Seiko alpinist sarb017 dial loose dial

[AndrasP]

Hi, 

Thanks for all the answers and ideas. Try to respond all of them. 

So - no this is not the original 1960's model, I have bought directly from Seiko in 2016. I think this is the last model before they slightly changed the design (for example added the cyclops over the date) - which made this one more sought after, I think.  

How much I would pay? Not sure, but not a ripoff price. 

Googling watch repair I obviously tried - have not found a good one yet. 

I certainly would not be able to do it myself, even with guidance, I just do not have the dexterity and skills. Thanks for the kind offer for the online help, tough. 

Colour of dial: well I am afraid it is just the quality of the pic I posted. It is certainly a lovely green, as on the website. 

The idea of checking out the watchmaking school in Manchester sounds quit interesting, thanks. If all fails, I should try  that. 

I will try the suggested place in Leigh - thanks for the suggestion. 

Onto the main item: fixing by adding new dial feet. Some people have mentioned (here or elsewhere) and the place I took the watch also said that this carries some risk to the mechanism for the date (so it may not turn over anymore). Do you reckon is it a real risk, or just if the work done clumsily?

[LittleWatchShop]

2 minutes ago, AndrasP said:

Do you reckon is it a real risk, or just if the work done clumsily?

Anything is possible. Risks are part of life. But, amateurs like myself can do this job, so the risks are not high. If want zero risk, send it to Seiko.

[Klassiker]

If done well, no risk at all.

[JohnR725]

10 hours ago, AndrasP said:

How much I would pay? Not sure, but not a ripoff price.

 and whether giving another discussion group out there some place of the reference to price would come up. In particular pocket watch the used to field a decent price would be anywhere from 50 and 100 was getting a little too much. There's or even somebody they recommended I believe he was 125 for a full servicing of a pocket watch. Which brings up the problem is this a good price?

Then there's my favorite you go look at like discussion group of high-end typically Rolex watches. They're very happy to be running their dads Rolex watch inherited still rutting 30+ years later and very happy they haven't paid the greedy watchmaker. The typical price of a Rolex servicing well it used to be the typical of prices going up a little but it was around $600 which from my point of view is a bargain because half that was the case refinishing. I could now it's more like $700 but some Rolex collectors look at that like they get the oil changed in the car and they pay money for that so if they look at like five years at $600 that's about hundred and 28 year and they're obviously driving exotic cars that have expensive legal changes. That's the way some of the Rolex collectors look at it others think watchmakers are greedy something that should die painful death someday

then I can't even say you get what you pay for because as a lot of people in the group of combat as hobbyists they can or they claim to restore your watch back to new 100%. How much would they charge well almost nothing if nothing. There are actually people on the line as a hobbyist taking and watches just to cover the expense of their hobby. Some of them are very goodand unfortunately some of them are very bad but that also extends to professional watchmaker some are good and some are bad. You can't necessarily tell by price whether you're getting good or bad a watch is a sealed object you can't see what was done or was not done

C can look at it this way ask all the people in this discussion how long would it take to service that movement and fix the dial feet could they do it in five minutes and our two hours how much time would it take? Based on whatever job you previously had or currently have for hourly wages could you do it for how much. Then thinking of pricing? so the movement appears to be a 6R15 I thought we could see what Seiko in the US would charge the service the movement. so this is the US price $260 to service the movement of course finding a replacement dial because I doubt they would do any of the fixing of that we would do on this group that of course would be extra. then in case you think Seiko is ripping you off I think but don't quote me on this the starting price for an automatic watch where we work would be more than that don't think I'll give your price comes I can't actually remember what we charge for automatic watches. But this is a retail mall location where the expenses are going to be higher.

If you want your best pricing find the watchmaker is not a retail location find somebody preferably operating out of the back bedroom with her house that should be the cheapest unless they grasped that they have skills that are worth money than your screwed. But oftentimes the independent watchmaker will be the cheapest.. Anytime you getting work done and jewelry stores typically they double whatever their cost is and that they send it out to the wholesale watchmaker. If you find the wholesale watchmaker they send out to oftentimes they will not be as high as what the jewelry store charges. Usually a lot of times will double costs or in one shop a long time ago I worked had they increase the price by four times. then don't worry because the ripoff price of four times markup eventually the guilty party got screamed that that was the watchmaker for being greedy. Who cares about the markup of the jewelry store. 

https://www.seikoserviceusa.com/pages/serviceprice/

 

 

[AndrasP]

Hi JohnR725, 

Must admit I found a bit difficult to follow some of your comment, bit the jest of it seems to be that you think I am kind of mean towards watchmakers, or somehow underestimate the effort required and thus the true cost. I do not think I am. Also I do not quite get your general vibe which seems a bit antagonistic. Suspect I am not the true target of your reaction. 

