SKX007 spruce up.
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10-09-2024 12:19AM#1
All things to all men these, for good reason too, they're an icon, but most tbh are in need of help by now. This one was but is now ready for whatever life and leisure throws at it.
It's a nice original example but the movement needed expertise I don't possess (yet) and the draw of hacking and handwinding is strong.
Beat error would shift wildly with position and likewise timekeeping, there's no point attempting regulating this. Time for an NH36 with crown @ 3.8. Some pics along the way for anyone half interested…
Love my cousins Bergeon rip off cleaning pen, fantastic for hand and inside crystal cleaning. Hands were manky but came up good.
Black movement spacer removed from the 7s26 and put on the NH36 the hard (read proper) way. Hands aligned as you hope seiko would (but don't) and it now clicks over within 30 seconds of midnight instead of a quarter to. Stack height has to be level as the nh is marginally taller here I believe and can cause the seconds hand to rub the crystal if tipping up any at all. These hands had been off before and were dirty, the hr hand needed to be broached and the seconds hand bent. All square now.
It takes another while for the day to flip over to correct alignment as per the 7s26.
New stem needed for the hacking and winding and the 7s26 crown's stem is crimped so new crown needed. I used a good triple seal one and changed the stem seals for a better plush fit in the crown tube.
Cutting the stem length so the crown pops when unscrewed, deselects hacking with a nice click and bottoms out against the case (and thereby seals the third gasket against the crown tube) is very very important. All too often one or more of these aspects is lacking. Stem is secured with loctite afterwards.
Seals are changed/greased and so too the stem where needed sparingly. Nice fat 0.8mm case back gasket there.
Next it's regulated. I have a good few nh's kicking about but the ones with minimal positional changes and ones that don't twitch the second hand when timesetting are my preferred choice. This one should be a few seconds slow a day on wrist but should make it up if left face down over night. Wrist time will tell. Either way a huge improvement over what was.
The watch then has the movement removed, is pressurised to 3 bar for a few minutes before the pressure being released and then submerged whilst looking for bubbles. If no bubbles I repeat with the watch movement installed. If no bubbles it's good to go.
Final check ensuring hand clearance, stem function and it's ready to rock.
Final notes, finger cots are a must and rodico is your friend, it holds and cleans but is for the bin once used once. Dust and fingerprints are a big no no. I use small pieces of leather chamois to clean the inside of a crystal, nothing comes close to it imo. A strong torch light from below helps see and remove dust pecks with a piece of rodico no human hand has touched. And then all is well in the world and the universe is improved now an skx is once more fighting fit.
Really love the skx and it's a shame the 5kx or whatever you call the latest incarnation have lost the essence of being a tool watch first is what made them a cool watch as a result. If you have an old skx don't sell it!
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May as well put my attempts to spruce up my near on thirty year old Seiko quartz panda chrono here.
On the left.
It was killed in the washing machine by my future wife by accident many moons ago. You can see hands are loose on the dial. After being rediscovered I wanted it working again. It's the first watch I bought myself and was along for so many important moments. Nostalgia eh.
New movements are unavailable (pulsar equivalents too) all discontinued so a donor then. Working ones are now saucy money but found a battered one in the UK for 60 pounds listed as "needs a battery, untested"... Seller does house clearance seemingly. It had a full bracelet so I took a punt and lo and behold if it didn't jump into life with a new battery once I shorted the ac to positive. Overjoyed so I was until I felt the stiff crown and the date change over failed at midnight:( A simple swap over to my case was not on the cards.
The day driving wheels small lever (across from "14" was misshapen due to some plonker advancing date while it was changing. This meant it wouldn't kick over the date wheel at midnight. Thankfully mine was aok so swopped it in and oiled the appropriate parts. Phew, sorted.
