Vostok Komandirskie suddenly Stopped winding – Fixed
It broke….again. It seems they might not be as reliable as people say, maybe I just got a “Bad apple”. This time it started unwinding while winding it and suddenly it stopped completely winding. After opening the watch, as you can see in the pictures, the screw on the big gear was loose.
As a result, the big gear had climbed over the smaller one that turns when winding, as a result it would never spin. It also climbed over the ratcheting mechanism. Probably that’s why it started to unwind. To fix it, I used the iFixit poking stick to push down the big gear so that it meshes with the smaller one. Then with the thin tweezers, I actuated the ratcheting mechanism so that it clicked in place. After that, I held the gear with the stick and tightened the screw.
After all that, I assumed it needed to be calibrated again. First test shows a bit error of 1, and it was going ~ +60s/d. You can find detailed steps on how to open and calibrate the watch here. After calibrating, I ended up with a satisfying 0.1 beat error and ~ +1s/d. Only time will tell if it will hold its accuracy (Pun intended 🙂 ). Let’s hope no more issues arise.
