My first true project watch. Really nice condition vintage Seiko 7006a. Non running.

[lexacat]

2 hours ago, Birbdad said:

There's no way this was a mumbai special. 

Oh sorry! As soon as you said "eBay" my mind made that jump haha. I've found a dozen from India that look identical to this, the difference being yours seems to have all the right parts inside it. I saw one yesterday with this same dial that had a 7009a bridge in it.

[Birbdad]

1 hour ago, lexacat said:

Oh sorry! As soon as you said "eBay" my mind made that jump haha. I've found a dozen from India that look identical to this, the difference being yours seems to have all the right parts inside it. I saw one yesterday with this same dial that had a 7009a bridge in it.

Wait really? I haven't seen any of these from india. In fact i almost never see oem dials or oem anything from india other than maybe some of the parts in the movements. I see mostly fake dials and fake cases with really beat up rusty movements. Whoeve rhad this thing definitely took really good care of it. i see REALLY beat up ones like this model with trashed dials and chapter rings selling for like 200 dollars. They seem to be pretty desireable and sought after.

This is the singularly nicest condition one iv'e ever seen. I got it for a song because it was non running. The guy i got it from said he got it from an estate sale but it just sat in his project drawer for 5 years.

[lexacat]

Here's the one I spotted. Chapter ring appears to be blank and has the 7009a bridge. And the bracelet is aftermarket. And they still want $110 USD for it!

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/163625447902

Here's a NOS dial from Bangkok 

Here's one from Delhi with some crazing on the dial and a worn chapter ring

Edited February 15, 2023 by lexacat

[Birbdad]

1 hour ago, lexacat said:

Here's the one I spotted. Chapter ring appears to be blank and has the 7009a bridge. And the bracelet is aftermarket. And they still want $110 USD for it!

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/163625447902

Here's a NOS dial from Bangkok 

Here's one from Delhi with some crazing on the dial and a worn chapter ring

Yeah, not even sure if those would qualify as mumbai specials as opposed to just old watches from india. Crazy what the most beat up ones of these sell for. I wonder what mine would sell for? I wasn't planning on selling it but man people seem to want this particular model. it is really funky and cool looking imo. Also one of them has the OEM bracelet which is SO rare. I get a feeling they weren't very durable as almost none of the listings i've seen includes it.  

Also that NoS dial is both tempting and a little disconcerting. I keep hearing about how big red flags for fakes are thailand, india, vietnam and the phillipines. I know i've seen quite a few fake king seiko and vintage seiko dials being sold from the phillipines and vietnam.  The dial i have is in like 90% condition with most of that 10% hidden under the chapter ring, only thing that bothers me about it is the two missing lume pips i was hoping to find inside the movement but didn't.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Birbdad

[Birbdad]

Wow it's amazing how fast a project can go sideways. Infuriating night. I had at the very least expected the movement to be finished other than the barrel (Ordering mainsrping winder and breaking grease from cousins, will take weeks).  Got all the parts cleaned and soaked a few in evaporust. They came out looking good other than they're now covered with a glue like substance. All my cap jewels, a couple wheels and some odds and ends feel like they were coated in rubber cement and I can't get it off. I'm told water of all things removes this glue substance so i'll try that.

Weirdly somehow TWO cap jewels vanished being transferred from my parts tray to my cleaning basket...i literally saw them drop in. I'm absolutely baffled how they were just missing when i opened up the basket hours later. Not only that the goddamned tiny screw that keeps the stud in in a 7006a movement worked it's way out and is apparently so small it can fit through the holes of a typical mesh washing basket it for watch parts. Thank god so many parts are interchangeable. it Appears cap jewels and the screw from the stud on a 7s26a are compatible so i had some donor movements to scavenge them off. 

More little damn mine fields you step on once and then dont' step on again hopefully. 

Next up. I have the balance complete off of the balance cock and i'm gonna attempt my first minor hairspring straightening operation, quite nervous about it.

