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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
Are the Seikos easier or harder to work on ? The way you put it, it sounds like they are more industrial/robust and less ornate than the swiss movements. I guess that translates into reliability….
Most of my seikos all have movements made in malaysia or vietnam. Hardly see one made in japan other than the Grand seikos
Are the Seikos easier or harder to work on ? The way you put it, it sounds like they are more industrial/robust and less ornate than the swiss movements. I guess that translates into reliability….
Most of my seikos all have movements made in malaysia or vietnam. Hardly see one made in japan other than the Grand seikos
This one is a bit less user friendly, because they place some of the automatic winding components onto the train wheel bridge. So you have take that bridge off, flip it over and take more parts off of it, including some pretty fiddly components, and the tiniest shock jewels you'll see instead of simple cups. The "Swiss" movements I have worked on have placed the winding works on its own module that sits on the underside of the movement. Also a lot of the gear train is stacked on top of each other, so you have to get your oiling done in order during assembly, whereas with more human-friendly designs you can generally do the oiling once the train is assembled. That's been my very short experience with ETA and Rolex and Omega at least
But it's good in that there aren't a bunch of tiny springs in there. Only a couple springs, and they're attached to other, bigger parts
The calendar has a lot of parts too, but that's pretty common.
The most annoying part was getting the winding stem in with the pinion, clutch, AND another setting wheel, with nothing to set them on. This guy makes it look easy here (timestamped)
Yeah I don't think he's particularly stable, but anyone who would be rock solid doing that fiddly procedure at that magnification would probably have become a surgeon instead of a watchmaker
Old 7s movements parts are harder to find so I usually just upgrade them to nh35/36 movements if the case can fit it. NH35/36 movements are getting pricey so beware of knockoffs now.
Oh yeah you're right. I bought this NH36 for ￥230 RMB and now it's listed for ￥280. A Miyota 8215 I got also went up, from ￥140 to ￥152
I've seen the China NH35's listed on AliExpress, but not taobao yet. At least they're labeling them properly. It's really easy to tell anyway, assuming the pictures are accurate.
I've found a few shops on taobao that have been reliable for me, even buying Swiss stuff. I've found so far that in general you get what you pay for. Choose the cheapest stuff, you'll get the cheapest stuff. Pay a bit more, and you'll get better products and service.
I guess we can look into swapping the movement if 68 is interested. I haven't looked into that yet, is it pretty straight forward?
Back to that VS 3135, like many Chinese shock springs, these things fall out so easily. They are like KIF springs, so I stupidly tried to use the same method to reinstall, and it broke the spring. Nobody seems to carry the 'domestic' springs, so the choice was to either buy an original Rolex spring, or just get a new balance complete for the same price. So I did the latter
Wouldn't you believe it, another spring came out during installation, even though I had Rodico over it! Will be extra extra careful next time. This time I used a different method to reinstall it, and had no problem getting it back in. I was lucky too - it flew onto the ground, and I found it pretty much right away. It really pays to keep the workshop clean and clutter free as possible.
On top of that, one of the screwed broke (it's as soft as plastic) so I replaced that as well, buying a spare just in case. Good thing I did, because the other similar screw broke as well.
Anyway it runs well now. I'll regulate it tomorrow; it should be a bit better than when it came in.
Here's it is being recorded in slow motion to determine lift angle. You can see the mark I made on the balance to measure how much it rotates. Lift angle confirmed at 52 degrees.
I live in AB anyway, nothing's ever more than 5% so who cares.
Yah it was from eBay but the seller had their location as USA and then suddenly I get tracking# it's coming from India. Lame. I knew there'd be problems as soon as I saw that.
Good news, I got a camera for my microscope! I have to keep an eye on it though, as it is cropped differently from my view
Here I am installing the train wheel bridge on this Seagull 2824. You can see it's pretty beat up as I have been working on it for many months, mostly before I had a scope. I also have a HKT version which runs better and has better finishing on the wheels.
