Seiko 7T32-6L20 Macchina Sportiva

[systeman]

I've been looking for one of these for a very long time. I've just got my hands on a Seiko Macchina Sportiva from the 1990's, but this one is quite rare. It's the 7T32-6L20 Black ION with its original black rubber strap.

I've given it a full service but need to realign the date ring, that's not a problem. But what is a problem is the case back.

There's video I've made to show it off a bit.

The back on these was a silicone based black finish and this had deteriorated over time. Again, not too much of a problem, I'll completely strip back the back plate to bare metal and reapply a new decal to original spec.

 

 

[Ishima]

Eager to see the new decal, great stuff. 

[systeman]

I've finally got round to redoing the case back for this watch. Now it's looking pretty good.

The original was probably a screen print over the finish. 

I used the photos of the original to redo artwork before applying it to the back.

I apologise for the blurry photo.

[StuartBaker104]

How did you do that? It looks great!

[systeman]

23 hours ago, StuartBaker104 said:

How did you do that? It looks great!

I took a photograph of a few Macchina Sportiva case backs and took measurements of the text, the logo panel and diameter of the text relative to the panel and case back.

I then edited and recreated the Logo panel in Gimp.

I recreated the circular text using the same font as a layer.

Then I created a black background layer the same overall size of the case back.

The artwork was the laser printed onto a transfer film ready for transferring to the case back.

Obviously, printers do not print white text. Therefore, I used an acid etch primer on the case back before painting it with an off white background for the text.

The transfer was then applied and baked on. A few coats of matte lacquer was then applied to seal and finish it off.

This is not one for the faint hearted, it needs a lot of patience.

[Watchtime]

really nice job, well done....

[PJA]

13 hours ago, systeman said:

I took a photograph of a few Macchina Sportiva case backs and took measurements of the text, the logo panel and diameter of the text relative to the panel and case back.

I then edited and recreated the Logo panel in Gimp.

I recreated the circular text using the same font as a layer.

Then I created a black background layer the same overall size of the case back.

The artwork was the laser printed onto a transfer film ready for transferring to the case back.

Obviously, printers do not print white text. Therefore, I used an acid etch primer on the case back before painting it with an off white background for the text.

The transfer was then applied and baked on. A few coats of matte lacquer was then applied to seal and finish it off.

This is not one for the faint hearted, it needs a lot of patience.

Great job and very creative!

[systeman]

I've now uploaded a video of the finished watch:

It was great fun getting involved with refurbishing the case back. After assembling and testing the functions, I did notice an improvement in the volume of the buzzer. This was probably because of baking the decal. The process must have improved the conductivity of the old adhesive.