Watch of Today

[Shane]

I had to go dig my Seiko out.  I'm moving firewood today so I think it will be the watch of tomorrow.

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, Shane said:

I had to go dig my Seiko out.  I'm moving firewood today so I think it will be the watch of tomorrow.

A cracking little watch for little money. The khaki has a dessert tour look. Nice

[dadistic]

5 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

My watch of today. Another Seiko. This was the first new watch that i bought when i started collecting just under a year ago. Here we have a Seiko 5 Snk809. Generally thought of as a field watch.  

 

The SNK's were also my introduction to new mechanical watches a number of years ago.  At the time I wa buying them for about 50 USD.  Still have three left, been used and abused and modified.  Put a sapphire crystal on one of them when the mineral glass got all scratched up, I think it works well. Never did get a blue one. Oh well.

Cheers!

[Neverenoughwatches]

Eyups all. Here we have not quite a 404 but a very very reasonably priced utter beauty. These things and their successor wristwatch counterparts are my absolute favourites. I recently posted here not my grail watch but something very close to it. A Dirty Dozen, ok nothing so rare that its difficult to come by but definitely limited numbers available and also quite well sought after.  My searching has now thown up another mil spec watch. This is a Frenca G.S.T.P pocket watch. For anyone wonderering a General Service Trade Pattern watch, some ideas suggest Time piece but i prefer Trade Pattern. I'm not entirely sure which version is correct maybe someone can elaborate on this. Inside is a Buser 105 calibe, this baby is pretty big at 19 lignes. I took a punt as the dial looked suspect poor. But i got in real close and figured it was the crystal. Hardly a soul touched it on ebay, obviously nobody looked as close as me. It arrived today and sure enough the dial isn't half bad at all just a crazed and cracked crystal .  Opened the back up and the movement is just as clean and perfect. Overcoil hairspring in perfect condition, jeez you could springboard dive off this thing its that solid.  I so love military watches. Well-built, robust , reliable, practical, everlasting  quality units ( bit like myself ). I should have been a soldier, i have appreciation of everything a good soldier stands for. Discipline, regimental, honour, justice the love for his country and where he originates from, fitness, action, courage,  and especially camaraderie.  The idea that i have your back and you have mine no matter what happens. I have mates like this, and there is nothing that i wouldnt do for them or they for me. Sorry got side tracked there. Here is my latest beautiful watch. I'm just dying to start researching its history.

[AndyHull]

A 1970s Swiss Orion from the 404 club adorns my wrist today. Sadly not a Glashütte Orion, but if one of those comes up within the 404 club budget, I'm sure I'll let you all know.

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, AndyHull said:

A 1970s Swiss Orion from the 404 club adorns my wrist today. Sadly not a Glashütte Orion, but if one of those comes up within the 404 club budget, I'm sure I'll let you all know.

Like it Andy. It has that wacky space age  colouful 70s Marmite  look to it. Bit like the aubergine and plum trendy bathroom suites that our parents used to have fitted. Would you say the dial is original?  It also has that Mumbai appearance. Whats inside it mate ?

Edited July 27, 2022 by Neverenoughwatches

[AndyHull]

Just now, Neverenoughwatches said:

Would you say the dial is original?  It also has that Mumbai appearance. 

The dial looks a little washed out in that first picture, but actually its not. Its all entirely original, apart from the new blue strap with red stitching, which I think matches rather well.

There is a little bit of fading of the dial finish below the indices, which you can see better in this picture. There is a plastic movement spacer inside that has shrunk, so the movement has a slight rattle, but I may address that with a 3D printed replacement spacer if I get a little time to design and print it. There are also a couple of marks on the plating, but over all it looks not bad and runs fine for a forty year old watch.

[thor447]

Wearing my Aqua Terra.  It hasn't been getting much attention as of late so I decided let it see some sunshine today.

The pic is older, but it is the watch I'm wearing today.  Every time I try to take a new photo on my phone it shuts the app off, so I'm forced to use an older picture.

[tomh207]

Back to this one, the first watch I built. As my kids are now Aussie and my grandkids were born there I did a theme of the Oz national colours for a laugh.