Look, this is not a Rolex, and I am not a millionaire. I love the watch, and trying to find the best solution. 

I think the watch do not necessarily need a service (as far as I understand the situation) which is priced in with the Seiko offer (about half of the total quoted, so you are bang on with that). In fact, I just had it serviced by Seiko in Oct 2020, and it was just out of warranty of 2 yrs, when this happened. Should a watch - even if is automatic - be serviced in every 3 years for a price of £250-300? I would not think so, but again, I stand corrected by experts on this forum. 

Regarding paying somebody working from his/her bedroom -yes I am absolutely happy to pay for the time and skills involved. I do not want to take advantage of anyone's good intentions and hobby, and do not expect free services. 

So, again, I think you ire is a misplaced, and I am sorry for / if (what it seems) I have triggered you. 

[JohnR725]

I apologize I misunderstood what you're trying to say. just a mental confusion on my part of just not reading the message correctly I apologize again for my stupidity it won't happen again.

[Waggy]

Servicing costs of watches is a difficult topic, it seems ludicrous that the servicing costs of a watch including shipping and insurance can be a considerable percentage of the cost of said watch. If this is the case then we essentially create a situation where it becomes more cost effective to discard a perfectly good watch before its first service and purchase a new model with a new warranty. It would be sad if we created a world where perfectly good watches became disposable due to these costs. However, the time and skill which is used to service and repair these watches should be fairly compensated. You wouldn't expect a car mechanic to spend a day under your car replacing your gearbox for $50, so it hardly seems fair to expect a watchmaker to spend a day servicing your watch for less than you would pay any other skilled person for their time and skill.

So we seem to be in a no-win situation in all but the top tier brand of watches where the servicing costs are only a small percentage of its value, where fair servicing costs are too high for everyday watches . What's the solution.....?

Not everyone wants outlay the costs of tools and time it takes to learn to do it themselves, and even if you have a friend who does it as a hobby is it fair to ask them to do it?.. I have been asked by several of my friends to look at their (usually expensive) watches. In this situation the upside for me is that I would be helping a friend, but the potential downside is that I junk an expensive watch, and am I morally indebted to pay to fix my mistake or risk the friendship by giving them back a watch in worse condition than I got it with only a "sorry I tried my best" as compensation? So the risk far outweighs the reward for me and I usually politely turn them down.

Again, I don't have a solution, but I can see that both sides of the argument are reasonable......

[kd8tzc]

@AndrasP, I know your watch has the compass feature where you can rotate the outer part with the second crown.  Does the entire watch face rotate when you do that?  From the picture, it looks like the compass ring and dial face are both rotating.  Just curious.  It won't solve your issue, but was just curious as I believe on;y the compass ring should rotate.

[LittleWatchShop]

4 hours ago, AndrasP said:

Hi JohnR725, 

Must admit I found a bit difficult to follow some of your comment, bit the jest of it seems to be that you think I am kind of mean towards watchmakers, or somehow underestimate the effort required and thus the true cost. I do not think I am. Also I do not quite get your general vibe which seems a bit antagonistic. Suspect I am not the true target of your reaction. 

Look, this is not a Rolex, and I am not a millionaire. I love the watch, and trying to find the best solution. 

I think the watch do not necessarily need a service (as far as I understand the situation) which is priced in with the Seiko offer (about half of the total quoted, so you are bang on with that). In fact, I just had it serviced by Seiko in Oct 2020, and it was just out of warranty of 2 yrs, when this happened. Should a watch - even if is automatic - be serviced in every 3 years for a price of £250-300? I would not think so, but again, I stand corrected by experts on this forum. 

Regarding paying somebody working from his/her bedroom -yes I am absolutely happy to pay for the time and skills involved. I do not want to take advantage of anyone's good intentions and hobby, and do not expect free services. 

So, again, I think you ire is a misplaced, and I am sorry for / if (what it seems) I have triggered you. 

A forum is kinda like one-dimensional communication.  Hard to detect nuance that would be evident in a face-to-face conversation. 