I quickly took a look at it, and here are my initial findings
First of all, I'm pretty sure this is not a Seiko watch. The Seiko 7009A movement is real, but the (brass) case, dial, and hands are not original.
Since those parts are pretty new, that stuff was in mostly good condition.
The movement is in pretty rough shape though
You can see lots of scratches and crud everywhere, and someone scratched in a giant "N" under the balance wheel (or is it a "Z"?). That might even be rust down there to the left of the "N", I'll take a closer look tomorrow.
But it runs, and the calendar seems to be working, so we should be able to get it running in a usable way. How well does it keep time?
Not too bad actually. The current rate is less relevant in terms of repair, but you can see that it clearly isn't keeping good enough time to be useful, gaining 3-4 minutes each day. It's not magnetized. More concerning for me is the amplitude and beat error, both of which I'll try to improve with the service. But as off as the timekeeping is, the lines are straight and parallel, meaning there's probably nothing seriously wrong with the balance or wheels. Everything is probably just extremely dirty, but I'll take a closer look.
Another issue is that the automatic winder doesn't work well:
You can see that the pawl levers are not able to rotate the reduction wheel with a light spin, so this does not wind the watch. It does work with more force (like shaking the watch while assembled) but this will need to be looked at as well
But it's going to be as clean as new after service. I just hope I can get everything else running well. Should be a fun project! Will keep you guys updated
After that it gets rinsed in alcohol, then cleaned in a watch cleaning solution for 20 minutes in an ultrasonic cleaner. Then rinsed in water, rinsed in 99% alcohol, and dried.
I think this is about as clean as it's going to get. Lots of marks and exposed brass here
this is NUTS!!!! very interesting. i feel like im blind just watching you work on these tiny things... i get nervous touching tiny things with my big ole ham hock hands.
Fascinating stuff, I found when I wound and set the time… it just stopped after about 30 minutes or less just FYI… so I’m not confident about it running right
Fascinating stuff, I found when I wound and set the time… it just stopped after about 30 minutes or less just FYI… so I’m not confident about it running right
It probably wasn't getting a full enough wind due to that automatic winder not really working. That's the only way to wind these without opening them up; normally you have to shake your watch for like 30 seconds to get it going, but with this one you would probably have to go for much longer. As you can see, it badly needed a service anyway
I'll be checking to see if the parts are worn out and need to be replaced, or if they were just dirty. Replacements are like 1-3 RMB for these parts
this is NUTS!!!! very interesting. i feel like im blind just watching you work on these tiny things... i get nervous touching tiny things with my big ole ham hock hands.
It's weird because with magnification, it feels like everything is just really big, and with good tweezers it's not that hard to manipulate the small parts properly.
An issue I still have is despite that, physics and gravity don't increase in size, so things go flying a lot easier. And when they do, it can be impossible to find them.
That movement could be anywhere between 30-50 years old. It was probably taken out of an old watch and slapped into that aftermarket case with aftermarket dial and hands and sold on ebay without cleaning or servicing it since it was running. This could have happened several times over! You can see it has been worked over quite a bit, but clearly not as carefully as I am treating it lol
A couple of the springs have some black hard crust on them that won't come off, which I don't even know what it is. I'll take a closer look to see if it's rust. If it is I may have to remove it, or else it will continue to spread
Inspecting parts to see if there's anything that is so trashed it can't be useable. Of particular interest is the auto winding system "MagicLever" as that wasn't working when it came
I put each onto a brass plate, and inspect it under high magnification with titanium tweezers. These metals are as soft or softer than the parts being worked on, so they will resist scratching.
First up is the ratchet wheel, part of the winding system that was not clicking over
Yah I think I mentioned above the seller had their location as USA but suddenly after I bought the tracking said it was coming from India… was hoping it would still work being. A Seiko and practically indestructible but alas no such luck hahaha although I can definitely see why given the poor condition of everything inside!
I hope it’s proving to be valuable experience, feels super professional now with the photos you’re able to take.
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