[lexacat]

A couple things I've learned so far that help me out as a beginner. With more experience and a proper cleaning setup this wouldn't be necessary, but it's saving my bacon:

• I keep all screws separated in labeled bags, e.g. "pallet cock screw", "barrel bridge screws" etc, so I know where each one lives.
• Unless absolutely necessary I don't clean the screws, so there's no chance of losing them in the wash or getting them mixed up.
• I don't put tiny parts in the wash, things like tiny circlips etc that can get easily lost, or anything I think will slip through. If they need a clean I'll individually drop them in some naptha or alcohol to remove oils and grease.
• I leave all cap/shock jewels attached during the wash. Once I start putting everything together I take them out and clean them one at a time.

I agree waiting is the hardest, I've been waiting weeks for a mainspring I bought at an absolute premium with "international express" shipping =(

[Nucejoe]

On 2/14/2023 at 10:53 AM, Birbdad said:

Somebody asked a very good question. Why does it have a 24 hour numeral dial? I literally had not noticed this till he mentioned it haha. Can anybody answer that?! 

Isn't the dial called military?  

or military numeral  ?

[Birbdad]

7 hours ago, lexacat said:

A couple things I've learned so far that help me out as a beginner. With more experience and a proper cleaning setup this wouldn't be necessary, but it's saving my bacon:

• I keep all screws separated in labeled bags, e.g. "pallet cock screw", "barrel bridge screws" etc, so I know where each one lives.
• Unless absolutely necessary I don't clean the screws, so there's no chance of losing them in the wash or getting them mixed up.
• I don't put tiny parts in the wash, things like tiny circlips etc that can get easily lost, or anything I think will slip through. If they need a clean I'll individually drop them in some naptha or alcohol to remove oils and grease.
• I leave all cap/shock jewels attached during the wash. Once I start putting everything together I take them out and clean them one at a time.

I agree waiting is the hardest, I've been waiting weeks for a mainspring I bought at an absolute premium with "international express" shipping =(

Well i did at least find one of the cap jewels wedged into part of my barrel haha. So i only ended up losing one cap jewel but its still infuriating to lose parts and have no idea how i lost them and i was SO careful. I also lost one of the goddamned f****ng movement clips that screws in on the edge of the movement. I have NO Idea how, i kept them together, i was SO careful, i just realized at one point only one was in my damn parts tray. Amazingly cousins has them in stock for under 3 bucks. I seriously can't believe it haha. This random 40 year old part that's the size of a ant and isn't even shown on the service manual and they have it on stock. Thank god for cousins!

 

 

6 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Isn't the dial called military?  

or military numeral  ?

It's definitely not a military style watch. Without a 24 hour hand i can't fathom what the purpose would be in having a 24 hour dial. This was definitely a funky fashion watch they did. Higher end than a seiko 5 but nothing super serious. I dunno what they were thinking.

 

Also if anybody on the community can give me a little guidance on my first ever hairspring adjustment. I got the balance complete off the cock and was a little disappointed to not see an obvious bend or kink in it that needs to be straightened but I have a feeling i know what needs to be adjusted. I'm not sure i have the tools to remove the actual hairspring from the balance wheel, if i do i'm unsure how to do it, it looks like nothing can really fit there? But i see people do minor adjustments with the balance complete still put together so I think i'll opt for that.

So here's the balance, you can see it's off center. The curve the regulator arm engages with appears to need adjusting as it is not centered in the pins past a certain point. I know the principles of how to adjust it, that the hairspring needs to remain centered in the regulator pins through the span of the amount the regulator arm can be adjusted.

Here's the balance off it. It looks like the curve the regular arm covers when you move it needs a slight adjustment on the end closer to the stud? I've never done this and i got one shot at it so any guidance before i try it would be appreciated, if somebody wanted to mark where i should go for that would be super useful. Perhaps there's a way to get the hairspring and collet off the balance that's easier than it looks? It just doesn't look like a normal hairspring collet.

