I’ve handled one watch with a PT5000 and the rate changed by 8 seconds depending on position, so it could be regulated to +4/-4s/d. Not quite chronometer spec but still respectable and better than the NH35 which average around +7/-7 once regulated.

@Fudd – I’d noticed that some Heimdallr watches, mostly European based designs, had ETA movements, and I’ve seen other makes with them as well, I didn’t know that ETA were picky about who used their movements though. I haven’t looked through Heimdallr’s range lately, I don’t want to be tempted. Although the Yema Navygraf would be my first choice for another watch.

Swatch group who own ETA stopped supplying to others back in 2015/16, so brands outside of Swatch who’ve relied on ETA movements for years such as IWC, Breitling and Tag have been forced to either adopt the Sellita equivalent movements, look elsewhere as Breitling have done with Kenissi/Tudor, or buy an existing movement manufacturer like C Ward have done and claim you’re now ‘In-House’.

The point I was making was that Helmdallr’s claims of ETA movements in their watches is BS as new ETA are no longer available direct from the factory, not unless you’re one of the Swatch brands. I’ve also seen other micro-brands claiming they use ETA and it’s tripe, it has to be when no one else can buy them, so what are they actually fitting? If they were using Sellita then they’d just say so, so my money’s on them using Chinese ETA clones, possibly even stamped with ETA and then charging an extra £200 or so for a movement that costs similar an NH35.

Or maybe I’m just a cynical old bastard and some of the Chinese micro-brands do indeed have Swatch group exec’s on speed dial…

Those Heimdallr watches are interesting in that they’re using ETA movements. I’d love to know why ETA would supply a Chinese Homage maker but refuse to supply to Swiss and basically every other manufacturer outside of the SWATCH group. I know you can buy Chinese clone 2824’s but surely they wouldn’t be using these and claiming they’re the real thing…?

New arrival –

And when you press the crown it does this –

S’alright for £70.

I do wonder about the legitimacy of some of these ‘ETA’ movement claims considering ETA no longer supply to independents…

Pretty sure there’ll be an A Schild movement of some description inside that and parts availability shouldn’t be an issue, so any decent independent will have no problem servicing it.

Someone mentioned above that they know a guy who can make parts if they’re nla and that’s proper watchmaking with the hourly rate to reflect that. What you need is someone who services and repairs watches, a watch technician if you like, but they all call themselves watchmakers regardless. I’d be happy to take it on but I’m pre-booked until September at the earliest, so Joe at Anglesey Watch and Clock repairs or Rick Askham are the first two that spring to mind. Both have a great rep within the industry and don’t take the piss on pricing.

For the Yema, I have seen people say it’s actually just an Eta clone

Yep. Over 1m spent on r&d according to the website and they’ve come up with a 2824 clone with a modification to the auto-winding.

This –

Not running and when I opened it up found this –

Replaced these parts –

And it now looks like this-

1977 Seiko Panda. Managed to find one in great condition and with original seiko parts. I have the seiko strap as well, but am allergic to metal watch straps so the Nato is on for now (which i think works well – better than the original metal strap to be honest). I also have a nice dark brown leather from finwatchstraps on the way.

Should be a nice investment – have always regretted hovering over the Buy It Now button with one of these around 5 years ago, before the prices started going crazy.

Looks like a nice honest example so well done on not buying one of the many filled with a/m parts.

I bought one a few years ago when prices were even sillier – I first took notice of them around 2013 and they rocketed up a lot quicker than Pogue’s or 6105’s etc. Seems I bought at the peak as I thought it was a 1.2k watch once it had been serviced etc, but I sold it last year for £850 which seemed to be the going rate. Everything else has kept climbing so I reckon it’s a blip and now’s a good time to buy a Panda.

The SPORK has a one piece crown and stem and you might need to change this to work with the new movement. I’m not sure if there are any aftermarket or alternative crowns for a SPORK so something to look into before buying a new movement for it.

Is there anyone on here with personal experience in this area?

Yes. I’m one of the cheaper watch repairers with no certificates on my wall so sentimental but cheap is something I see often.

£75 just to give an estimate is a piss take and I’d look elsewhere on that alone, but £260 for servicing if they’re using trained technicians and have workshop overheads to pay for isn’t excessive. It all depends on where the quote came from…

If it’s sentimental then forget about what it might only fetch on Ebay, the bottom line is that it’s priceless to you and it’s an old Swiss watch in need of tlc. I have no idea on what movement it has or what problems it might have beyond requiring a service, so if it needs any parts the cost could quickly escalate.

I can’t vouch for any of the recommendations above as I’ve never heard of them, and I’ve never had a watch serviced that I didn’t do myself, but Rich Askam would be the guy that springs to my mind for this. His blog has been a great learning resource for me over the years and he has a great rep on the watch forums so I know he’s more than capable. He also works from home so probably cheaper than most.

If he’s not interested and you don’t mind posting it to N Ireland then send me a message and I may be able to help.

