What an amazingly interesting read accompanied with perfect shot pictures... well done Abel!

Cheers,
Thien

: 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.

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