I will say once this movement is cleaned up and shiny i'ts pretty attractive compared to their newer ones. I love the gold, the shiny metal plating and all metal parts. If i hadnt' lost a ton of time on the damn evaporust goo and cleaning it this movement would probably be almost done. But i'm just doing my assembly and lubrication.





I"m not sure whether i prefer these or the god awful current diashocks springs. At least when these fly off they only fly about 10mm's instead of 10 feet lol. Hopefully oiling these settings goes smoothly with my damn auto oiler so i don't gotta do it again.

[lexacat]

9 hours ago, Birbdad said:

At least when these fly off they only fly about 10mm's instead of 10 feet lol.

I can tell you from experience that is not always the case... 

 

Good to see its all coming back together! Wish I could give some advice about the hairspring

[JohnFrum]

There is an excellent article by Archie Perkins in the July 1996 Horological Times that explains circling the regulator sweep and centering the hairspring on the cock. Sep 1995 issue has articles by Perkins and Fried on hairspring manipulation. The Fried article (continued in Oct 95 issue) is the bent hairspring chapter from his Bench Practices book. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by JohnFrum

[JohnFrum]

11 hours ago, Birbdad said:

I"m not sure whether i prefer these or the god awful current diashocks springs. At least when these fly off they only fly about 10mm's instead of 10 feet lol. Hopefully oiling these settings goes smoothly with my damn auto oiler so i don't gotta do it again.

These older diashock springs can be manipulated quite easily with a Kif tool and a pair of brass tweezers. 
Another tool yes but Seiko jewel springs are such a PITA so the tool is worth it IMHO.

 

[Birbdad]

2 hours ago, JohnFrum said:

There is an excellent article by Archie Perkins in the July 1996 Horological Times that explains circling the regulator sweep and centering the hairspring on the cock. Sep 1995 issue has articles by Perkins and Fried on hairspring manipulation. The Fried article (continued in Oct 95 issue) is the bent hairspring chapter from his Bench Practices book. 

Ok this is super helpful. It looks like figure 5a is similar to what i'm dealing with but with the adjustment needed in the middle of the regulator section of the regulator arm part of the curve as opposed to the kink before it. But it looks like i have to have the hairspring off of the balance wheel to do this so i can see that the collet is centered on hte pivot hole. I can't find a video of somebody removing a damn hairspring from a 700X balance wheel. They don't seem to have a normal C shaped collet and i'm afraid i'll destroy the thing fiddling with it without knowing what i'm doing! @gbyleveldtor anybody who's worked on these 70's seiko movements. What is the correct procedure to remove the hairspring from the balance wheel? I got a feeling if i can get the hairspring off the wheel this will be a pretty simple adjustment.

11 minutes ago, JohnFrum said:

These older diashock springs can be manipulated quite easily with a Kif tool and a pair of brass tweezers. 
Another tool yes but Seiko jewel springs are such a PITA so the tool is worth it IMHO.

 

I'll look into one! Currently i'm trying to up my tweezer game and i think the normal modern diashocks are way harder and i've conquered those. I'm gonna shape a dental pick tool to a needle point and i think having that as an anchor will actually make setting these twith tweezers pretty simple. Interesting these have their own tool but the evil modern ones don't.

Also this thing is gonna be a god send. 3 dollars at harbor freight. It's a magnetic tool holder strip you mount on the wall, swept my carpet iwth it and voila! the missing case clip i lost last night somehow! Such a relief!

[JohnFrum]

On 2/19/2023 at 6:28 PM, Birbdad said:

Next up. I have the balance complete off of the balance cock and i'm gonna attempt my first minor hairspring straightening operation, quite nervous about it.

Get some cheap practice hairsprings. 

I bought three dozen (yes dozen) Seiko 1104A and 11A movements from speedtimerkollektion. They have the same balance so I now have a plentiful supply of identical balances to practice on.  Seiko non diver manual Ladies movements are not popular so they only cost about 2 USD apiece. They are complete movements so I have plenty of parts to experiment with.
Besides hairspring manipulation I’ve been able to replace the balance staffs and roller tables, and even adjust and replace hole jewels. Plan to try some pallet jewel adjusting when my shellac from Cousins arrives. 
 

