The worlds longest name - Seiko Alba Spoon Web W440 Secret Agent Man

[AlexeiJ1]

So I was at the local sunday market today, and happened upon a weird little digital watch. I normally avoid them, but this one was a pulsar and it caught my eye.

It was missing the strap - the seller was a big old man in his 60's selling knick knacks like beer glasses. He was asking $5 - I tried bargaining down to $4 but no cigar.
I scored the digital watch and a Russian 9micron Gold plated Zarya with 16 jewels in running order (ladies watch).

In Australia it is quite hard to find anything other than ladies watches because there are hundreds of blokes going around to all the thrift shops and buying up the gents watches. As most men over 40 here are divorced - they have nobody to buy ladies watches for and hence normally I have my pick.

This was a lucky score to find a unisex/mens watch - I knew from straight away that it was something interesting - It had a large screen with many buttons, I initially thought it had a HR monitor or excercise function. From research it cost around $200 US in 1999 and was quite a trendy watch at the time. It is powered by a Seiko module with a pulsar assembly in "China".

I got it home and started having a good look:

According to another watch blog, it has the following features:
Other modes are:
- address book
- memo/messages
- chronograph
- timer
- alarm
The full model number is: W440-4000


Beautiful working module


Very grubby - but it is 100% complete minus the strap.
It is a plastic/resin body with a base metal brass bezel that is chrome plated.
It has resin/abs pushbuttons that are fully spring and water sealed.

It has a stainless steel case back with a waterproof seal.

I plan to replate the chrome.

Spotless back - apart from minor marks.

These watches were designed to be serviceable. Not like modern rubbish which is sealed for life. This beauty was able to be stripped down to the bare nuts and circlips.

Starting to ease the buttons out.

Mint original glass- will gently polish it thats it. (Mineral glass)

Spring bars for the assembly.

A little trick I use to remove circlips.

A photo of the module

Nice and clean

AN old article about the watch from Popular Mechanics;

Edited March 4, 2018 by AlexeiJ1

[AlexeiJ1]

SO I have stripped it down, I will chrome the bezel. Get a new battery - refit all the seals and buy a strap.

Updates will be in 2-3 weeks

Oh yeah and will have to respray the case silver

[Pip]

That looks very cool, especially for a fiver! Looking forward to seeing the completed piece.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lianeanderson1]

Hi! I was replacing the battery in this Pulsar X440 SAM spoon watch, and a piece came out that I can NOT figure out where to put back!! Rookie mistake I know, but can anyone tell me where it goes?? Pics attached.......

 

[jdm]

1 hour ago, lianeanderson1 said:

Hi! I was replacing the battery in this Pulsar X440 SAM spoon watch, and a piece came out that I can NOT figure out where to put back!!

What piece?

[lianeanderson1]

4 hours ago, jdm said:

What piece?

I am so sorry, I loaded these pictures but they were not attached! Ugh. Here you go, first pict picture is the piece.

[lianeanderson1]

I'm sorry to bother you again, but did you receive the photos?

[Valkon]

Hi.

Alexei I am doing just the same on a black spoon web that I purchased in Japan in 2002 i think. 

Did you find a decent strap to fit the watch? I was going to find a nice g-shock 22 mm strap and cut it back to fit the pins if need be? The original strap had a wonderful closing clip like a divers watch.

Anyway I would be really interested to see how you rebuilt this great little watch that can do so much. I have all the original instructions! In Japanese.... ??? It is quite detailed as you can type messages into it etc.

Thanks.

Simon 

[AlexeiJ1]

If I recall correctly I fitted a 22 or 20mm vented rubber strap - this looked okay.

I would get a flat rubber strap from ebay or CousinsUK.