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The CEO of the company I worked for at the time asked me if I wouldn't take a look at his late father's watch so his son could enjoy it. No idea why I said "sure", but this was a nerve wracking service.

This beautiful Longines Flagship from the late '60s found itself on my bench in running order, but hadn't been serviced in a long time. It wound and set ok, but I could feel some resistance when setting the hands between 12 and 1.

This Longines caliber 284 has a lift angle of 50°.

The setting lever screw was properly lodged in the barrel bridge.

That's a lot of arm cheese.

Surprisingly clean movement judging by how much use this watch has seen!

The crystal is toast. I can see an unfortunate scratch in the dial. Also the remaining oil is quite dirty, lots of fibres in here...

The barrel has a fascinating wear pattern on the bottom...

...and the centre wheel looks to be the culprit!

Yup, the wheel has a bow to it. Not sure how this happened, but it must be sorted out. I put the wheel in a large hole of my staking set and gently applied pressure from the back until it sat flat. We had a chat about this on wrt as well.

Next, the stem needed attention because of rust. I tried leaving it in Coke overnight but that ended up as collateral damage during cleanup after dinner one night. Luckily I was able to find a NOS stem on eBay.

I sized the new stem and ordered a new crystal (ATC 315).