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Projects: 1965 Benrus DTU2-A/P

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Benrus DTU2-A/Ps (and GG-W-113s) are regular visitors to the bench as Sumac Watches. The DTU, issued during the Vietnam war to US forces (mainly USAF and other units that needed watches with a higher grade movement). This example was issued in 1965 and on arrival was missing the outer stem and crown.

The DTU is a 'front-loader' with the movement accessed from the dial side and the case is all one piece with no removable back. This requires the removal of the crystal and the outer stem and crown, which clips onto the inner stem in a split stem arrangement. In theory, this means water ingress is less likely and it stops people from removing the back in fiddling with the movement. In practice the outer stems are often accidentally detached and lost, which means that water ingress is more likely.

As this is quite a common occurrence and as the original crowns are very difficult to find, we had crowns remanufactured in Switzerland, using a 1965 crown as the pattern.

The watch was fully stripped, including the lovely Benrus DR 2F2 movement (ETA 2372 base) which was in very good condition. The movement was cleaned and serviced with a new mainspring fgitted.

The case was ultrasonically cleaned and does show some wear and pitting, but overall not bad. The watch was reassembled with a new 'wedge ledge' OEM crystal and one of our remanufactured crowns and a new outer and inner stem.