[Birbdad]

3 minutes ago, JohnFrum said:

Get some cheap practice hairsprings. 

I bought three dozen (yes dozen) Seiko 1104A and 11A movements from speedtimerkollektion. They have the same balance so I now have a plentiful supply of identical balances to practice on.  Seiko non diver manual Ladies movements are not popular so they only cost about 2 USD apiece. They are complete movements so I have plenty of parts to experiment with.
Besides hairspring manipulation I’ve been able to replace the balance staffs and roller tables, and even adjust and replace hole jewels. Plan to try some pallet jewel adjusting when my shellac from Cousins arrives. 
 

I have 3 7s26 b hairsprings. I suppose i could practice on one of those. This seems like a very simple minor adjustmetn though. That hairspring is barely off center. I've done a good bit of research into hairspring manipulation and I think i could do it. If i fail i do have a backup and speedtimer sells entire 700X balance assemblies for not much money. 

I'm just pretty eager to get this thing on my wrist. it's such a funky charming watch.

[Birbdad]

Ok. didn't get much time to work on this but i'm assembling all the stuff i need to buy for this and several smaller projects on cousins so really trying to get my ducks in a row on this and i'm a little in teh weeds on matching the crystal and stem gasket.

So i pulled out the crystal and to my disappointment, it's a weird ass one. One of those tension ring acrylic crystals i know nothing about but there's a ring on the inside of the crystal that comes out. The dimensions of it are 32mm diameter X 4.318 height. The ring width is 32.98. I'm a bit unsure how you match this. I did however find an ebay listing claiming this was a match for it and cousins has it in stock. I jus twould like to make sure this is accurate before buying two of them. THere doesn't seem to be any sizing info on cousins to actually match these so how on earth would you know?!
Here's the link. https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/special-profile-sternkreuz-xac?code=XAC321636 
 
Then there's the crown gasket. The one that was in it was shriveled up and hard as a rock so i don't think i can trust the dimensions on it nor can i find info on oem dimensions nor have i really seen one that looks like it.
 It's not an O ring it's almost more like a tiny cylinder? I had to break it to pieces to get it off the crown but best i can tell the measurements should be.
1mm (or smaller) Inner diameter X 1mm height and I'm unsure of the outter diameter. The shape looked something like this. 
 
The diameter of the crown tube opening is roughly 2.2mm. The closest match i can find is 2.5 mms so i have no idea if that is too big. WHen you're using an unknown crown gasket should you base the outter diameter on the size of the crown tube? On the thickest part of the stem? I just don't know the best practice here and can't find info on it.
This is what the crown looks like so you can see it's a sorta elongated space where the gasket would be. 

Any help would be appreciated @aac58You seem to be one of the few people that works on seikos so any tips would be appreciated.

[Waggy]

I would be very interested in the answer for the crown gasket, in the past I have just used 2 orings side by side, I'm sure this is not a great practice, but it was my personal watch and at the time I thought it was better than nothing. Looking forward to the 'real' solution.

[Birbdad]

6 minutes ago, Waggy said:

I would be very interested in the answer for the crown gasket, in the past I have just used 2 orings side by side, I'm sure this is not a great practice, but it was my personal watch and at the time I thought it was better than nothing. Looking forward to the 'real' solution.

Hah i actually thought of that and i guess i can't really see a reason it wouldn't work. cousins only seems to stock like 2 gaskets in this odd shape. 
I just don't know how much they can compress into a crown tube. a 2.5mm gasket squishing into a 2.2mm crown tube doesn't seem like it would be an issue but wtf do i know? 

[lexacat]

Heyo, this site has a parts list including the part number and an alternate for the crown/stem gasket for your case reference. From there you can search for images of both and find places to buy them:

https://www.emmywatch.com/db/movement/seiko--7006-6020/

[aac58]

19 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

Any help would be appreciated @aac58You seem to be one of the few people that works on seikos so any tips would be appreciated.

