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Look on eBay for the Chinese clones of the 6497 & 6498. They're considerably cheaper than a real Swiss one and almost identical. The other thing to go for is look for pocket watches not running and don't purchase them with the intent of making them run. Purchase them with the intent of practicing putting them together and taking them apart without breaking anything. The only way you get good at not breaking things is by practicing lots of practicing preferably on something that you care about.

Well if you want to start budget, SKX007 or SKX009 (the 009 is the pepsi bezel one) which has a 7S26 movement. Or if you go a bit more you can get a 777 which is hacking and hand wind and just a better watch. Or you can stretch to turtles, or to a marine master, or the beautiful SLA017 which is the modern ltd edition interpretation of the 62MAS, or you can go down the rabbit hole that is vintage - and let's leave quartz out of it for now as that's a whole other list... even if you just restrict to divers you can spend pretty much whatever you have! Whatever you get, post pics, I do love a Seiko!

The big factor Johnnie is your budget. You can pick up a decent Seiko automatic for £20 or the most I have seen is just over £20k (which was a well known collector buying a model lots of people didn't believe existed in real life from Japan). I'm much nearer the first number unfortunately! I'd suggest that you visit instagram, type #seiko or #seikoaddict or #seikolife, start scrolling and make notes and start doing research on the ones that speak to you. But my main advice would be: Run! And don't look back! Once you start on the Seiko habit it is very addictive...

And so after more than a year later, I am finally done with this project. And this is the finished project. Honestly, I still don't like how it looks overall. But I'll be wearing this one proudly for sure. Sent from my ASUS_Z010D using Tapatalk

This project started more than a year ago when a friend gave me his gold-plated 6309-7040 case. Just the case, the crown and the bezel. Now, I really don't fancy gold watches but the thought of pulling this off to something that I will actually wear excited me. So I attended to this project whenever I had the time. Started off by buying all the parts that I needed including the crystal, the crystal ring holder, gaskets and the two-part stem. These are all after-markets and are readily available here in the Philippines. But the movement ring and spring as well as the case back, I have to acquire from ebay. The real challenge however is deciding on the look. Gold hands and gold-black bezel inserts are available. But I don't think it will look good to use the available dial and chapter ring. So I had a local watchmaker custom made the dial and chapter ring with my desired color scheme. (To be continued) Sent from my ASUS_Z010D using Tapatalk

Hello guys, I'm Andrei, a Romanian quality engineer based in Banbury UK. I'm a big fan of watch collecting, hobby watch repair and service. Was looking for a nice community of people that share the same interest and I hope I'm in the right place Looking forward on sharing stuff with you. Andrei M.

Hello All; Another project on my table, this time a bit of a mystery for me. It would be nice if somebody could tell me a bit more about this Pocket Watch, age and the movement type. First some pictures and what I already know; "Carl Hetzel Anholt" written on the enamel dial. Anholt is a small German village in the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The back of the case has on the inside 0.800 and the Grouse hallmark stamped in. The same numbering and hallmarks can be found in the top ring and on other watch housing parts. Carl Hetzel must have been a driven entrepreneur and perhaps thought "never let an opportunity go to waste", and so engraved his name also in the dust-cover. One can't repeat it enough The movement size is 41.3mm or 18.5'''. The only makers mark on the wheel-train bridge says: "Depose". On the front of the main-plate a number: 5238.51 It runs, but is in desperate need of a service and a new main-spring. From what I gather from the internet, this watch seems to have a "Cylinder escapement", there is no lever and the escape-wheel engages directly into the balance-wheel shaft. There is a cutaway cylinder on the balance wheel shaft and the 15 teeth escape wheel looks like the picture below; Further internet reading reveals that this type of escapements are used in inexpensive movements. Perhaps this explains the hard tractability of the movement? Also disassembling; it doesn't "feel" like high-end. Has anybody any idea from which period this watch is? Some more information about the movement? Any value guesstimates ? Is it worth to fixing up; it needs fur sure a new mainspring. Hope somebody has some knowledge about these type of watches ...... Regards: Roland.

Glad to hear you got such good service from Adam. I hopes he's OK.