Wearing it for a few days at least

 

Tom

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

Morning UK,  and hello to the rest of the world. I hope you are all well. Today i have a nice swiss piece,  er watch that is . This is a Huntana ( cool name ) not running as yet but will probably be my next project. Inside is a Unitas 6325, as you will notice from the photos it has a hairspring issue ( just a bit lol ) but hopefully my superhuman skills can straighten this out. Besides this the watch has more to worry about than a dodgy mangled hairspring as you will see in the last photo lol. This is a bit beyond me and more in line with a visit to the doctor and a course of antibiotics. As a precaution during its repair i will be keeping my mouth firmly closed ( yeah yeah hard to believe   " Whaatevvaaa " ). And I will not be wearing my usual #  going commando # style of attire. Yes Gert and Richard you know what I'm talking about. And no Richard i wont be using 20x mag on my scope, bigboy needs wide-angle lens just to fit it all in

Edited July 30, 2022 by Neverenoughwatches

[AndyHull]

Today I decided to give my EB8800 based "Chromatic" "Digital Swiss" an airing.

[Neverenoughwatches]

53 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

Today I decided to give my EB8800 based "Chromatic" "Digital Swiss" an airing.

Like it Andy . You have some really cool 70s watches. How are these to work on ? I keep looking at the jump hours, they're not often in good condition. 

[AndyHull]

That particular jump hour is based on the EB8800, which comes in a whole bunch of different versions. Strictly speaking mine is an EB 8807. More details about that family of calibers here.

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2uswk&EB_8800

There are a couple of EB 8800 teardowns on WRT.

One here for example (this is an 8815 - jewelled - date version, but the basic mechanicals are the same).

The EB8800 is reasonably easy to work on, though the single bridge construction is a bit fiddly. Spare parts or rather spare mechanisms are easy to find on ebay, generally cheap as chips, and most of the parts are interchangeable between versions. There are jewelled and un-jewelled versions, but all are simple pin lever mechanisms.

The EB8800 does have some common failure points. For example the spring "bridge" that holds the mainspring barrel in place and the barrel itself tend to wear, resulting in a mechanism that will partially wind, then explosively unwind.
Swapping out the barrel and the bridge and anything else that has been damaged in the process will probably result in a working mechanism.

There are a number of other Jump Hour mechanisms. Search for jump hour or digital on -> http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2uswk

The use of digital displays goes way back in the history of watch making, but they became very popular around the time that the first LED, and later LCD digital watches arrived on the scene. James Bond's LED Pulsar from Live and Let Die in 1973 has a lot to answer for in that regard.

This is what it looked like when I bought it in Feb 2020.

Not great shape, non runner, and a bit scratched up.

With a little bit of effort, a service and a clean and polish it came back to life nicely.

The crystals are custom, so if that is damaged, it would be pretty difficult to replace or repair, but other than that there is nothing particularly difficult about working on them.

Edited August 1, 2022 by AndyHull

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

That particular jump hour is based on the EB8800, which comes in a whole bunch of different versions. Strictly speaking mine is an EB 8807. More details about that family of calibers here.

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2uswk&EB_8800

There are a couple of EB 8800 teardowns on WRT.

One here for example (this is an 8815 - jewelled - date version, but the basic mechanicals are the same).

The EB8800 is reasonably easy to work on, though the single bridge construction is a bit fiddly. Spare parts or rather spare mechanisms are easy to find on ebay, generally cheap as chips, and most of the parts are interchangeable between versions. There are jewelled and un-jewelled versions, but all are simple pin lever mechanisms.

The EB8800 does have some common failure points. For example the spring "bridge" that holds the mainspring barrel in place and the barrel itself tend to wear, resulting in a mechanism that will partially wind, then explosively unwind.
Swapping out the barrel and the bridge and anything else that has been damaged in the process will probably result in a working mechanism.

There are a number of other Jump Hour mechanisms. Search for jump hour or digital on -> http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2uswk

The use of digital displays goes way back in the history of watch making, but they became very popular around the time that the first LED, and later LCD digital watches arrived on the scene. James Bond's LED Pulsar from Live and Let Die in 1973 has a lot to answer for in that regard.

Great info as always Andy  

[AndyHull]

Something a little different today. An early quartz alarm ESA 926311 based "Claude Helier Paris" with a white enamel dial. 

I can't quite make my mind up about the case.

It may be gold, as it has a stamp next to the crown, and the metal where scratched doesn't appear to be plated. I'm in two minds about this one, and I'm going to presume for the time being that it probably isn't gold, unless of course someone can prove otherwise.

I didn't take the mechanism out of the case as it is fairly pristine, other than the scratches on the case from previous battery changes (not made by me I hasten to add). It came with a suede leather case, embossed with "Claude Hellier" and an apparently little worn, or unworn "genuine crocodile" strap. 

[GomBoo]

The first Electric...Hamilton Spectra Award 1957.  