The stem gasket is probably a DJ0060B01, Cousins have the compatible D Ring, Ø2.05 x 0.60 x 0.80mm (look for G39086) May be other though.

Let me know your watch model number and I'll try to find out the cristal too.

[Birbdad]

1 minute ago, lexacat said:

Heyo, this site has a parts list including the part number and an alternate for the crown/stem gasket for your case reference. From there you can search for images of both and find places to buy them:

https://www.emmywatch.com/db/movement/seiko--7006-6020/

Oh what an interesting site. Surprised nobody's mentioned it. So it looks like they were so dried up and shrunk down that the shape i thought they had was incorrect. ON a japanese site that sells them it looks like they're fat D shaped gaskets like some of their other stem gaskets. That might make it much easier to find something.

[aac58]

If the watch is 7006-7020 then:

- Crown gasket: DJ0060B01, Cousins look for G39086

- Caseback gasket: FH2920B03, Cousins look for 29203100C

- Crystal: 320T21ANS0, Sternkreuz XAG 321.635, look for S14731

[Birbdad]

5 minutes ago, aac58 said:

The stem gasket is probably a DJ0060B01, Cousins have the compatible D Ring, Ø2.05 x 0.60 x 0.80mm (look for G39086) May be other though.

Let me know your watch model number and I'll try to find out the cristal too.

According to this site https://www.emmywatch.com/db/movement/seiko--7006-6020/ it's EJ0060B01 but i don't know if that's true. Boley's database has given me a lot of wrong info. A japanese site does list my case code as compatible with that particular part but lists it as a chrono pusher gasket. Thanks so much for looking you rock! 

The case code is 7006-6020 If you do find the correct crystal i'd love to know how you did it. What resources you have that i might not.

1 minute ago, aac58 said:

If the watch is 7006-7020 then:

- Crown gasket: DJ0060B01, Cousins look for G39086

- Caseback gasket: FH2920B03, Cousins look for 29203100C

- Crystal: 320T21ANS0, Sternkreuz XAG 321.635, look for S14731

God thanks so much! I can finally hit the order button on cousins haha. Wish i could buy ya a beer!

[aac58]

1 minute ago, Birbdad said:

According to this site https://www.emmywatch.com/db/movement/seiko--7006-6020/ it's EJ0060B01 but i don't know if that's true. Boley's database has given me a lot of wrong info. A japanese site does list my case code as compatible with that particular part but lists it as a chrono pusher gasket. Thanks so much for looking you rock! 

The case code is 7006-6020 If you do find the correct crystal i'd love to know how you did it. What resources you have that i might not.

Ouch, you're right, it says EJ0060B01 instead of DJ0060B01. That's really strange, I'd go for the DJ which is the usual gasket Seiko use in these watches. The only difference between both is that one is E shaped and the other is D shaped, and yes the D is used also for chrono pushers.

[Birbdad]

12 minutes ago, aac58 said:

Ouch, you're right, it says EJ0060B01 instead of DJ0060B01. That's really strange, I'd go for the DJ which is the usual gasket Seiko use in these watches. The only difference between both is that one is E shaped and the other is D shaped, and yes the D is used also for chrono pushers.

Ok cool. So out of curiosity how did you find all that stuff so fast? Did you use that Bestfit service? ANd i'm so glad you answered because the size of the crystal the person claimed was a match on ebay was off a tiny bit by one dimension from what you suggested. Maybe both would work, i dunno. This is why i always double check before ordering stuff.

I'd really like to become more self sufficient but pro watchmakers just keep telling me they got resources and access to catalogues that i don't. Either way, i super appreciate ya taking your time to help me. I'm pretty sure i can handle the rest of this. from here.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Birbdad

[aac58]

Usually I look for part numbers on Cousins (https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/filter/search-seiko-case-parts) and/or Boley (https://boley.de/, just write the watch model in the search box)

In this particular case, I had to look for the Sternkreuz equivalent in the SK catalog.