Regulating a watch in London

[east3rn]

Hello.

I have a friend who is having a issue with his Seiko watch.

Watch is running a bit slow around -40s.

He wants to regulate the watch but he has no experience working on watches.

He took it to a local watchmaker and he was told that the watch should be serviced and

it would cost 300 pound which is as much as the price of watch itself.

Is there any watchmaker in London who can help him just on regulating the watch?

Thank you.

I always appreciate your help. 

 

 

 

[Flubber]

Sounds like a bad idea to just regulate the watch without making sure it will actually work and run well. It's like tryning to tune your car without changing the engine oil and I would recommend against it. It may work for a short period of time but it will break and stop all together before you know it without a service.

Perhaps someone on the forum  knows someone that may do it cheaper but that is not an authorized watch service center ?

 

What type of Seiko is it ? A picture from the caseback would tell us more.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Flubber

[east3rn]

It is Seiko Alpinist with 6r15 movement.

I believe it was purchased 2 years ago.

It is not very old so I suggested getting the watch regulated instead of

whole service.

[jdm]

6 hours ago, east3rn said:

He took it to a local watchmaker and he was told that the watch should be serviced and it would cost 300 pound which is as much as the price of watch itself.

There is a little chance that the repairer has noticed something when looking at the watch on the timegrapher. Your friend could go back there or somewhere else and take a picture of screen to be posted here. With that one can give an educated guess about the watch.

BTW, now that the current Seiko Alpinist has been discontinued evenused ones do trade for much more than 300 pounds.

2 hours ago, Flubber said:

Sounds like a bad idea to just regulate the watch without making sure it will actually work and run well.

We can't and shouldn't assume that the watch is not working well. Perhaps the owner is a demanding one about timekeeping and want near quartz accuracy after reading that some 6R15 do that.

2 hours ago, Flubber said:

It may work for a short period of time but it will break and stop all together before you know it without a service.

Luckily isn't exactly like that. It takes much longer than a "short period" for a mechanical watch to show problems due to lack of service. In fact it may not even break ever.

[rodabod]

Maybe try taking it to Alsal watches on the strand and explain that you simply want it regulated. This assumes that you don’t want it cleaned. 
 

It may also be worth asking them to demagnetise it. 

[east3rn]

5 hours ago, jdm said:

There is a little chance that the repairer has noticed something when looking at the watch on the timegrapher. Your friend could go back there or somewhere else and take a picture of screen to be posted here. With that one can give an educated guess about the watch.

BTW, now that the current Seiko Alpinist has been discontinued evenused ones do trade for much more than 300 pounds.

We can't and shouldn't assume that the watch is not working well. Perhaps the owner is a demanding one about timekeeping and want near quartz accuracy after reading that some 6R15 do that.

Luckily isn't exactly like that. It takes much longer than a "short period" for a mechanical watch to show problems due to lack of service. In fact it may not even break ever.

 

3 hours ago, rodabod said:

Maybe try taking it to Alsal watches on the strand and explain that you simply want it regulated. This assumes that you don’t want it cleaned. 
 

It may also be worth asking them to demagnetise it. 

Thank you. 

So sad that I could have helped him right away if I was in London.

I will try Alsal watches.

I hope regulating the watch works