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Vintage Seiko Technical Guides


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As a very inexperienced beginner, I'm struggling to find a technical guide for a non working watch I've been gifted by a relative. I'e just completed services on 3 Seiko Lord Matics with the help of uTube vids and the excellent technical guides for the Seiko 5606A movement. The guide I'm looking for is the Grand Seiko GS 5646-7010, but the only documents I've found so far is the parts list (in Japanese). I've been unable to find any uTube vids for this movement. Any guidance would be much appreciated!

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11 hours ago, DrHWO said:

The guide I'm looking for is the Grand Seiko GS 5646-7010, but the only documents I've found so far is the parts list (in Japanese). I've been unable to find any uTube vids for this movement. Any guidance would be much appreciated!

as far as I can tell for grand Seiko the only thing out there if you're lucky is the parts list. There appears to be no grand Seiko service manuals online at least that I've ever found. I do have a couple of links that talk about grand Seiko including the parts list.

 

https://mizeni.com/movements/seiko-5646

https://www.theseikoguy.com/grand-seiko-vintage/

Edited by JohnR725
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7 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

You can find a rather extensive list ( in English ) of parts on julesborel. com for sale.

I have a link and I was rather surprised that this even exists. Although just because it exists and even though it has prices doesn't mean the parts are available. As looking at the balance complete and $24 for a grand Seiko balance seems a bit cheap. Plus going to the homepage a claims it doesn't exist at all? On the other hand at least get a cross reference of parts

 

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=SEK_5646A

 

because I was curious back to looking here is something that's helpful. here you can see basically the entire family of this watch.

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?11&ranfft&0&2uswk&Seiko_5645A

 

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1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

I have a link and I was rather surprised that this even exists. Although just because it exists and even though it has prices doesn't mean the parts are available. As looking at the balance complete and $24 for a grand Seiko balance seems a bit cheap. Plus going to the homepage a claims it doesn't exist at all? On the other hand at least get a cross reference of parts

 

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=SEK_5646A

 

because I was curious back to looking here is something that's helpful. here you can see basically the entire family of this watch.

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?11&ranfft&0&2uswk&Seiko_5645A

 

Perhaps it's something I'm doing, but I almost never find any reference to their 'alternate' part numbers they have listed.  Not specifically with this movement, but with nearly all others I've looked at in the past.  I can't seem to reference that alternate part number to anything, outside of the most common parts like mainsprings, crystals (some), etc.  Is there some common knowledge that I'm missing when it comes to sourcing parts from the Jules Borel alternate #'s?

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43 minutes ago, thor447 said:

Is there some common knowledge that I'm missing when it comes to sourcing parts from the Jules Borel alternate #'s?

if you click on the parts description and go to the individual parts you find you get the cross references in other words all the watches that use those parts. Then you get numbers like this this is the Seiko part number 0310561. Then there's a description like this  BALANCE COMPLETE. Then there is the other number like this? So what exactly is this which I guess you're asking? so this number 721/2009 is kind of a two part number system the first number is a description of what the item is. In other words 721 is balance complete. I also consider this the best fit number the whole thing in the rest of it just specifies which balance complete. then if you go to the homepage of Jules Borel  sometimes bestfit number will show up.

Now this is where we get interesting problem I don't know how far and wide the bestfit parts were distributed whether their distributor worldwide or in the US only? So if you have a physical material house in the US you can either call them email them or whatever and ask them if they have the bestfit part because as far as I can tell there are not online for the most part.

 

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Thanks team, I've expanded my knowledge of where to go at a geometric rate (not difficult when you're starting off at ground zero though!), so thank you. I've just had a Duh moment, the movements I've just completed (5606) share the first 2 digits with the one I'm looking for (5646) - does this mean they are likely to be very similar - maybe even have some of the same parts. 2 out of 3 of the Lord Matics had broken plastic day date corrector wheels and I bought a set of 5 from Vintage time Australia. Managed to mangle one of them, but still have a couple of spares.

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2 minutes ago, DrHWO said:

the movements I've just completed (5606) share the first 2 digits with the one I'm looking for (5646) - does this mean they are likely to be very similar - maybe even have some of the same parts. 2 out of 3 of the Lord Matics had broken plastic day date corrector wheels and I bought a set of 5 from Vintage time Australia. Managed to mangle one of them, but still have a couple of spares.

if you go to the Jules Borel you do get the cross reference of parts. The problem is not all of the parts are going to cross reference the grand Seiko obviously has brand parts because they get a grand price for it so everything is unique to the grand Seiko will not necessarily work on other watches or vice versa. but I took a quick look at the list and a lot of the parts look like they're all the same and then others are limited only to the grand Seiko.

Then the broken plastic date wheel somewhere while researching Seiko stuff the last couple weeks I saw that apparently they're all disintegrating plastic was not a good choice. I've seen this with other plastic stuff I had a small printer that would work with my timing machine and fearing that it might someday break which it did I had a spare printer and it didn't work either because the exact same parts had broken didn't matter whether one was in use in other was in a box the plastic's in a grid with time and neither printer works. One of the minor problems of plastic is not necessarily forever

this may be one of those places of the possibility someday of 3-D printing new wheels and stereolithography would have the resolution

hopefully.

 

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The Replacement day date rocker wheels from Vintage Time Australia are stainless steel and worked flawlessly (once I figured out how to work the staking set). Bit pricey but it was cheaper to get them in "bulk" !

