Speedmaster - hour hand bent upwards - acceptable?

Short story: is it acceptable to ensure clearance between the subdials and the hour hand of the Speedmaster by bending the hour hand upwards?

Long story: during the last few months I had to return my 1861 Speedmaster for warranty repairs a few times. After one of the repairs I noticed that the clearance between the hour hand and the small seconds hand was very, very small small. Two weeks later the watch began to stop randomly between 8 and 10 AM/PM. The reason was that the hour hand was sometimes blocking the small seconds hand and stopping the movement.

I returned the watch to Omega yet again and they solved the problem by bending the hour hand upwards. The watch works fine, but the bend is noticeable. I can see with a naked eye that the hand is not parallel to the dial, nor to the other hands.

It's bugging me not only visually, but also because I think that the repair is poor workmanship. But maybe I'm wrong, hence the question. Is it acceptable according to watchmaking rules or Omega standards to ensure clearance between the small seconds and hour hands by bending the latter?

I'd be very grateful for any info and suggestions on this.

Sure! These are the best I could take with my cameras.

Thanks. I'm thinking about taking it back to Omega. I'm just wondering if what they did is acceptable from a watchmaking standpoint or if it's indeed a shortcut.

This is a bit of a short cut and not a great one. The running seconds hand needs to be removed and reamed slightly so it sits lower on its pinion.

Obviously the more they touch it, the higher the risk of something going wrong. Worse case they put in a new seconds hands if they damage your original.

Thanks! It seems that was indeed the case. I went back to Omega and after another debacle on their part they fixed the problem. They installed a new, straight hour hand, but this time there is ample clearance between it and the small seconds hand. I think it's because the seconds hand seems to sit much lower now than it did previously.


Oh, believe me, I know 😀 . I spent the last 5 months going back and forth with the Omega service. What started as a warranty service to bring the timekeeping back to specs resulted in: scratched dial (replaced), gouged case back (replaced), scratched case (I refused polishing), hands blocking each other, hands bent in every direction etc. But I got a bunch of accessories and an invitation to a watchmaking course from them for my trouble and the watch seems to be alright now.

I agree completely. In my case the timekeeping got pretty bad (from +5 to +20 spd) over a few days. I wanted them to look at it under warranty in case there was a big problem inside. I didn't want to risk having to pay for repairs after warranty.