Unusual Seiko Crystal

[rossjackson01]

Not sure if I have called this properly. I purchased a set of Seiko watches to learn the art. Cleaning the white one at present.. I would like to show you the crystal of the black one. Never seen one before. I will obviously have to replace as it is just so badly scratched. Just thought I would show you all.

Regards

Ross

[JohnR725]

yes the faceted crystal I've seen one sometime in the past I might've even replaced one I just can't remember anymore. Crystals did not just come in flat glass sometimes they had interesting features.

[mikepilk]

If you give the case number, we can look  up the glass code

[Paul80]

You could just refinish the crystal to remove most of not all the scratches.  I did it on one of my Seiko 5's that was badly scratched but couldn't be replaced as it had a ring of numbers applied to the back of the crystal and a replacement was no longer available, I tried a standard crystal without the numbers but it looked wrong, so improving the existing one was a necessity.

It was not too hard. Just the usual decreasing grades of wet and dry paper, going from 240 down to 1200, then it was polished to a nice gloss with some polishing compound and a felt wheel on a Dremel type tool, took less than an hour and looked as good as new when finished.

Obviously just a simple crystal replacement is easier but it might be worth doing just because you could.

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, Paul80 said:

You could just refinish the crystal to remove most of not all the scratches.

Basically you have to pretend your new hobby is lapidary because this is basically a form of glass. Then some of the scratches looked pretty deep. See may not build take them out 100% usually the crystals are relatively thick that are glass. My favorite used to be people who did arc welding because little balls of flying whatever would hit the glass actually burn into the glass. Fortunately those were the days we could get new crystals easily.

[mikepilk]

It depends how deep the scratches are and how hard the glass is. I have a Citizen Crystal 7 which had a badly scratched glass, and I couldn't find a replacement. The glass was very hard, Wet and dry barely scratched it. I used a diamond knife-sharpening stone and then diamond paste on a Dremel. Took a while, but did the job. 

 

[JohnR725]

13 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

The glass was very hard,

yes it's definitely not your normal glass. because normal glass crystals can be polished relatively easy these always just seemed much much harder. But fortunately they're still soft enough you can still polish them a few really careful and diamond grinding compounds are readily available is necessary.

[Neverenoughwatches]

15 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

It depends how deep the scratches are and how hard the glass is. I have a Citizen Crystal 7 which had a badly scratched glass, and I couldn't find a replacement. The glass was very hard, Wet and dry barely scratched it. I used a diamond knife-sharpening stone and then diamond paste on a Dremel. Took a while, but did the job. 

 

Maybe diminishing grades of diamond paste on a sheet of plate glass could work. The crystal suckered onto a shaft and spun ?

[rossjackson01]

19 hours ago, mikepilk said:

If you give the case number, we can look  up the glass code

Mikepilk. Here is the information you requested.

6319 8120 no. 703729.

If you could, I would be most grateful.

 

If it is possible, you could detail for me where, and how, to look please? I'm still learning.

Thank you so much

Regards

Ross

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, rossjackson01 said:

If it is possible, you could detail for me where, and how, to look please? I'm still learning.

it's good that you're still learning because all of us are still learning unless of course you're not the watch repair than you stop learning watch repair.

Seiko a long time ago use the published casing reference books which may be out there in PDF form perhaps. I know there was another company that published the casing book for several brands conveniently am not sure where mine has wandered off to otherwise I was going look up the number.

on the other hand even without a nice database through a handy reference book is amazing what happens if you just search online.

1 hour ago, rossjackson01 said:

6319 8120 no. 703729.

when looking for Seiko case parts you need to express the case number in the proper form like this 6319–8120. The other number is the serial number which if you do a search somebody will explain online what those numbers mean. Once you get the case number express properly can do a search online and then at some point time grasp that you can just search on eBay and find this. this just happened to be the first one I found conceivably there is other sellers and other sources but you do get a crystal number that you can now search for that.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294825257286

 

 

[mikepilk]

2 hours ago, rossjackson01 said:

6319 8120 no. 703729.

If it is possible, you could detail for me where, and how, to look please? I'm still learning.

