[gaspar]

Hi,
Long shot but I have to ask..

Does anyone know where to service an Accutron in Calgary Alberta Canada, or Alberta or Canada??
I'd love to send the watch for service to boomertime but Customs is just eating my lunch, everything they touch gets dinged..

Thanks
Gaspar

[Boomertime]

Gaspar,
I truly do indeed wish that I could direct you to a qualified Accutron Certified Technician in your "back yard". However, the facts are that even with the 600,000 AWI (American Watchmakers Institute) graduate Certified Master Watchmakers, there are less than 250 Accutron Certified Technicians worldwide! Since they were all trained in the USA,,, 99.9999% of them were, or are still in the USA. Remember,,, these Accutron technicians were trained from 1960 to the early 1970's. The overwhelming percentage of these people are either retired or most are deceased.
Sorry,,,,, but I just do not know of any Accutron service people "up North".
Respectfully, Boomer

[john2189]

Gaspar,
I truly do indeed wish that I could direct you to a qualified Accutron Certified Technician in your "back yard". However, the facts are that even with the 600,000 AWI (American Watchmakers Institute) graduate Certified Master Watchmakers, there are less than 250 Accutron Certified Technicians worldwide! Since they were all trained in the USA,,, 99.9999% of them were, or are still in the USA. Remember,,, these Accutron technicians were trained from 1960 to the early 1970's. The overwhelming percentage of these people are either retired or most are deceased.
Sorry,,,,, but I just do not know of any Accutron service people "up North".
Respectfully, Boomer

Sounds to me that some of these trained techs should be teaching the next generation to service these watches

[gaspar]

I agree, and it is happening in other industries, as an example I'm a Porsche 911 lova' too.
The new mechanics don't know how to tackle an air-cooled 911 without computers and those ones learning the ropes on the old cars are creating a huge customer base because those cars are not necessarily accepted in the dealerships.

So cross training is required and I only hope there are people who still work on these watches for many-many years, my son can't believe the watch hums, he actually asked me if he can have it when he is a "grown-up"! And I said no of course ;)

[accutronguy]

hi, my suggestion would be to look in your phone book and start calling watch repairmen. The bulova school trained many people to service those watches and there are still many left, that dont advertise such repairs because parts are not available etc. I was lucky to find a watchmaker only 10 miles away from me that still had all of his equipment but no parts. So he servces my accutrons for 30 dollars and if i need parts i have to get them myself. Which isnt hard to get for the 214, except for the coils. So i only buy ones that hum....its just is easier that way. i admit I got lucky finding a bulova trained repairman so close. Only because I did some legwork so good luck on your search

[Pegwood]

hi, my suggestion would be to look in your phone book and start calling watch repairmen. The bulova school trained many people to service those watches and there are still many left, that dont advertise such repairs because parts are not available etc. I was lucky to find a watchmaker only 10 miles away from me that still had all of his equipment but no parts. So he servces my accutrons for 30 dollars and if i need parts i have to get them myself. Which isnt hard to get for the 214, except for the coils. So i only buy ones that hum....its just is easier that way. i admit I got lucky finding a bulova trained repairman so close. Only because I did some legwork so good luck on your search

Excellent advice accutronguy, Gasper also check with NAWCC chapter 145 right there in Galgary AB (google it) and see if they can give you any tips, you will be surprised at how many accutron repairers there are around but don't advertise due to the parts availability. Tom Mister at http://www.dashto.com/ is a good source of Accutron parts and there is nothing you can't get on ebay. Accutron repair isn't black magic it requires 90% mechanical watchmaking skills and the other 10% is the correct service meter, tools and accutron skills.

I hope it is OK to recommend suppliers on this forum, if not the moderator can remove it.

Pegwood

[sidarooh]

Gaspar,
I think I may have an answer for you for Accutron service work in Canada. I am " fairly " new herealso, so I don't know if I can provide a link to Ebay item or not....so ...just go there and do a search with these words: "Accutron serviced". Those are the only words you need...just those two with a space in between. The guys Ebay name will be "
anticvarius". He is VERY good at what he does. I have personally bought about 6 or 7 from him, and they look and run fantastic. Just hit the tab that says something like " ask the seller a question " and ask him if he will service your watch. I do NOT know if he is willing to do other peoples watches other than the ones he does and sells for himself, but it is worth a try. BTW, as of like 6 months ago, he ALWAYS had like 10-12 Accutrons on at a time ( ALL serviced by him ), and now I just checked ( by searching on "Accutron serviced " ( because he ALWAYS has those two words in his titles ) and he only has 1. I don't know if his supply is drying up, or is he ill, or what ?!?!?! He always was nice to me, so he MAY service yours. Tell him you got his name from Sid in Texas. Good luck and let me know how it turns out.
Sid

