards of online part sourcing. The circled detail shows the stress crack on the winding stem arbor pivot. When I put the new stem on it kept popping out even though the set lever was tight. This is something to watch out for when getting these old beaters, often they are well used. There must have been some real force to break the old stem.

Curiously a center wheel was jammed tight into one of the other holes. The existing wheel looks to be in good condition. I have had the collection of 'goat' parts for several decades. Probably 25 years or more. So that is 25 less years of wear on this. I still find it ironic that this watch is now called goat. The timecraft landeron 48 movement 'Tok' turned out to be the better in a way. That movement though is now known as 'rabbit,' for all the rabbit holes it lead me down.

I am still tempted to put the old parts on the bay 99 cents No reserve with full disclosure, as I find it hard to simply tip them in the trash. I think the subtitle, should be 'only good for art projects.'

A good day for watchmaking.

I put the sweep arbor and bridge onto the 351 with some rando sweep hand. This way I could watch it tick while I sorted through hands and other parts.

No luck finding any more parts to this movement. I did drop another part. In looking for that I found the correct yoke spring. So the watch now has the proper yoke spring.

Not really more I can do with this until I find the cannon pinion. Probably will need to get a new one as the closest is just slightly too large. Hard to know when the watch has been dissembled so long if I ever had the other parts. I do keep checking the back of the cell phone. I am finding the zoom on the iPhone is getting much better close ups of things.

Too much watch making happiness. Spent most of Wednesday sorting through watch hands, and double checking the landeron trays for possible misplaced omega parts that may have gotten stuck to the iPhone magnet over the last few months.

Some of the hands seemed to have found their way onto the floor over ages past. These have been collected in lost parts trays. Another watchmaker had used one of the parts assortment tube cases to save watch hands. At one time these may have been by caliber. I decided to sort them according to one of the threads recently posted here.

This way I was able to find some candidates for the missing hour hand. (Omega hands are offered on the bay for over 100 buck a pair.) So finding the correct hand could be of use. Hard to say that a rando pair from the bay will even fit the dial?

I have another hand assortment which some clever watch maker put into one of those 1950s photo wallets. (I guess they expected one to have a lot of children grandchildren.)

(Note the Lemania 1280 (also missing an hour hand) waiting in the wings.

Nothing in these pages seems to be Omega, But there is a wealth of AS hands.

I got the Wakmann hands from this page.

So that leaves us with only 2 candidate hands.

The minute hand is centered between the two. Not having a cannon pinion makes it awkward. I found one that is too large and another that is too small. I am not even sure the hour wheel is the correct one, although it was in the tin with the watch.

I do have a 550 cannon pinion which I do not want to remove from packaging. Have not had the time to cross reference it. It gives an idea of what an Omega cannon pinion should look like.

Also have two nearly identical Omega 344 in a 2576 case. One of them is in need of a good service, So I am contemplating disassembling it for comparison. Shares the same 330 base caliber. Not sure though about the center wheel/cannon pinion though as the 344 is not center seconds.

It is also easy to go down the Landeron rabbit hole. While sorting parts I let the balances soak in alum.

One watch at a time I tell myself, one watch at a time ...

While waiting for a new cannon pinion I decided to disassemble an Omega 344. https://omegaforums.net/threads/working-with-one-of-the-omega-344-twins.155977/

I also found another bottle of assorted screws. This bottle seems to have plate screws and some tiny set spring screws. Somehow I overlooked it in all my other searching through parts while waiting for the next burst of motivation. Strange how I keep finding things, but never the item I want or am looking for.

Here is the latest state of this watch. All the winding system is now accounted for. The screws are not an exact match (of the 344 screws) but they are pretty close.



I also found a good candidate for the hour hand. Which was also shown in a prior update. The hour wheels for the 351 and 344 seem to be the same. I notice that under the black light the lume on these does not jump out as much as on other hands. I have not checked the rads on these yet. The color looks the same.

The dial is stained next to the 3. This is consistent with the rust on the bumper spring holder screw, the tip of the bumper spring is also missing the last coil or so which seems to have rusted away. I probably should get a new bumper spring. I have two empty envelopes for this part. So far I have not noticed any loose rectangular (well ovoid) springs floating about in the misc parts trays. There does remain enough spring to bounce the weight.