I don’t use ebay any more.
Had an account since (i guess) 2010, tried to buy some headset spacers last week, got a message telling me they won’t sell me anything else until i tell them my phone number.
Other websites manage to sell me stuff without ‘requiring’ my phone number.
So i just cancelled my account, I’m not being spoken to like that.

How very dare they! Using two stage authentication to verify your account isn’t hacked and making life easier for you if your account ever does get hacked? The scoundrels!

Ha! Amen to that! TBH, with a hackable movement, which my SPORK hasn’t got, it’s just so easy to reset the time once a week, or month or whatever, takes literally a few seconds to do.
I’ve been very tempted to get a better quality hackable movement for my SPORK, it was the first to use the 4R15 calibre, now replaced by the 4R35/36. I guess that just putting a 4R36 in would be perfectly ok, but it’s such a nice watch, and relatively rare and long discontinued, that a better calibre is tempting, but I’m not sure what’s available and reasonable with hacking and hand-winding.
Suggestions, please, from the more knowledgeable here. 😁

The 6R15 is an upgraded 4R36/NH36 and will work, but I personally wouldn’t pay the extra for one. Cousins have the NH36 for £30 plus vat and the 6R15 for £255 plus vat and the only difference between them is the 6r uses a different steel for the hairspring and mainspring, so the 6r is slightly more resistant to magnetism and has a few hours extra power reserve. Hardly worth it for almost 9x the cost.

ETA movements with the micro adjust regulator are easy to do, but if it hasn’t been serviced in over 12 years it’ll need more than just regulating.

Seiko can be an absolute pita to regulate, even with a timegrapher. If your watch is 20s/d out and you see the arm move then you’ve moved it too far. Trying to get it from 5s/d to 0s/d is done more on feel than vision as the required movement is so small. It is possible to do it without a timegrapher by making a single adjustment, observe after 24h, adjust again and repeat for a few weeks until it’s acceptable but life’s too short for that. Much easier to hand it over to a watchmaker or spend £150 on a timegrapher and then you’ll also know that the beat error has been adjusted correctly.

If you’re posting a watch within the UK, which service is best to use? Look like Royal Mail Special Delivery would cover up to £500

RMSD covers up to £500 as standard with the option to insure up to 2.5k.

The date window is in the wrong place (should be closer to the edge of the dial) and the clasp is completely wrong. Snide AF.

Yeah I doubt the £20 fake has a Seiko movement, probably a Seagull or unbranded Chinese movement. 7S26’s were around £30 before they were discontinued and the 4R36 that replaced it is the same price.

The 4R36 ships with a day wheel for a 3 o’clock crown and you have to change the wheel for a case with a 4 o’clock crown, otherwise the day doesn’t line up in the window. I’ve seen plenty of fake Turtles where they’ve used a genuine movement but haven’t bothered to swap the day wheel so it’s easy to spot from a distance that all is not correct.

Just to add, the movement is a genuine Seiko 7S26 but the rest is fake as pointed out above.

I have a bit of trouble believing it’s worth taking a seiko, they aren’t insanely expensive, and parts can be had relatively cheaply.

There’s a ton of fake Seiko’s on Wish. You’re right that they’re not expensive to us, but there are countries in Asia where Seiko are an aspirational brand and the average wage is a fraction of what we earn in the UK. A SKX might be a months wage if you’ve got a good job in Vietnam, so if you can fake them and knock them out for a weeks wage there will be demand.

See also the Casio F91W. Less than £10 for a new one but it’s also one of the most faked watches in the world.

Edit to add: Just looked on Wish and a fake SKX is less than £20 direct from the factory in China.

It’s not that type at all! It’s a wire with a small 90 degree bend that sits in a single hole drilled in the body. It curves around inside the bezel and clicks against a vertical track on the inside the bezel. There’s a Vostok type retaining/tension spring in there too. I wish I’d taken a photo of it!

That’s the same setup used on 80’s/90’s vintage Tag Heuer but with 60 clicks and it’s never been used on any Seiko to my knowledge.

Get a pic up of the front and case back if you can. It might not be 100% fake but I know for certain the bezel isn’t a genuine SKX.

I’ve counted the clicks on my SKX007, it’s definitely 90 and not 120.

Well I’m not a diver, so it doesn’t really make much odds to me. It’s weird though, because I’ve popped it off today to change the insert, and the click spring isn’t a flat washer with a couple of pawls like the ones I’ve seen in photos, it’s a single wire spring which on vertical teeth.

As others have said, the SKX should have 120 clicks and they ‘should’ be even, but with manufacturing tolerances and wear they tend to be uneven.

If you’ve got 90 clicks and a bezel spring different to the one below then I’d question the authenticity.

Another thread hijack while the watch people are on (apologies OP).

I have a Tag Heuer quartz chronograph that my wife bought me for my 30th birthday and after 5 years the battery has gone. It looks like it’s £345 for a full service on the official price list.

Is it sensible to pay up for this given the time frame and dead battery?