[gaspar]

Thanks Sid,
I found him in ebay and he'll be my second choice as I just found the needle in the haystack...
I found in the yellow pages this company "Alberta Time Services" and this is their slogan: "Your Source for Expert Accutron Repairs"

Yeah! According to their website they're specialized in vintage accutron.. and they're one block away from my office..
http://www.members.shaw.ca/abts/



I hope they guys in there are good cause I'll bring my watches in for service.

Thank you all. I'll post some feedback for any future Canuck.

-Gaspar

[Thomas Carey]

Thanks Sid,
I found him in ebay and he'll be my second choice as I just found the needle in the haystack...
I found in the yellow pages this company "Alberta Time Services" and this is their slogan: "Your Source for Expert Accutron Repairs"

Yeah! According to their website they're specialized in vintage accutron.. and they're one block away from my office..
http://www.members.shaw.ca/abts/



I hope they guys in there are good cause I'll bring my watches in for service.

Thank you all. I'll post some feedback for any future Canuck.

-Gaspar

One block away from your office! That is what I call right under your nose. =) Let us know how that comes out. Oh and be sure to tell them about our forum. =)

[Boomertime]

WOW!!!! Only one block away from your office??? That is incredible! You must be living a charmed life!
Boomer

[skipnewman]

Hi,
Long shot but I have to ask..

Does anyone know where to service an Accutron in Calgary Alberta Canada, or Alberta or Canada??
I'd love to send the watch for service to boomertime but Customs is just eating my lunch, everything they touch gets dinged..

Thanks
Gaspar

Hi Gaspar,

I just had my Bell & Ross serviced, there was no duty for repaired items. They cannot charge a duty on an item that duty was already charged on when it was originally brought to Canada. just my2cents

[Boomertime]

There ya go,,, I guess this whole discussion on customs was a moot point. Oh well, at least Gaspar hopefully found an Accutron service expert in his own back yard. That has to be a very welcome discovery!

[gaspar]

Here's the update..
The owner used to run the Bulova Service Centre for Western Canada (Winnipeg to Victoria), at some point he had 18 people working on Accutrons only. All warranty work came his way, they used to service 50-70 Accutrons a day!!
But now he is old and won't touch a 214 with a 10 foot pole...
The reason being is that he is simply tired of Accutrons.. and now that he has a lot of work with other brands he is selective at what he works on. I actually believe he doesn't work on any 214 because he showed me 2 pristine (as in brand new) spaceview that are not working and he told me he just doesn't have the energy to check what's wrong with them. :(

I asked if there was anyone else in Canada that he knew and told me they're retired or death.

So my search continues and if needed I'll bite the bullet and ship my watches to the US for service.

-Gaspar

[Boomertime]

Here's the update..
The owner used to run the Bulova Service Centre for Western Canada (Winnipeg to Victoria), at some point he had 18 people working on Accutrons only. All warranty work came his way, they used to service 50-70 Accutrons a day!!
But now he is old and won't touch a 214 with a 10 foot pole...
The reason being is that he is simply tired of Accutrons.. and now that he has a lot of work with other brands he is selective at what he works on. I actually believe he doesn't work on any 214 because he showed me 2 pristine (as in brand new) spaceview that are not working and he told me he just doesn't have the energy to check what's wrong with them. :(

I asked if there was anyone else in Canada that he knew and told me they're retired or death.

So my search continues and if needed I'll bite the bullet and ship my watches to the US for service.

-Gaspar

Wow,,,,, that's too bad Gaspar. I thought that you had found the "Holy Grail" finding an Accutron specialist only a block from your office. You will find the gentleman's story that you spoke to almost universal. The very people that actually took the Bulova Accutron training between 1960 and the early 1970's are indeed either retired, or in many cases deceased. This training dates back half a century and very few of these folks are still working or even alive. Most of the people that do have the certification, the proper tools and the knowledge to repair or work on tuning fork escapements just don't have the desire or energy (like your contact) to want to work on Accutrons.