Service of a Heuer Autavia reference 2446 – 1st Execution.

I got this watch some time ago and it sat untouched in my banksafe since I bought it…untill yesterday. The overall condition was/is quite rough…but I liked it a lot as it screams patina. A very honest, used watch…a very rare Heuer Autavia Reference 2446 – 1st execution.

I knew when I bought this watch, I would not do too much to it while servicing it. So what I did is a “standard” movement service, the Heuer signed Valjoux 72 was quite tired and dirty, not been serviced in last few decades. I kept the original plexi crystal in place, after some different stages of polishing out the scratches it turned out pretty nice.

The Valjoux 72 had no real surprises for me, there were only a few things to correct but in essence it was only sreaming for a decent service and a fresh mainspring. A lot of detailed photos included.

Dial was my biggest concern. I started to clean the subregisters a bit but I decided to take a step back after I tried, it was not giving the result I had hoped for, so I did not touch any further.

Minute and hour hands. Obviously the lume material used on this watch is radium. Dial and hour hand with still all original radium lume intact. Lume on minute hand completely gone lost. Initially I even planned to leave the minute hand like it was, so completely without any lume. But while handling the watch and after fitting the hands back on when service was completed…it bugged me a bit too much and I decided to give the minute hand some new lume as well, ofcourse trying to match the color from the radium on dial and hour hand as close as possible. The radium lume on the hour hand I tried to "secure" by adding a transparent layer of special "glue" at the back of the hand. It’s certainly not perfect…but I do can live with it!

Talking about radium and radiation…included you will find some photos where I am measuring the actual radiation. From naked dial/hands, radiation from the back without caseback, radiation from the back with the stainless steel caseback in place and also radiation thru the plexi crystal. All I can say is that I was pretty surprised with the high parameters.

Case, pushers, crown…all of these I kept untouched, no refurbish or refinish at all. The case is in an amazingly good condition. You can clearly see this watch has been worn quite a lot, but still the lugs and bevels are a joy to look at, one of the things that actually made me buy this watch. Also the bezel is in very nice and honest condition. The lume triangle is the one to have on a 1st execution 2446. The crown is original to his watch, I only replaced the rubber seal inside as the old one was very brittle. Please have a very close look at these original pushers. I don’t think these have ever been displayed here on OTD or any other forum. Pushers are quite specific on the 2446 1st execution. While with most pushers we know the seals sit inside of the pusher-tube, with these pushers the seal is wrapped around the outside of the pusher-tube in a slot, a quite specific and important detail. Also these seals I have replaced obviously.

Now will follow a sequence of photos I took along the way.

At the Start;

Here we go;

FINISH;

Hope you enjoy reading and looking ;-)
Best,
abel.