Hi from SW UK

[turk62]

I have owned mechanical watches all my life, from a Smiths - a 13th birthday present, thro several 'no-name' Swiss pieces in the pre-quartz days; several Seiko & Citizen daily beaters to a collection now of some 20+!

A recent acquistion was a $40 Seamaster, that had seen better days - but worth the punt. I had expected to get someone like WatchGuy to work on it - but I kept missing the cut. Then I stumbled on you guys, wandered around and thought I'd give it a go myself - what could possibly go wrong?

So, I'm in the process of 'tooling up'and decided that my guinea-pig would be an old Seiko 7S26A that had given up on me. I thought the rotor had broken but I got the back off with the 'duct tape ball' and screwed the rotor back on - what I hadn't realised was that this movement has no manual wind - so of course it wouldn't go!

Anyway, with Mark's videos & Hacko's guides, I'm going to crack on with the teardown/clean/oil/rebuild so wish me luck.

IF all goes well, there's a Hamilton that's losing time and then the Seamaster!!  So,to paraphase Capt. Oates - "I may be some time".

[parmenion31]

nice intro turk ,

welcome to the fellowship,  as you said nothing will go wrong , plenty people willing to help here.

Waiting for your future projects

[bobm12]

Welcome Turk! Yes, it is a good idea to dissect the Seiko first rather than the Omega or the Hamilton for that matter!

By the way, your 7S26A (also version B  ) requires a "Philips" type screwdriver for one of the screws dial side. It is a tiny screw on the "Date Dial Guard". Other than that small difference it is the same as version C we have in the walkthrough section: an excellent one done by Lawson. Version C uses 4 screws of the same type on the guard. Also, the 7S36 is identical version to version but adds one more bridge and one more screw...but that is not your case. I'm including all these particular to broaden your search resources in case you are going deeper into those vintage Seiko movements...since you are working on one. Finally, CousinsUK sells the 7S36 which in a pinch can be swapped for the original 7S26 that way, if you mess anything up, you won't miss your original Seiko.

Cheers,

Bob

PS. Hacko says to build your own special screwdriver for that tiny screw...I went ahead and bought the Seiko screwdriver for that one...it is inexpensive...I figure, part of tooling up.

 

[turk62]

Thanks both - in the case of the 'rogue' philips-head screw, I was intending to 'engineer' a cheapo blade! I can't, for the life of me, think why seiko have such an oddball amongst regular screws. It seems to go against the very nature of japanese mfg. philosophy, ie standardise.

[dadistic]

Greetings and Salutations!

I went ahead and popped for the darn screwdriver too. The only reason I can think of for that screw is that it is there to support some automation procedure during assembly. 

Edited October 6, 2016 by dadistic

[bobm12]

...maybe it was an afterthought (think recall?) to smooth out the reliability of the mechanism...there is a wheel that actions the date and the day, attached to the plate, next to the screw. I've seen those working without the screw but by having it (regardless of version) it keeps the teeth of the wheels aligned properly... the plate is not rigid enough and with use it might bend a little without the screw. As a result, teeth won't align well with possible damage or unreliable action.