# A Roamer Story



## quoll (Apr 20, 2006)

As some of you will know, I have a soft spot for Roamers. In particular I have been looking for ages for an early 44-jewel Rotopower to join my (even earlier) 21 jewel Rotopower and 23 jewel Rotodate.

This came up on eBay described as _"hand wind Roamer watch, runs but rattles when shaken"_. Hopefully, I bought it. For not a lot of money.










A quick disassembly confirmed it as a 44 jewel MST 436. With a broken rotor - hence the rattling.










With the rotor off, you can see the eight-jewel rotor bearing:










The dial was in good shape and promised to come up well with a little cleaning.










Whilst the case parts got the proprietary Quoll-registered cleaning process. (Dunking in a glass of detergent and a quick gentle scrub).


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## quoll (Apr 20, 2006)

...continued.

The movement, though a little dirty, was running well and keeping good time. The 44 jewel version of the MST 436 was designed as something of a 'show' movement by Roamer in the 'it must be better because it has more jewels' race in the early 60s. (Waltham won, as I recall, with a 100 jewel movement including 30 jewels around the outside of the movement, just in case the rotor touched them.) Roamer's movement can claim (just about) to have a real use for all those 44 jewels - for example the 8 in the rotor bearing - and other aspects such as the oversized winding gears give a long life too. Having said that, the 28 jewel version is also perfectly good.

There was nothing seriously amiss with the movement and it reassembled nicely.










The case parts are good, though there is a little plating loss to the lugs. All the bits are original, including the crown. The dial cleaned up really well. A new crystal and we have the finished article:





































The lume dots are Promethium and lost their glow long ago. It dates from around 1960, BTW.


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## Bladerunner (Jun 4, 2006)

Well done Quoll, like the way you have shown how you have gone through it step by step, can really see a difference & it looks great.


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## PhilM (Nov 5, 2004)

Wow that's a huge imporovment on the watch, the dial has come up so clean it looks like new









Also have to say your pictures are always very good


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## quoll (Apr 20, 2006)

Thanks all!

The dial was pretty good in the first place. It just needed a light brushing to remove dust and I used a stiffer brush and a soft wooden modelling stick on a few more stubborn bits. The I used the stick on the indeces too.

I use a range of artists brushes - they come in various sizes and bristle stiffness.

The case got a minor polish with a gold cloth too.


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## mach 0.0013137 (Jan 10, 2005)

An excellent job, it didn`t half scrub up well, very smart


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## media_mute (Apr 30, 2006)

wow- that looks great!


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## JohnW (Dec 27, 2006)

quoll said:


> Thanks all!
> 
> The dial was pretty good in the first place. It just needed a light brushing to remove dust and I used a stiffer brush and a soft wooden modelling stick on a few more stubborn bits. The I used the stick on the indeces too.
> 
> ...


Lovely! I saw that eBay item. Have you returned to Australia?


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## mel (Dec 6, 2006)

Very Nice - want one! h34r:


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## dapper (Jun 18, 2004)

Nice post Quoll - great watch & I enjoyed the picture story :thumbsup:


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2008)

Great job mate ,top photos to match :clap:


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## Filterlab (Nov 13, 2008)

Looks fantastic mate, that dial really cleaned up beautifully.  Kind of makes me want to ditch my day job and settle down in my own little workshop.

Trouble is - no tools and gigantic hands.


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## mjolnir (Jan 3, 2006)

It is a great story. The watch looks great and I love seeing photo's along the way as something is finished. Shows the work that's been put into it.



JohnW said:


> Lovely! I saw that eBay item. Have you returned to Australia?


I'm also really impressed with this thread being bumped from well over a year ago. That's some excellent use of the search function :lol:

Worth it just to see it again though.


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## dapper (Jun 18, 2004)

mjolnir said:


> I'm also really impressed with this thread being bumped from well over a year ago.


I didn't notice that :lol:


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