Vintage 1972 Omega Seamaster Automatic Restoration Project

A couple of months ago, I was contacted buy a person who had seen one of my videos on my youtube channel. He had recently bought a vintage watch to present his father on his birthday, which was on the end of October. The watch was a beautiful Vintage 1972 Omega Seamaster Automatic.

The Omega Seamaster, which had unfortunately fallen on the ground when he got bumped on the street, pulling one of the strap pins clean off. Obviously, since the watch had a particular value for this young man, I just could not say no, and gladly accepted the project, which I dreaded to be more than what I could chew on.

Even if living in Berlin, due to the restrictions caused by the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic, the customer and I agreed for him to send the watch instead of bringing it in personally. When it arrived, I took some pictures to asses its condition.

The watch was not working, and apart the dislodged strap, some light scratches on tthe acrylic glass and some dimples on the case, probably all due to the fall, the overall condition was really good for a 48 year old watch. Yes, the case had been previously polished, and there were marks on the caseback that made me understand somoeone had in the past serviced this watch. Yet, we had no official service records, so the customer and I agreed on a complete restoration, whatever had to be done.

Once opened, the Omega Caliber 565 presented itself in all of its glory. This is as classy of a movement as it can get. The rotor of te automatic mechanism, with its double arch design, is a beauty indeed.

To easily remove the movement from the case, I preferred removing the rotor and the automatic mechanism.

Once removed from the case, I removed the hands, and the beautiful dial was next:

The disasembly went quite smoothly, no major issues. This is what all the parts looked like on ma bench, after some 20 minutes:

All inside a container, ready to be cleaned and reassembled:

This concludes the first part of this restoration project. Stay tuned for the second part, where I will discuss of one major issue I had with this particular watch.