Moreover, often good communication requires some history with the person you are communicating with.  Since you have not been on this form for very long, you have not gotten to know @JohnR725.  If you had, you would take this thread in stride.

John is like the grumpy old man rocking on the front porch smoking a pipe and dispensing wisdom with an occasional snark.  His answer is sometimes embedded in a story.  The snark helps the wisdom to land true. 

If you are not a "drive by" forum member and, instead, stay awhile, you will warm up to John!  His knowledge is deep.

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

stay awhile, you will warm up to John!  His knowledge is deep.

I like grumpy I like the sound of that.

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

A forum is kinda like one-dimensional communication.  Hard to detect nuance that would be evident in a face-to-face conversation.

yes in a face-to-face conversation usually becomes apparent extremely fast problems let's just call it a problem but on message boards is very difficult

but message boards have other interesting features to solve these communication issues. Previously as told about this by somebody in a private conversation and I implemented here. So in the case the original posting person feel safe very safe in fact all make a suggestion where he can feel even more safe. If you run your mouse over the profile of somebody you'll notice without clicking you get a profile and on the bottom right is the word ignore? I wonder what that does and it actually works better than I hoped for. You can check a variety of things so basically the original posting person is now invisible to me I would highly suggest he do the same thing this way we will never cross paths again on this message board. A win-win for both of us.

now if I could just figure out how to block this entire discussion but I suppose while I'm here

7 hours ago, Waggy said:

What's the solution.....?

over the years of belonging to a group of watch collectors and being an interesting location with a school that teaches hobbyist watch repair there is a easy solution which is learn how to fix your own watches. or in this day and age there's online classes like the one Mark has or even this group this is a watch repair discussion group learn how to fix your own watch.

Another thing learning how to fix your watch does if you're a collector and unknown a quite a few people doing this is you acquire watches the repair them and then you sell what you don't want and make money and supplement the cost your hobby then you can slowly build up your collection of watches.

But there is another solution

7 hours ago, Waggy said:

However, the time and skill which is used to service and repair these watches should be fairly compensated. You wouldn't expect a car mechanic to spend a day under your car replacing your gearbox for $50, so it hardly seems fair to expect a watchmaker to spend a day servicing your watch for less than you would pay any other skilled person for their time and skill.

this brings up an interesting problem where I can spend quite a few paragraphs of why if you want to make money I wouldn't go in the watch repair. True there is some watchmakers who make a decent living. I worked in a shop once with a person approached the repair the same as an auto shop. In other words when you came in he would look at the watch he would open up his book like an auto shop and say overall this price, Crystal this price, crown this place etc. and then the customer would make an excuse to leave the room catch their breath and always came back and got the repair he was expensive very expensive oh wait I see expensive oh dear bad attitude on my part I'm sorry. But he had a very high reputation at doing very high quality work and he got the money he asked for

typically watchmakers are afraid the charge money. There so scared of losing their customers. Which works to advantage in this discussion. You need to find an independent watchmaker. The ideal solution would be a fine somebody doing wholesale trade work that also does a little retail work. This will be typically be your best option.

One of my friends who clicks watches if he was to get every single watch cleaned and overhauled in his collection? Is a really nice China cabinet a very large one that's literally filled with watches hundreds of them was given example suppose you had 100 watches and I suspect he has easily 1000 watches but let's say it will hundred watches you pay a good price of $50 at still $5000 to get them all repaired what about if you had 1000 watches like I suspect than the cost to repair becomes a real problem for you if you got them all repaired fortunately I don't think he does. So unlike field of watch collecting it becomes extremely important to find inexpensive watch repair because the cost adds up dramatically.

So his particular case he found the watchmaker who is basically charging him wholesale and he's very happy. So find somebody who's doing trade work the jewelry stores will typically send their watches the shops like this not always though shop I work at it gets a lot of trade work we still charge a wholesale price though they get a discount but not the typical discount. Typically in this country watch repair gets multiplied twice so to go to jewelry store and get ripped off at $500 watchmakers getting 250. Although in one shop that got marked up four times in the customers unhappy so yes it was the greedy watchmakers fault. So yes I've seen both sides of this

so I heard the reference to a school? Lot of time schools will take in work to help the students you take a risk but the cost is inexpensive. Otherwise try to find the wholesale or independent watchmaker they usually should be the cheapest but do not find the watchmaker in a town that the cost of living is high. Go to the outside tiny towns and villages see if you can find somebody there.