Another interesting thing I noticed, Is that when the watch winds, the crown turns. This could possibly explain why the parts movement plate is so worn on the stem axel. (otherwise I would simply swap the plate while I am waiting for the screw to etch out.)

There are times when I feel I am rushing this, as I do not have a case for it. It always seems like there is one more part/skill needed to get the watch working again. Still I now know what the name of this watch now is. 'lucky the goat.'

Now with canon pinion. I can test fit the dial and hands. Will be a week or more before I get the new sweep hand. I do not think the hour hand is quite correct. It does fit. The lume in it is quite small in comparison to the hour hand. The lume color is the same, and it does match the minute arrows, so it will have to do. Hands for these old watches are hard to come by. Especially one with the smaller minute track.

The dial retention screws are also missing. I checked to make sure I did not etch them out like I did on one of the AS 1194 plates. I did however etch out the case retaining pin.

Not the best of dials, but it has character. These parts have been in a drawer for decades in a tin can. Not bad for only needing three parts to get this far. Barrel arbor, canon pinion and the upcoming sweep hand.

Still need to source a case. That is going to be a long term search. Especially to find just an empty case. Otherwise, one has to deal with extra movement parts which only adds to the cycle.

Arrived surprisingly quick. Seller had this listed for 225USD. I tried to get a case for under 200 a few months back and was out bid in the last seconds.

Still a penny for pound project. When I etched the broken screw, it also etched the pin what holds the watch in the case. I do not have the case clamp. There is also no crystal. I have an old S. LaRose crystal assortment.

I did get the last sweep hand OFrei had. Have not fitted it yet. I also do not think I found the right hour hand, although this one fits the best with the same lume color as the minute hand.

Case may be a bit of a franken. The markings on the back were polished off and someones initials crudely engraved. RMC which I do not think is the Royal Marine Core. There is no seamaster on the dial, so the lack of a hippocampus is not a big deal. This case has the thinner lugs which I think look better with my dial. Case is over polished, but I am not complaining. The photos made it look worn down to the brass, although it seems to be stainless steel.



Will also need to get a crown and case tube. I had the stem in my spare parts dept and grabbed a rando crown for testing.

This will always be the goat watch. As in the old Monty Hall gag of what is behind door number 3. The other tin had a Landeron 48 in it.

Will be strange to not be constantly searching for the term 2577.

So I finally got the correct case clamp for this. PN 332-1911.


Meanst while I find that the 330/332 parts have been breeding. To get a good balance I got a trashed main plate (with a cracked stem bushing.) There was already a large assortment of spares in the parts department from 30 years ago. Some fit the 500/550 Oryctolagus cuniculus, which in turn caused more items to accumulate. Notably a job lot of plates and bumpers, but no tick talk parts.

These seem to be fermenting like a bag of prison hooch.



Which then inspires another eBax fix. To feed the addiction.


I kept resisting, but the enabler dealer gave me a hit.

Now of course I get to wait the week, for the latest to arrive. They cycle remains, as This still leaves three bumper plates with a dearth of tick tock parts. Then there are no cases, although I am thinking of going Victor F. and making some real chimeras. As I have some "generic" cases.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I am struggling with finding the motivation to use the timegrapher on the ticky ticky movements, then put the dials and hands back on them into the cases. Once the dial and hands go back on the movement, it becomes hard to find the desire to pull the movement apart and adjust thingys.

Much easier to hit command-R and order another project watch.

And I was going to spend the morning making a stitching pony for watch straps, as these delinquent watches really want some pipe organ leather bespoke straps.

Watch weeds.
So while farming 56x movements I got a few weed in the mix.

None of this was intentional. I bid on a lot of unknown calibers. Job lots etc. Somehow I wound up with a 332 and a few 342, Plus some left over parts which are probably only suitable for art projects. (expensive art projects.)

Not all bumpers are created equal. The 332 is larger diameter than the 342. Many of the parts though do cross pollinate.

Almost enough for two bumpers here. One would tick had the hairspring been shipped better. Others will be practice to see if pinions can be pivoted.