The lists I have don't include your model. I can't remember where I downloaded the documents from. Try googling "Seiko casing parts". I just did and found this https://www.thewatchsite.com/threads/seiko-casing-parts-list-1977.245634/

As @JohnR725points out, often just searching ebay with the full calibre-case number will find the parts. Thanks to John, the above link gives the glass code 310W32GC0F, which if searched for in Cousins, finds :

 

[rossjackson01]

20 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

https://www.thewatchsite.com/threads/seiko-casing-parts-list-1977.245634/

I tried to enter the above and it does not give me access. It says to contact the owner. But I cannot do so as there is no access to the site. Catch 22. 

It is the same as the Seiko forum. They want more information, but I cannot leave more information as access is denied until I do. Catch 22 again. 

Thank you for the Cousins information. 

Regards

Ross

[JohnR725]

10 minutes ago, rossjackson01 said:

I tried to enter the above and it does not give me access. It says to contact the owner. But I cannot do so as there is no access to the site. Catch 22.

I'm finding the link works just fine which is what I suspected. The reason it's working just fine for me is I was just there the other day and I logged in. So you want to access the information you need to get an account.

but if you get an account just to access these files are going to be disappointed. It doesn't have your particular case in their. I downloaded the index section C can see what they do and do not have. I know that Seiko at least at one time used print lots of Logs which presents a problem in that you need the right one.

 

Seiko Casing Parts List (1977) I. Notes & Index.pdf

[mikepilk]

18 minutes ago, rossjackson01 said:

I tried to enter the above and it does not give me access. It says to contact the owner. But I cannot do so as there is no access to the site. Catch 22. 

It is the same as the Seiko forum. They want more information, but I cannot leave more information as access is denied until I do. Catch 22 again. 

Strange, as the link works for me, and I have never registered with the site.

I've found the link on WRT, I knew I'd seen it somewhere (thanks to @watchweasol): https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/13897-seiko-casing-parts-guide/

[Neverenoughwatches]

18 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Maybe diminishing grades of diamond paste on a sheet of plate glass could work. The crystal suckered onto a shaft and spun ?

I used plate glass and carborundum powder to dress oil stones back to flat years ago. 6mm plate glass is about as flat as we can get and easy to aquire. And i was thinking as a kid playing cowboys and Indians, i was always a cowboy, my sisters would be indians which gave me a chance for any revenge i had been planning. The arrows had little red suckers on them, i wonder if they would suck onto the back side of a crystal ? I have wierd ideas like this and sometimes they actually work  . Flat face crystal only for obvious reasons.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Neverenoughwatches
Not specific enough

[mikepilk]

1 hour ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I used plate glass and carborundum powder to dress oil stones back to flat years ago. 6mm plate glass is about as flat as we can get and easy to aquire. And i was thinking as a kid playing cowboys and Indians, i was always a cowboy, my sisters would be indians which gave me a chance for any revenge i had been planning. The arrows had little red suckers on them, i wonder if they would suck onto the back side of a crystal ? I have wierd ideas like this and sometimes they actually work  . Flat face crystal only for obvious reasons.

Good ideal for flat glass - mine wasnt't

I tried a similar technique to put brush marks on a stainless steel back cover 

[rossjackson01]

JohnR275

Thank you for the ebay site for the glass. $29 +$60 delivery. Wow!

I paid £17.50 for the watch as a project. I think I will do as you commented. Spend some time and sand the faces. Got to service and get it going first. 

Regards

Ross

[mikepilk]

1 hour ago, rossjackson01 said:

JohnR275

Thank you for the ebay site for the glass. $29 +$60 delivery. Wow!

I paid £17.50 for the watch as a project. I think I will do as you commented. Spend some time and sand the faces. Got to service and get it going first. 

Regards

Ross

The Cousins option I pointed out is cheaper. Or measure it and put a generic one on, should only be a few £

Edited June 6, 2022 by mikepilk

[richiesgr]

If you feel it you can try to polish the glass by yourself it's not difficult.

look this 

it's in spanish but with auto translate it's very easy to understand. I've done it this method by myself and it work very good

good luck 

[RichardHarris123]

1 hour ago, richiesgr said:

If you feel it you can try to polish the glass by yourself it's not difficult.

look this 

it's in spanish but with auto translate it's very easy to understand. I've done it this method by myself and it work very good

good luck 

I've seen similar videos.  They are very good though.