This one is a bit of a grail watch for me. I own many 218 Accutron tuning forks but until now the 214 has eluded me. That is until this one came up for sale in a Japanese auction with crap pictures and no description. As I like a challenge I jumped at the chance and won the auction!
The 214 Accutron Tuning Fork movement was the world’s first tuning fork movement that works by taking the known frequency of a tuning fork and tuning that vibration into motion of wheels to drive a watch. It very clever and below on this page is a link to my video restoration where I explain things further. These were accurate to less than 1 minute a month and in 1960 this was a decade before quartz meaning that these were the most accurate watches you could buy at the time. They also have the smoothest tick at 320 beats per second! A normal mechanical watch is 5 beats. That makes these a sight to behold. You can hear them as well as they give off an audible hum.
Below was the only image I had to go from so it was an anxious 2 week wait for it to arrive.
Once here I put a battery inside and immediately heard a hum! this is a good sign as it means the coils are good and that everything else I should be able to repair.
Looking around the movement I could see it was extremely dirty and looks to have had a battery leak at some point too.
In the picture above, this is the back the watch and its here we find the battery hatch (stuck) and the crown. Its the only watch I know that has a crown on the reverse an on these there is a little latch that flips up but alas its missing on mine, clearly broken off from abuse. I will have to source one of these later. Okay lets open the caseback!
Out with the Super Case Opener!!
This was a tough nut to crack. threads full of debris and rust and probably the main reason the movement is so dirty.
I will now disassemble, clean and reassemble and see if I can get this one going. As its my first time in an Accutron 214 I thought I would film the restoration. If you want to see more then click this link below.
If you don’t have time to watch this video then I can now show you the finished watch but before I do here is a shot of the index fingers which are much thinner than human hair and what is at the heart of this watch and makes them so miraculous.
