Vintage Seiko 5856-5000 Crystal and Crystal Gasket???

[mzinski]

I'm searching for a hard to find vintage Seiko crystal and crystal gasket for a Seiko reference 5856-5000. The crystal part number is:  ES0W41GA00

As I understand it, this is a hard to find part. I wonder if you have any good parts sources that could help me get this crystal. I'm going down the traditional routes (eBay, watch part suppliers, crystal manufs, etc) but any leads are very helpful. 

Thanks!!

 

[jdm]

25 minutes ago, mzinski said:

I wonder if you have any good parts sources that could help me get this crystal.

There is no secret place for parts. Anyone does the same searches you can do.

What's the issue with the crystal? I see no cracks. Any scratch can be polished to perfection. 

 

[watchweasol]

Hi Have you tried the likes of Jules Borel,  Esslingers,  Otto Frei all suppliers of quality.

[JohnR725]

A little hard to tell in the picture it does look like a crack? Then it looks like it's just a piece of flat glass with a gasket which is hard to see? If it just Is flat glass and it doesn't have anything really special about it you could get a new glass cut and epoxy that in. Then I can be physically bigger and you wouldn't have to worry about the gasket.

[mzinski]

29 minutes ago, jdm said:

There is no secret place for parts. Anyone does the same searches you can do.

What's the issue with the crystal? I see no cracks. Any scratch can be polished to perfection. 

 

I only recently discovered Blake at Scotchwatch. He seems to be able to source many vintage, hard-to-find parts. I have, of course, reached out to him. I was asking as a matter of whether other Blake's exist in the parts world. 

Also, I have applied for a Seiko parts account but never heard back. If someone has an account, perhaps they can source more parts or inquire with Seiko. 

Yes, there is a big crack running horizontally across the crystal. 

[mzinski]

16 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

A little hard to tell in the picture it does look like a crack? Then it looks like it's just a piece of flat glass with a gasket which is hard to see? If it just Is flat glass and it doesn't have anything really special about it you could get a new glass cut and epoxy that in. Then I can be physically bigger and you wouldn't have to worry about the gasket.

It's flat mineral glass with a chamfered edge. 

Where would I have a piece of mineral glass cut? I'm very much inclined to pursue this. 

[jdm]

9 minutes ago, mzinski said:

Where would I have a piece of mineral glass cut? I'm very much inclined to pursue this. 

Try your local optical shop. They do that every day for lille money, but the few watchmakers that cut glass do that less often and ask more. 

If you can find a crystal that is very close in shape and size you can also try yourself with a white grinding wheel on thr bench motor. 

[mzinski]

8 minutes ago, jdm said:

Try your local optical shop. They do that every day for lille money, but the few watchmakers that cut glass do that less often and ask more. 

If you can find a crystal that is very close in shape and size you can also try yourself with a white grinding wheel on thr bench motor. 

Brilliant, great recommendation! 

[JohnR725]

34 minutes ago, mzinski said:

Where would I have a piece of mineral glass cut? I'm very much inclined to pursue this. 

Try googling cutting glass watch crystals see what comes up

I get spoiled with local material houses and knowledge of the past. It used to be we had two separate material houses that would cut glass crystals. I even worked for one of them learned all the undesirable things you can do with glass like cutting fingers chipping the glass etc. before you get it right. I'm pretty sure they sold their glass cutting capability. The other material house the machines still exists they just don't have a material house and I don't know if they cut crystals anymore.

Then used to be companies that would make machines for cutting watch glass crystals. Usually the material houses ended up with them because there were expensive. But there were some that were less expensive that watchmakers might have had.

If the local material houses used to have the capability of cutting glass crystals it stands to reason that the older material houses probably also did. As quite a few of them are online I would inquire plus of course do a Google search.

[JohnR725]

If you're really desperate and Have lots of money it looks like you can still buy a crystal cutting machine.

https://www.hswalsh.com/product/watch-glass-cutting-machine-kronoglass-motorised-hg2

I did see other people cutting crystals online but this one's interesting because I recognize the machine now and you can see they have lots of templates obviously this machine is seen at water use.

http://www.universalwatch.net/restor05.htm

The cousins link is interesting because you can find the documentation on the machine

https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/kronoglass

 

[Klassiker]

I have used my wife's stained glass grinder in the past. Just a cheap machine, but easy to use. It takes a while to get the perfect profile with a nice even chamfer and chip-free edges, but for a one-off part, that's how I would do it.

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Klassiker

[clockboy]

Do you have the size required. I have a box of odd shape crystals and you might be lucky.