[VWatchie]

11 hours ago, GomBoo said:

The first Electric...Hamilton Spectra Award 1957.

Beautiful! is it still ticking?

[AndyHull]

I decided to wear this surprisingly accurate and stable Ingersoll today.

The mechanism is a little primitive and there is no date quick set, but it does run pretty well for what it is.

I would guess it is from the 1980s and has seen more time sitting in a drawer than it has on anyone's wrist, since it is clean as a whistle and almost blemish free.

Edited August 12, 2022 by AndyHull

[Neverenoughwatches]

On 8/9/2022 at 10:32 PM, AndyHull said:

It may be gold, as it has a stamp next to the crown, and the metal where scratched doesn't appear to be plated. I'm in two minds about this one, and I'm going to presume for the time being that it probably isn't gold, unless of course someone can prove otherwise.

I met a guy at my local car boot that buys gold. He uses a hand xray that tells him the  metalic properties of any object. I said i would love a gadget such as his, he told me if i had 16 grand spare i could buy one. Wow

4 hours ago, AndyHull said:

I decided to wear this surprisingly accurate and stable Ingersoll today.

The mechanism is a little primitive and there is no date quick set, but it does run pretty well for what it is.

I would guess it is from the 1980s and has seen more time sitting in a drawer than it has on anyone's wrist, since it is clean as a whistle and almost blemish free.

Swiss made ?  Another sell out to swatch i wonder ? Lol sorry Andy , yes nice watch mate.

[AndyHull]

I finally got round to tidying up this rather beaten up Allwyn 21 jewel Automatic from the early to mid 1980s. I picked this up a couple of years back, and it was in pretty bad shape, with damaged hands, the remains of a smashed crystal, which had been superglued (badly) into the case, and a large collection of dirt and battle scars. It looks a whole lot better now, but there is still some evidence of the hard life it has lived.

 

Allwyn were a competitor to the arguably better known HMT, and Titan Indian watch brands, producing licensed Seiko movement watches in Hydrabad.

This is actually a licensed Seiko 6319A movement, and I believe the parts are interchangeable. One neat feature that makes it unique from the Japanese version is that the the day disk is in English and Hindi (Devanagari) script.

[AndyHull]

Today its the turn for my blue dialled Citizen Chrystron Quartz (Dial code P-7310-282571-KY) from 1980 to catch a few rays.

[AndyHull]

Something a little bit different, and a little contentious today.

Perhaps the ultimate quartz crisis watch. 

A National Semiconductor LCD watch. This is from the brief era when these watches were relatively novel, and thus relatively expensive. The construction of this involves lots of gold plating and not many features.

A few short years later they were dirt cheap, so much so that they were giving them away free when you filled your car with fuel.

These days fuel is so expensive it wont be long before they give you a free Rolex if you can afford to fill your tank.

[Gramham]

Hello Everyone,

This arrived in the mail today.  It's a runner.  Paid HKD100 for it (About USD12.75).

- Crystal just a little scratched, throwing a shadow a 7 O'clock.
- Baton (is that right) hands in reasonable shape, it seems
- Sweep/second hand with little red end (nice touch!)
- Baton indicators
- RED Date in framed window
- No calendar quickset
- No hacking
- Seconds index around perimeter of dial

Did I get the above right?  Did I miss anything?

Does anyone have anything to say about Shanghai watches? 

Has anyone worked on something similar?  Any advice?

I cannot get the back off - yet - because I am still waiting on my sticky ball....



g.
----

[Kalanag]

1 hour ago, Gramham said:

I cannot get the back off - yet - because I am still waiting on my sticky ball....
 

Don‘t expect too much from this trendy „tool“! 

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, Gramham said:

Hello Everyone,

This arrived in the mail today.  It's a runner.  Paid HKD100 for it (About USD12.75).

- Crystal just a little scratched, throwing a shadow a 7 O'clock.
- Baton (is that right) hands in reasonable shape, it seems
- Sweep/second hand with little red end (nice touch!)
- Baton indicators
- RED Date in framed window
- No calendar quickset
- No hacking
- Seconds index around perimeter of dial

Did I get the above right?  Did I miss anything?

Does anyone have anything to say about Shanghai watches? 

Has anyone worked on something similar?  Any advice?

I cannot get the back off - yet - because I am still waiting on my sticky ball....



g.
----

Check out the superglued nut method G. It works a bloody treat good sir

14 minutes ago, Kalanag said:

Don‘t expect too much from this trendy „tool“! 

People say the same about me Kalanag although i'm more of a jeans and got your ticket to the gun show white t shirt kind of guy.