Replacing vostok komandirskie hands, price in Dublin

Melanchthon

Hello

Wondering if the users here have any suggestions of where and how much it would roughly cost to have the hands on my Komandirskie in the Dublin area or via post, picked up a nicer styled much more luminous hands on eBay which have finally arrived and fitting them myself looks awkward

Thirdfox

You'd need the right tools - a hands remover and hands pusher - I've done this procedure before (funnily on a Vostok Amphibia) - was happy to do it on one of my cheaper watches. It's not super difficult if you take your time. Remember to stop the watch though - since it doesn't have a hacking mechanism you'd want to release the mainspring power.

But otherwise I think any watchmaker would be able to do that easily for you. Don't know what professionals charge for this - I wouldn't expect it to be too high - this should be a 10-20 minute job if you take your time. I guess they'll charge accordingly. A jeweller who does battery changes might not actually have the right tools to change hands around so it's worth checking in advance.

Easy to do, harder to do right I think is the idea - especially if the lumed hands are fragile. We have a few Seiko modders here on the forum too who may feel up to the challenge

Melanchthon

Thirdfox wrote: »

You'd need the right tools - a hands remover and hands pusher - I've done this procedure before (funnily on a Vostok Amphibia) - was happy to do it on one of my cheaper watches. It's not super difficult if you take your time. Remember to stop the watch though - since it doesn't have a hacking mechanism you'd want to release the mainspring power.
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Easy to do, harder to do right I think is the idea - especially if the lumed hands are fragile. We have a few Seiko modders here on the forum too who may feel up to the challenge

Thanks for the info, looks awkward was an understatement on my part after looking at it again!

Cienciano

Getting them off is easy, getting them on a bit hard. The problem with watches like the komandirskie, it might cost €65 for the watch brand new. Hands cost €20 ,fitting cost €30. If its an old watch you might as well go to meranom.com and get a new one, unless it has sentimental value

Thirdfox

Exactly - that's why it often makes sense to try it yourself - unless you know for sure you won't ever need the hands remover/attachment equipment ever again.

OP might be modding the watch with superior hands though - I think once you start going down the modding route you may really want to consider learning to do some of these actions yourself - it will be much cheaper in the long run

Melanchthon

Thirdfox wrote: »

OP might be modding the watch with superior hands though - I think once you start going down the modding route you may really want to consider learning to do some of these actions yourself - it will be much cheaper in the long run

Thanks for the replies, I actually picked it up from meranom.com last year so its not sentimental, I can see why people would get into modding though, bought a NATO strap to replace the pretty awful one it ships with, now replaced that with a Ukrainian leather strap from watchSoviet on Etsy (good value and very comfortable but have feeling might not age well), these are the hands I got, more about the arrow and second hand shape than the luminous.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/WATCHES-PARTS-24-Vostok-Amphibia-JOINT-TRIANGLE-ARROW-HANDS-Superlumia-Blue-CL/223023772592?hash=item33ed40b3b0:m:m3bCXl9Xd4nQTexj4GGyrGQ

Been looking at the am-watches.com bezels but probably going to leave that for now.

I think if I was going to end up spending lots of money modding it would just buying one of the Komandirskie K-34's as from what I have seen of them they have a style I like.

Thanks

Thirdfox

Bezels are much easier to replace than hands though - that's a 30 second to 1 minute task, especially on a Vostok which doesn't have a click wheel.