Next the alarm was cycling but not sounding. There's two usual suspects, the contacts being too low to touch the caseback to ground or the piezo unit inside the caseback being broken. Thankfully sopping in the donors caseback fixed it and it's charming dual tone alarm brought back twelve yrs of being woken up. Result!
Next was rebuild the dismantled parts back onto the movement and seat all the hands. First time I've done that on such small chrono hands. A challenge for my xl paws.
I removed the circlips holding the three pushers and changed the O rings. Major arse pain seating the C clips back but worth it to feel the lovely now waterproof plush fit. Likewise the two crowns. They were in bad shape and broke easily being dried up, here's a fresh one going on. Again they feel so much more secure and rubbery when using them. Case back gasket was changed too.
The crystal was badly scratched and chipped at the edges slightly. It's design is such that 0.25mm is proud around the bezel and it really could do with a slight bevel.
This was a first. Practically exploded when I went to press it out. No injuries but will be wearing eye protection when installing and removing them in future, bits went everywhere.
With the crystal removed I set again sanding the worst of scratches from the case bezel after masking the brushing below. I didn't want to remove all of it entirely, just enough and then polished it on a felt wheel with dialux rouge. I then masked this and rebrushed the brushing with a gray scotchbrite wheel on the scraped lugs.
The donor bracelet was rough as feck but solid, well as solid as seiko made them lol. Out with the Bergeon 7109 tape and a half hr masking/unmasking brushing vs polished really netted decent results but again, stopping short of "as new" to match the case.
Time to install the custom sapphire I ordered. It's 32mm x 1.5mm, a small micro bevel and anti reflective treatment on the underside, I got it via a contact in Hong Kong. and safe to say it's the only 7T32-7C60 with one. Itwas expensive but worth it as I couldn't find an AR one anywhere. New gasket fitted with it .
Cased the movement, recalibrate the hand position by going to second position on the main crown and advancing them with button A and B until aligned perfectly. The buttons and crown are an absolute joy to use now. Checked the alarm and working like a charm. Set the time and set the alarm (which can function as second time zone) to california time as I've family out there.
Couldn't be happier to have this back on wrist and am happy with how it turned out.
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More tinkering in the odd orbit of 90's 7t32 quartz. Mecha quartz before it was a thing.
I found a shop in the states selling off as new sales samples, straight out of cryo sleep as it were :)
They have dummy movements in, so just the bare basics to support the dial, date wheel and hands for display purposes. The crowns are cemented in without stems, no seals etc. So a bit of work in making one tick then, goodie.
Bought a few to amuse myself with, this one being the most interesting and probably seikos high end offering in this line, the 7t32 7d19, affectionately referred to by it's fan base as "the sprocket".
It was 450 ish dollars back in the mid nineties, boasts an impressive 20bar resist (mmm..) and Stargate style unidirectional dive bezel and sapphlex crystal (sapphire treated mineral). It's 41mm case and ehhh a bit busy to look at lol.
I dig it so I ripped the innards out of one of my recently bought 7t32 donor watches and had at it.
Acid, isopropyl, heat and micro drill bits had me ready to fit stems. Mr seiko intentionally went to town with the epoxy, these watches were never to be recomissioned.
7t32 stems are a tenner each and you can't reuse the ones from the donor watches as they're crimped in so measure twice and cut long.
My seal kit thankfully had the right size d rings, no 15 and case back 38mm. I heat bonded on the peizo alarm buzzer on the case back too.
Five bar and sudden pressure release (above water) to see if the glass popped and all good. Back to five bar for five mins and into the drink while releasing pressure to see if it leaks, all good no bubbles. Case is good to go to at least fifty meters. Crowns are not screw down incidentally.
Thankfully epoxy wasn't used on the underside of the dial or hands so I could reuse them on my movement. The 7t32 is fragile so hand setting such small pieces is testing. The alarm dual time dial at six o'clock cannot be calibrated so you must set them at 12 exactly. The seconds hand is mega delicate too.
