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Hi everyone ! I recently acquired a vintage Seiko 5 7009-316A, which I’ve restored and serviced, including the restoration and repainting of the hands.This watch is quite unique in my opinion, as it features a bezel design painted directly onto the crystal. Unfortunately, during the restoration process, the beautiful cream-patinated crystal cracked because it was too old...It was a real challenge to source an original Seiko replacement crystal, but I finally managed to find one. However, I feel like the watch has lost some of its charm without that gorgeous aged patina on the painted design, and now it's just plain white.. To try to replicate the original look, I recreated the design exactly as it was (even replicating the original font by hand!) using Adobe Illustrator. I then turned the design into a sticker. One of the biggest challenges was that the sticker needed to adhere to the inside of the crystal, not the outside. This meant the adhesive side had to be on the colored surface. I created a mirrored transparent sticker, applied it to the underside of the crystal, and the result looked promising—at first. Sadly, after just a few days, the sticker started peeling off, and I realized this solution wasn’t viable long-term. I’m now at a loss for how to properly recreate the painted crystal. I’d love to know how original painted crystals like those on the Seiko 7009-316A are manufactured. For example, similar designs can be seen on the Omega Speedmaster Mark IV, which has a tachymeter painted on the crystal. If anyone has experience with this or knows of any professional methods to reproduce this type of crystal, I’d greatly appreciate your advice! Thanks in advance!

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Hi all, working on my 5106- xxxx, with 33 jewels, no less, and two things have come to puzzle me that I'm predicting someone here can resolve. One, I'm pretty sure the cap jewels under the tiny "C" spring are flat against the pivot and domed against the "C" spring. The reason I know this is my watch runs after cleaning, but reluctantly, so I suspect a jewel is in upside down and that domed face has removed any end shake and/or added preload. I did look carefully, and could see any, but those jewels are really tiny. Second question, is there a technique and/ or tool someone can recommend to remove these little blighters? I've used the tip of my tweezers so far and distorted one spring, and savaged another. There has to be a better way. The big tri-lobed spring for the balance is no problem, by the way. Suggestions?