Still think these are some of the easiest watch movement there is to work upon. Probably some of the best watches ever made. Even if only entry level.

Mostly though it is more waitie waitey. The ones with cases need strapping first.

Good I found this thread again. I set this watch aside as it lost the pin and I kept gettng the wrong case clamps.
Did get the clamps some time ago and they wound up with the 55x parts.

The missing pin has now lead to a whole second watch. 2635 this time.

Have to hand it to the forums, so much information here and so much helpfulness. And I can look at an old thread and see where and what lot old parts on the bench came frame and how they were packaged before I de rusted and cleaned them.

stay tuned ...

Misspelled watch parts arrived early. They actually arrived yesterday afternoon.



Hairspring looks good. Were well packed with the 'balanse' removed from the 'brige.' I may actually give the seller meaningless feedback.

Staff will need replacing, which is not an issue as I have a few NOS staffs in the collection. Also have 4 hairless balances, so can steal the roller jewel from another one with a bad staff.

If it were not so risky, could be interesting to see how the hairspring rates on the good balances. Could do that while this staff is being etched out. Not sure the collet could take being repeatedly stretched and squished onto different staffs. I have had a few cases on the A Schild and Landeron chronos where the collet splits when one attempts to tighten it.

The goat movement was one of the first I restored after my passion returned. It is not keeping time. I think I did it before I got the cheap timegrapher. So I suspect once a parts movement perhaps always a parts movement. Least amount of effort would be to use one of the plates with the case pin. A plan for something to do while waiting for these parts. I did manage with some expense to breed the correct case clamps, so there is something to be said for waiting and not rushing into things.

I edited the first post, Since this project has taken on a life of it's own expanding from a single watch to more than a dozen. It is about sourcing parts. The trials and tribulations such involve. I decided to put the results of studying the mixed up serial number bridges at the top. Orphan bridges what have no watches to call home.



I have had this dial and handset who knows how long.


What showed up on eBay at the time of this posting.


I do not mind showing the price paid, since that is what is the most interesting. And what most drive by posters want to know. I also want to show that this sort of thing is no bargain. The bidding war, since I need a 9 and a 4 ( or depending on patina, have the missing furniture which the other bidder may also want.) All week I had the first bid. Eventually the clock won out. Normally I wait until the last moment to bid, but have missed a few.

I already have two sub second bumper movements, So having two more is really the side effect of finding parts to get two sweep seconds variations completed. What I really want is a mid case, since that is what really means it a watch. So instead the funds get blown on a tiny tiny number for a dial.

In theory I can make the missing numbers with the fiber laser. Yet that has the taint, that the parts are not 'factory.' So what remains is an under valued Frankenstein or a parts movement to pass onto the next care taker, I am under the impression buyers remorse is 90 percent of watch collecting. Especially after the adrenalin of the chase has worn off. At one time the old one had the anticipation of arrival of the earlier dial, which was probably an impulse purchase. So I make an almost identical purchase and a much greater price since inflation indicates the days of getting waste bin scraps like this for 35 bucks are over. That I bid so I can keep those endorphins or what ever stimulates the soul active. I suspect like last weeks winding wheel, once it arrives, it will be admired then tossed into the box with the other till some other process gets too frustrating or require 'sit down focus time.' and "not wonder around the spare parts box with fingers time."

The real point though as this thread title states. "fun with sourcing watch parts."

Does not change that the two spare, spare, spare, spare, spare movements now have dials, but without hairsprings simply remain bricks.

It really is like playing with Lego bricks.

Indexes fit perfectly.



The new indexes may be loose as it only took a slight flick of the x-acto knife to remove them. I was really surprised the holes aligned. That is some nice precision manufacturing.

Curious is that I was so focused on the 9 and the 4 that I overlooked that the new dial is center seconds and the old one sub seconds.

I do have the original dial that was with the OP movement. This though has silver indexes. Looks though like the fingerprint removed the silvering from the 3 O'clock position. The new dial has gold indexes.

Not sure I want to risk scratching the dial swapping the indexes. The new dial has a lot more patina (pitting.) Probably best to leave things as they are. I have a lot more sub second movements than the center second ones.