Very happy with it, especially as it says sample on the caseback haha, it's a fun watch and I put a lot of work into it. There was no bracelet so I searched high and low to no avail and in the end matched it closely to oem with the seven link engineers bracelet. I have curved end links I will adapt to the lugs easily with some time.
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Thanks guys, I do like my seikos and oddball ones such as the above especially.
The oem bracelet is unobtainium but this generic one was a close match (7 link engineers) so I reckeoned on trying to grind the optional curved end links it came with to fit.
Slowly grind to match the lug but also bend the links curvature to as you go. When i was a gnats pube from finished I changed the angle so the grind matched flush to the mating surface when fitted. Then bend the spring bar retainers underneath so the link is tight.
From pics online that's probably a better fit than the oem one as each of mine only fit their given lug and have no gaps. Gotta love my dremel.
The 0.75mm overgrind of the rhs lug is unfortunate and surprising, any seiko sample cases I have are generally superior to production ones. I seriously doubt anyone bar me will notice it lol.
I must dig out a 22mm oem seiko clasp from the parts box and fit it as the finisher but happy how my tinkering with this turned out.
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Aha, sweet job, you nailed the arc and it looks great on that! I've yet to own a Poljot and there's a few I've a serious itch for.
Speaking of BOR bracelets I recently bought an affordable one from these boyos
https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ezeh0TBI was told by a mate in HK they make them for higher end resellers who then sell them with their branding. Incidentally it came with the exact same clasp as the uncle... People be buying them for seiko omega and older breitling etc, they do them in various sizes and fellow tinkerers such as ourselves have being adapting them to their watches.
I had an uncle seiko bor for my skx but didn't like the way they ground the beads flat on top. It's bor fer gods sake not flat top bor lol!
The quality is great, brushing and polishing is top, fully articulated, link gap minimal end link fit great but there was an issue, as there can be with China direct. They never rounded the recessed slots for the beads in the end link which meant when assembled it krinked the first link. Very easy sorted with the dremel but could put some off. Literally took five mins to do both.
Bracelet is like 100g iirc.
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The last of the three sample case I bought. Painstaking work to remove all traces of epoxy from the crowns and tubes but I've refined my methods. Likewise bonding on the peizo ceramic buzzer to the caseback.
It passed the six bar pressure test with no bubbles, the new seals doing their job. Intrerestingly (well, to me anyhow) this piece does not exist, I cannot find it via the case or dial reference. It seems to pre date the SQ100 familiar case shape but presumably this sample only ever remained as such. A huge bonus for me lol.
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Operation false economy flightmaster is go...
It's general appearance is best described by the immortal words "used hard and put away wet". The Hardlex appears to have been used as a brake for one of those downhill skatboarders, the screw down pushers don't screw (seized) and there's a dried water drop on the dial. Lovely!
I could have returned it at this point as the auction never mentioned the potential case compromising seized pusher screws. They can strip and if they do it's game over.
I decided to drive on and after penetrative oil and rubber shrouded pliers they freed off with a slurry of gunk. Delightful!
Bottom one cleaned and top one yet to be done.
The crown still has a turn and a half of thread so the watch is a goer, just lol.
The spring bars were so corroded the pins wouldn't retract
So had to be ground out and the barrel drifted out lol. The general amount of wrist cheese embedded in every crevice of this watch are next level gross.
So button A dickered her, you can see the ingress spread from there. Dial is salvageable but left of centre is a three mm water spot dried and being a high gloss there's slightest evidence of having been cleaned after my efforts. New dial inbound for triggers broom then. Not overly sad about it as the lume has degraded somewhat. Hands are OK.
Hands off and dial on a new 7t62 movement. This is the pulsar equivalent (identical) and a mere 20 quid. I think this is why the SNA411 in particular is going for bananas money lately, nostalgia and readily available cheap oem replacement movements.