This should "help" in your search for a collection. http://www.watchsleuth.com/seiko5finder/

Hello All; I received an Omega 18SPB gold-plated pocket watch, allegedly a non-runner. It was a heirloom item and had to be passed on to the younger generation. Luckily it wasn't a total "non-runner"; after a full wound it ran for 7 hrs. The small seconds-hand was missing and there were visible signs of dirt inside the case & movement. According to bidfun-db ( http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2ustu&1095006620), it is a "Gents Omega Hunter", from the 1924 era and the 18SPB movement has 15-jewels, a bi-metallic screw balance with a Breguet hairspring. Here are some pictures of the watch in the condition I received it; Front cover and dial; Notice the dirt on dial and on the inside of the bottom edge glass ... Rear covers and movement; The 18SPB movement seems pretty straight forwards and judging the case marks / movement-screws-heads; not very often "messed" with. The case numbers did match-up and the gold-plating wear on the case & the chain seem to match up as well. Also the tapered chain seems the original & authentic one; a great bonus ! Before removing the winding stem, remove the residual power in the main-spring; in this case there wasn't any residual power left (?). To pull the winding stem, the set lever screw has to be undone by 1-1/2 to 2 turns; After removing the winding stem, there are two case-screws which have to be taken out. It's a "front loader", the movement is placed inside the casing through the front. Flipped the case over and carefully remove the glass & bezel ...... both the glass and bezel are of very thin material ...... Carefully remove the movement. There is a thin ring around the movement, between the bottom of the movement and the watch case; not shown in the picture. The hands are a straight pull up. The dial is attached to the movement by three (3x) dial-screws, each with a roughly 120 degrees spacing in between; Stripping the keyless works, minute and hour wheel revealed some excessive lubrication; Note; the winding pinion didn't come out at this stage. Pulled the canon-pinion but left both keyless-springs (left and right) in place. Keep an close eye on the minute pinion, which protrude above the main-plate !! Flipped the movement over and removed the balance. Thereafter removed the pallet-bridge, the pallet and the wheel bridge. Note that the crown wheel screw is left-handed, but hasn't got the triple markings some left-hand screws have; Removed ratchet wheel and the crown wheel, also note there is an additional washer underneath the crown wheel; Removed the wheel train, barrel-bridge, spring-barrel, winding pinion and the set lever screw. All items collected in a tray; Opened up the main-spring barrel; Took the old spring out and I have to say that the old spring wasn't eager to get its freedom back ! Before I started on the watch, I asked under the "Watch repairs Help & Advice" the forum for some help. A very educative discussion followed; Luckily I received some excellent help from JohnR725 and StuartBaker104. Both noticed that a wrong main-spring was fitted. The spring fitted had a "normal-bridle", whereas the barrel needed a "DBH" special bridle. This meant that the old spring was not a good reference for a new spring With the help of both forum members above, and the "Spring calculator" on David Boettchers website; http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/mainsprings.php, we were able to guesstimate which spring was needed. The internal barrel diameter was 14.4mm. Feeding this number in the "Reverse engineering calculator" yielded the follow answer: Spring thickness = 0.177, length = 450, turns = 6.4, area = 55%. From measuring the barrel, the maximum allowable height of the spring was 1.9mm. Scrolling through CousinsUK list for 1.9mm high DBH springs, the closed match was spring GR5617DBH which dimensions were 1.9x0.18x440x14.5 (Height x thickness x length x washer ID). That was the spring which was ordered, pictured below; Even though the spring fitted from the washer inside the barrel, I couldn't engage the hook, so the spring had to be unwound. Note the difference in the amount of "un-cloiling" between the old tired spring and the eager spring. No wonder there was no residual power in the old spring left after 7 hrs running ! Fitted the new spring and it was a perfect fit While this all with the spring was going on, StuartBaker104 made me aware of an eBay auction for a lot of small fusee seconds-hands. The auction ended late in the evening and I throw in a bid, never thought to win it. Lo and behold, I did win !! Whether they fitted had to be seen, but judging the sellers pictures, they had to be close. Thanks again for the tip Stuart ! While the hands were on their way, I thoroughly cleaned and de-magnatized the movement parts. To be continued in part II since I nearly lost all my work above; about 2 hrs of work !! This program doesn't allow intermediate saving, which isn't so good ! @Mark: can that be changed ?

SUCCESS. I visited a local watch repair shop and asked if he could get this caseback on. He said it would cost 25 bucks and I would need to leave it with him. Then he said that the case back was warped and that's why it won't go back on. I had an instant eureka moment. All I needed to do was to push out the center a bit then press it on. So i thanked him for his advise and rushed home. Put the case back in my GS press and pushed on the center a bit so it was just a bit bowled out. Flipped it around with the watch in place and it snapped on with little effort. Ta Da! As a favor to the watchmaker, I gave his son my card as a reference to his son who recently graduated from Electrical Engineering, for a potential job where I work. All good. Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

Hi Guys, Thanks for all the advice. It came out from the front after all. I just had to find the correct place to insert the knife. I will have a look if I can repair the scratches in the crystal before I press it out. They are quite deep though so now that I'm this far I think I would like to replace it. Also I would like to give the case a good clean and remove the scratches.