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3 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

As looking at the balance complete and $24 for a grand Seiko balance seems a bit cheap. Plus going to the homepage a claims it doesn't exist at all? 

This probably is a standard grade balance complete whereas the ones that came in brand new GS are chronograde. 

I asked such a question before,  answers pointed to the following.

Higher grade hairsprings in chronograde, sometimes  real jewel and possibly adjusted balance.

Other examples for instance you get an ETA2824 for about $25 , but the same caliber in a geniune Tudor costs you perhaps $200.

 

 

1 hour ago, DrHWO said:

the movements I've just completed (5606) share the first 2 digits with the one I'm looking for (5646) - does this mean they are likely to be very similar 

No,  not the digits.

 Dr ranfft lists the entire family these two calibers are member of, starts from the base caliber and shows newer modified variants.

Google;          Seiko 5606 ranfft    

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That's another shortcut to my ever expanding repertoire , thank you. I suspect that it won't be until I open up the GS56 that I'll see the differences / similarities. Clear the bench first. This will be the first watch I've worked on which has some emotional baggage attached to it!

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5 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

This probably is a standard grade balance complete whereas the ones that came in brand new GS are chronograde. 

I asked such a question before,  answers pointed to the following.

Higher grade hairsprings in chronograde, sometimes  real jewel and possibly adjusted balance.

Other examples for instance you get an ETA2824 for about $25 , but the same caliber in a geniune Tudor costs you perhaps $200.

you didn't specify which 2824?  to understand the difference of parts specifically balance wheels and because you didn't specify let's look at ETA 2824-2. For ETA to get the specifications the various watches you need to find their manufacturing information sheets for which I've attached this one as they can be hard to find. I usually people only want the service guides to the parts list I always find the technical knowledge of the various watches interesting so I've slowly tried to accumulate them. This one's interesting because this watch comes in four different grades Standard, Elaboré, Top and Chronomètre. Which unfortunately makes it harder to look at what were trying to look at is much nicer if they only have three grades because then you can see side-by-side what the differences are of why the top and the chronometer grade balance wheels usually cost more than the basic balance wheels. As for example using the example above $25 for basic balance wheel versus hundreds of dollars for a chronometer balance wheel.

So if you look at the list of differences are the two upper grades use a slightly different mainspring. usually on the Swiss watches one of the ways to tell is the balance shock system a different type for the higher and watches. Then the big difference is the balance wheel material and of course the hairspring.

Specifically if you're doing a chronometer grade watch it doesn't have to please the timing machine. Typically on this group and watchmakers we finish a watch you put on your timing machine is see what it's doing it regulated as close to zero your happy. But chronometer grade watches have to pass chronometer grade certification sort of. In any case chronometer specifications are for timing over a span of time at various temperatures. Specifically looking at the hands what kind of timekeeping does this watch keep they don't care with the timing machine says does the watch actually keep time over about a week at various temperatures.

So maybe what were seeing here is as far as pricing for the balance wheel. something had previously noticed about grand Seiko which is you look at the family the grand Seiko's at the top of the food chain but there's other watches lower down. In the case of a chronometer grade balance wheel to take more time to poise it more time for regulation more time to make everything perfect. So maybe Seiko really does have $25 grand Seiko back once wheels because they will interchange with a lower grade watch. It doesn't mean unfortunately that will keep exactly the same time perhaps but at least it opens up the possibility of spare parts being available

then because I was still curious I went looking for grand Seiko balance wheel I find this one on eBay which has a price which seems realistic for a grand Seiko. $200 oh a will note is still attached to its balance bridge that's because someone scrapped the grand Seiko and probably does not know how to remove it from the bridge hopefully if they ship this thing it arrives with the hairspring intact.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/293449725559

 

then back to the website we see that balance complete does not cost $200 but I'm not even the look I bet you it's not available. That's another problem it doesn't matter what the price list says if you can't purchase the parts.

http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=SEK_6246A

then while is looking for parts you might find this interesting vintage catalogs from Seiko all up to 2000 something including some grand Seiko information unfortunately reading Japanese is required but still pretty pictures.

https://www.theseikoguy.com/catalogs/#google_vignette

oh and for this particular grand Seiko here's a description of it.

https://shop.hodinkee.com/products/1967-grand-seiko-day-date-62gs-ref-6246-9001?variant=31790224048203

ETA 2824-2 - Manufacturing Information.pdf

3 hours ago, DrHWO said:

I suspect that it won't be until I open up the GS56 that I'll see the differences / similarities.

oh and as a reminder when you open it up pictures for yourself but it be nice if you'd post some pictures here. As you discovered not a lot of people work on grand Seiko's so pictures would be nice.

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I'll need to get some technology, but I'll give photos a shot! Might be a week or 2 before the opportunity arises. And thank you for the sort of in depth knowledge that books can never provide.

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4 hours ago, DrHWO said:

That's another shortcut to my ever expanding repertoire , thank you. I suspect that it won't be until I open up the GS56 that I'll see the differences / similarities. Clear the bench first. This will be the first watch I've worked on which has some emotional baggage attached to it!

 I wouldn't be expecting much difference between the two calibers. its mainly that when assembleing all adjustments got to be up to the standard of  COSC so you have done the watch justice. 

At this point your cleaning/ assembly and lube, so as long as no parts gets damaged it be a succes.

Most members here find cousinesuk rich in information data base.

Good luck pal.

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