So parts are still inbound but I decided to throw it all together at this point after cleaning it all and will wear it until the goodies arrive. Obviously if it gets wet it's a goner tho.
The ultrasonic cleaner did it's job on the bracelet and I spent five mins to brushing it with a scotch brite wheel, I did the polished centre links too cos they're gack looking imo.
So here it is on wrist working away until I get more bits in.
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Quick crystal swop as it arrived today. But not before I zap the case in the U-S cleaner.
The haze of muck that came out of the case was impressive. Very nice to have it clean finally. I'll do the pusher seals when the weird ass nylon crown tube and seal arrive.
Most fit a double dome sapphire but I like the mag and distortion of the single dome - which means flat bottom and domed top (ala the stock crystal) . I usually buy from the likes of who I imagine supplies companies such as Crystal Times but pickings were slim in 32mm x 6mm x 2.8mm single dome and he had it so coughed up for it.
Having a quality crystal press and a supply of both black and white crystal seals makes this job a pleasure. I bought decent aluminum dies in 1mm increments for the press and it's a joy to use.
A few more bits to do but its getting there.
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Thanks LD, bar the movement swap it's all been beautification stuff but I'm eager for them seals to arrive. I have good quality Japanese D and E rings in the size needed from a kit pack but will wait for oem.
Fitted these bits which arrived.
The old bezel was scratched and faded. It's bidirectional/without index and pops off easily with a thin blade. I removed the O ring stretched it a bit/greased it before refitting and pressing it on. Hand pressure suffices with this one. All very smooth.
The uncle seiko presidential bracelet suits the watch and has a very good SEL fit, but is a bitch to install as advertised. I used one custom spring bar and one standard. Anyway, all four tips are in their respective holes and the ugly as hell oem bracelet is no more. I installed my ratcheting clasp after, can't be without one. Gave the case a polish on the buffing wheel after masking the brushing off.
I also ate my words and changed the crystal again. While I think the single dome style of the oem suits it I could not abide the blue ar mine had. The dome was about 1.5mm too high imo.
This one is a lovely crystal, double dome with heaps of clear ar and is a lower dome at 32mm x 4.5mm x 2.8mm. No mag but more clarity and no gawd awful blue.
So just seals left and I've been asked to do the same as all I have done to this to a SNA413 Flighty, the blue panda one which is inbound so all very Flighty related at the mo.
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Paid 40 some dollars on fleabay. Rough as a badgers arse, movt dead, in general hockey puck condition.
These ( SNA139) launched in 04 but I never had the fancier black dialled ti version like this. As the dial seemed unmarked and was assured the crown had good threads I bit.
So the previous battery leaked and killed it. I have a 7t62 NOS at the ready.
To release the pusher buttons the tiny circlips must be pushed off, at which point they piiing to the moon. Hence doing it through a baggie. The large O ring is the crown tube gasket, same setup as the flightmaster with no seal on the crown itself. I renewed it but also added a flat o ring to the inside of the crown to further seal against the top of the crown tube. I don't get why Seiko did not do this, redundancy!
Case and bracelet us cleaned and refinished. New crystal gasket and low single dome crystal ala oe.
All back together and no bubbles once the pressures released so good to go for at least six bar anyhow.
Alarm working great and it went on a walk this morning. Lume is brill, it's 73g all in and very slim. Whole project took three and a half hours. Much fun.
Post edited by H_Lime on12 -
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Hey Covey
Ordinary grade ti as used on this and prob on your Citizen is pretty soft. Well in comparison to stainless. I dont use anything fancy other than various grades of scotchbrite wheels for a dremel.
I start with coarse until scratches are gone and work my way towards finer grades depending on what finish I'm after.
The trick for uniformity of finish on a circular plain bezel is to use a lathe. I don't have one but I use plastic threaded crystal dies to sandwich the case (sans crystal and movt obvs). It allows the case to spin when the scotchbrite wheel is in contact with the bezel and gives a great finish.
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