BUT, the great thing about Seiko is they have released thousands of not tens of thousands of different models from plain to funky and everything in between. So plenty for everyone without resorting to all having the same models as each other. Check out the Vanac range or some of the Lord Matics. This is mine [emoji4]

That comes out from the front. There is a crystal ring that is held in with a gasket. With the crystal in. You won'ty have any luck tapping on the movement ring as that is a part of the case.

The hands were installed, after which, I placed the movement into the case. With the partially assembled movement inside the watch case, I then installed the automatic winder works. Sent from my ASUS_Z010D using Tapatalk

I bought a used 6309 movement and gave it a bath. The assembly of the movement was straightforward. But I stopped short of installing the automatic winding works to proceed with the rest of the watch Sent from my ASUS_Z010D using Tapatalk

My wife thinks the case is too loud, especially with its cushion case. So I thought of using a brown leather strap to temper it's look. I use a 2mm brown leather and brown stitching for the strap. I wanted to give it a rough look so I just burnished the edges a little (To be continued) Sent from my ASUS_Z010D using Tapatalk

Mark Lovick teaches on the Unitas 6497, and for good reasons. Purchasing and following his Hi-Res training is the best way to learn

Hi Mike, I sympathise with your problem in finding a case restorer. Not and easy job! Have you had any luck since? I have a similar issue with a gold Rotary case and I'd love to have it repaired. I'll let you know if I find anything if you haven't already fixed your problem. Best of luck! David

Part II: Assembly and the end result. After cleaning all the jewels, I wasn't able to undo the balance cap-stones. Lubrication was therefor difficult and not optimal. Before placing the barrel bridge, next to the spring barrel, remember to lubricate & place the winding-pinion and the set lever screw; Assembling is the reverse of disassembling; Barrel-bridge, click and crown-wheel lubricated & installed ; The wheel train; Train bridge, pallet fork & bridge Keyless works and winding stem; Installed the balance wheel and ........... a healthy "tick" !! Did some initial checks on the time-grapher and all looked good enough to go ahead and to install the dial and hands. The tubing of the one of the eBay small seconds hand had to be squeezed / pinched with a pin-vice. Luckily I managed to get a nice fit and the hand doesn't look "off" Cleaned the case. It was decided to leave the gold-plating wear of the case and chain as is; the watch was allowed to show its age & previous usage in all its glory To conclude; here are some of the time-graphs. I later adjusted the daily-rate a bit. As for the Beat Error; I decided to leave it as is, too little and not worth the risk. Besides, the watch won't be worn daily, but more to be worn on special occasions. The bench-test showed that the watch ran indeed as accurate as the graphs suggest ....... Dial Down; Dial Up; For some unknown reasons the CU & CD parameters weren't copied to the USB stick, but the amplitude & BE were about the same as dial up & dial down; around 300+ degrees and 2m/s. Crown Up; Crown Down; to me; not too scabby for a nearly 100 years old movement ! I hope the next owner will enjoy & proudly wear this nice watch. For sure, it was for me a privilege to work on it. Thank you Solveig for giving me this opportunity ! Hope that you will enjoy this walk through and that it is of some use to somebody, someday; Roland.

Had an issue with an old full plate waltham i picked up. The mainspring barrel arbor was stuck in the upper cover of the barrel. I figured that it needed to move within the barrel so i took the arbor out and out it in my watchmakers lathe and i used a ruby stone to polish it down a bit. Worked like a charm. Remove and cleaned the spring and popped the cover back on. Then reinstalled it in the movement and wound it up a bit and tested the palate fork with a tooth pick to see if it snaps back and forth. It did so the power was getting from the barrel to the fork. Balance was out as i just completed making a staff on my lathe for this watch. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Possibly an unhelpful suggestion there is another way to get the watch to run without replacing the hairspring and being reasonably close on time perhaps. So remove the regulator arm and convert this to a free sprung balance. You'll still be a little fast depending upon how much hairspring you stuck into the stud when you pinned it. Then I noticed that there are two mean time screws on the balance wheel you could regulate with those your If you are close enough.