 

[JohnR725]

18 hours ago, kd8tzc said:

@AndrasP, I know your watch has the compass feature where you can rotate the outer part with the second crown.  Does the entire watch face rotate when you do that?  From the picture, it looks like the compass ring and dial face are both rotating.  Just curious.  It won't solve your issue, but was just curious as I believe on;y the compass ring should rotate

being curious about this I found a review of the watch. then yes bring up a really interesting problem. If the dial manages to touch that ring that would be a definite reason for the dial feet to be broken off.. This would also bring up the problem of extremely critical spacing of the dial and that. Depending upon how this all goes together and of course in the review they do not disassemble the watch.

https://thetruthaboutwatches.com/2020/01/seiko-alpinist-sarb017-review/

 

[kd8tzc]

@JohnR725 I took a look at that link, and I had a question.  They show the older version of this watch (no magnifier over the date) and then the newer one (with magnifier).  Is the magnifier just a piece of crystal (of whatever the crystal is made of) glued to the crystal, and could it easily be removed?

[tomh207]

38 minutes ago, kd8tzc said:

@JohnR725 I took a look at that link, and I had a question.  They show the older version of this watch (no magnifier over the date) and then the newer one (with magnifier).  Is the magnifier just a piece of crystal (of whatever the crystal is made of) glued to the crystal, and could it easily be removed?

@kd8tzc the cyclops is just glued onto the crystal, a bit of heat will usually move it then clean off any residue with acetone.

 

Tom

[JohnR725]

4 hours ago, tomh207 said:

Is the magnifier just a piece of crystal (of whatever the crystal is made of) glued to the crystal, and could it easily be removed?

 

4 hours ago, tomh207 said:

 the cyclops is just glued onto the crystal, a bit of heat will usually move it then clean off any residue with acetone.

I suspect that there is another way to do this. Interesting timing yesterday somebody purchased a watch they didn't want the magnifier on, I think in this particular case it had to do with the size it wasn't sized right from their liking. So whatever my boss Sam did about 10 feet from where I was I don't think he used the torch I think He just knocked it off. I would ask how he did it today but happily management has gone away to the trade show in Vegas with another 30,000 other folks to look at watches watch related and whatever stuff and won't be back for an entire week. In this particular case I suspect that the crystal is probably Sapphire there practically indestructible so knocking something off of it wouldn't be an issue at all. Then in the only reason I even knew this was because the customer at asked about how they were attached which I only knew what they were glued on and it was pointed out we ask you stock magnifiers. I believe they use the UV setting glue.

So yes they can be removed or added.

[Klassiker]

On 5/30/2023 at 7:10 PM, JohnR725 said:

there is a easy solution which is learn how to fix your own watches

11 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

Depending upon how this all goes together and of course in the review they do not disassemble the watch

The ring sits on top of the dial, and I'm not sure how the spacing is maintained. If everything is fitted correctly, the ring turns very easily. There is no discernible friction at the crown. I doubt the gearing is made to withstand much torque, but I suppose if for some reason the ring and dial became locked together, and you forced the crown to turn, you might be able to tear off the dial feet. Excuse me if I don't test the theory! However, I did have mine in bits a while ago, so if I can find some relevant photos I will post them.

[AndrasP]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:02 PM, kd8tzc said:

I know your watch has the compass feature where you can rotate the outer part with the second crown.  Does the entire watch face rotate when you do that?  From the picture, it looks like the compass ring and dial face are both rotating.  Just curious.  It won't solve your issue, but was just curious as I believe on;y the compass ring should rotate.

Hi, 

Unfortunately the watch is not with me (and it has not been a while) to check this with the broken dial. Previously of course just the compass feature rotated. It did not occur to me to try this, once the dial become loose. (and hopefully next time I see it will be fixed). 

I do not fully understand the discussion between JohnR and Klassiker on this very topic - but will ask the watchmaker if she could tell what caused the dial becoming loose (and if that perhaps was/is somehow connected to the compass ring). 

On 5/30/2023 at 10:15 AM, JohnR725 said:

I apologize I misunderstood what you're trying to say. just a mental confusion on my part of just not reading the message correctly I apologize again for my stupidity it won't happen again.

This is very gracious of you thanks, although there is no need, really (I was more confused than anything). And as others pointed out - a newbie should not complain, because it is likely that he/she just "do not get it" (yet).