All:
Bad news. Apparently, a repair was attempted on this case in the past. Upon closer examination, I discovered the outermost bezel hinge center tube was inadvertently soldered to the case – or fused if you will. Since solder only flows via capillary action through clean tight joints, one can put wax, buffing compound, oil, etc. onto any adjacent area that solder needs to stay away from. This appears to have been ignored by the last person who tried and re-solder the bezel. So, when the bezel was positioned and re-soldered the solder flowed into the joint between the hinge and the bezel – which was the correct repair – but then it also flowed out between the case and the hinge center tube which fused it to the case making it permanently fixed. This explains why the bezel solder joint broke again.
The only way to fix it is to remove the hinge from the case, replace the center hinge tube, and re-solder the entire assembly back to the case. I don’t know if I’m up for that right now – perhaps in the future.
Later,
Tom
