Replacing the glass of a Vintage Omega Speedmaster watch after a Sunday watchmaker

As a watchmaker and collector of antique watches, I am always happy to welcome beautiful pieces to my workbench. Here an Omega Speedmaster reference ST 145022 from 1980.

The goal here is to replace the glass. Unfortunately, an unscrupulous watchmaker passed by...

Inventory of the vintage chronograph

Tritium dust and non-original glass. Not very sexy.

In addition the glass is mounted crooked...

The glass was forced so much during installation that it was cracked.

This horror must be removed.

Teardown of the vintage Omega Speedmaster

To be able to work peacefully on the glass, we start by removing the bottom of the box.

Then we remove the dust cover which also serves as an anti-magnetic cage.

There we find the superb Omega caliber 861!

The serial number on the anchor deck is hidden for obvious reasons.

The pull screw is unscrewed, the winding stem is extracted, releasing the movement/dial/hands assembly.

We can finally remove the ugly glass. This one is shamefully fixed with glue, it is everywhere on the throat!

The glue is carefully removed, the case is sound, we can move on to reassembly.

The reassembly of the Omega Speedmaster Vintage

A new and original Omega hesalite glass is fitted to the Speedmaster. Of course !

The new glass is in place and the dial is clean.

Last obstacle before the result, the glass protection film.

Conclusion

Replacing the generic glass with an original glass restores all its splendor to this legendary watch.

These Speed ​​tritium never leave me indifferent...

Once again, this article highlights the importance of choosing the watchmaker who services your watches.

Installing a glass in this way is a distressing practice which reflects the lack of professionalism of said watchmaker.

To find out more about the Omega Speedmaster, you can read the excellent 2-part article from Les Rhableurs:

Part 1 and Part 2

You can also get the ultimate bible: Moonwatch Only

Thank you for reading the article and I leave you with a video of the caliber 861 in action:

You can find the other blog articles here: Blog  

Joshua Grillet

Founder of LumeVille and watchmaker