In a word, no. Quartz watches are generally fine for at least 10 years before a full service is required and I’d personally leave it until it needs serviced. It might start randomly losing a few minutes, or you might find it now needs a battery every year rather than the usual two years and that’s when you need to pony up for a service. The torque on the train wheels in a quartz is miniscule compared to a mechanical so chances of any parts wearing out or breaking is remote. Also, when you send your quartz Tag Heuer for a full service they’ll just exchange the movement for a new one as it’s not cost effective to pay a tech several hours wages to strip, clean and reassemble the movement when a new one is under £100 for a chrono and £30 for a three hander.

Most official dealers will try to upsell a service when you ask for a battery change as it’s a nice little earner for them. They’ll generally charge around £70 for a £2 battery, or there’s a ‘maintenance service’ for around £150 which is a new battery, new gaskets and possibly a new crown (many watches require a new crown as the gasket inside it can’t be replaced), and then finally a full service which is £250+ for a new movement, gaskets and possibly crown and pushers.

I have a vintage automatic omega, it’s my grandads and although not a sea master it has sentimental value. I’ve never considered servicing it, and at 800 quid I’m not likely to either. I reckon the watch is only worth 400 quid max!

Given it’s probably not been serviced in 50 years I assume the inside will be ruined?

Not necessarily. It may only need a strip down and clean which a good independent might do for under £200, but if it does need any new parts the cost can quickly add up and you won’t know until the watch is stripped and you’re committed to paying whatever it’s going to take.

LOL. Nah, just an independent who’s experiencing increasing difficulties getting the Omega parts I need.

Bracelet pins you can do yourself with £20 of tools off ebay.

Servicing the movement. Depends how worth it you think it is. How much time is it losing or gaining a day, and is it being worn enough to keep it sufficiently wound?

The best built automatic/mechanical watches gain and lose time more than a £10 quartz casio; accuracy isn’t the main reason for owning one I’d say. If its within 30s a day I’d just leave it. Seems crazy to spend the equivalent of 70 casio fw-93s just to gain less than a minute more accuracy a day.

If the oils have dried up causing it to run slow then there is wear happening inside the movement and it isn’t going to get any better. How often do you oil the chain on your bike? Or do you just forget about it until the drivetrain is worn out and the chain starts slipping and then you need to buy a new chain, cassette, and chainring.

I’d recommend talking to Chris Heal…

There’s a 20 page thread about him on TZUK and it’s not exactly complimentary.

OP, when you send a watch to Omega they routinely replace any worn movement parts, the springs in the clasp, springbars, all gaskets, the crown and even the hands. The watch comes back in a service pouch along with an official Omega warranty card so there is a certain benefit of sending it to them. OTOH, if you send it to an independent who has quoted say £300 and it needs any parts you will be charged extra. It might not be much as I’m assuming it has an Omega branded ETA 7750 movement and the parts aren’t expensive, but things like a crown or bracelet pins can be hard for independents to source as Omega now only supply to accredited repairers.

Try Duncan at Genesis Watch Making or Swiss Time Services.

They’re Omega accredited so will quote the same £700 – one of the things about being accredited is that you have to follow the pricing structure that Omega dictate.

http://misc.seiko.co.uk/PriceList-Seiko-Public-201904.pdf

Does anyone have a vintage Seiko chronograph? These two look great (sourcing, owning and servicing might be a different story)

Owned loads of 6138/9’s but now down to zero after recently selling my 6138 Panda. Buying is a minefield as there are so many fake dials etc out there. You can even buy a fake 6138 Bullhead kit with everything minus the genuine movement needed to complete (serial number starts with 6N on all of them from memory). When I was pondering the Panda I found a thread on WUS comparing a fake vs genuine dial but it was only after two pages that it transpired both dials were fake such is the quality of them these days.

Servicing isn’t a problem and plenty of watchmakers will work on them, but parts supply of one particular part, the centre chronograph wheel can be a big problem. This part has a spring clutch in it which can fail and Seiko stopped making spares over 30 years ago. If you can find a nos 6139 chrono wheel expect to pay around £100 and twice that for a 6138. if the watch only runs when the chrono is running then walk away. My Panda was a cheap non-runner from Ebay which needed a new chrono wheel. It took me over six months to find one and I had to take a £250 gamble on a complete movement.

They’re great watches if you can get a good one, but much due diligence is required.

I would seriously look at an MX5 much more fun, and nicer to live with

The OP has stated he needs four seats, so I’ll suggest two MX5’s.

95 Merlin XLM –

99 Turner XCE –

I’m guessing with creation there’s duty to pay?

Pay extra for the Royal mail shipping at checkout and it gets shipped from the UK with no vat to pay.

@countzero Tried to pm you back but the send message button seems to be broken. Send me your email address if you can.

I’m fancying something like this. Would like to be able to produce so little steam engine type stuff as well as a little basic horological stuff.

Where does a man with a garage find guidance on such a machine?

Decent watchmakers lathe’s fetch strong money on Ebay. If you’ve got the cash this is the industry standard and the price is plus vat.

V nice Chipps. I’ve been hankering for a field/pilot style watch lately and looking at either a Hamilton Khaki or a Sinn 556A. I prefer the Sinn but it’s 3x the price…

I need to throw some money at the car first and then hopefully it’ll be new wrist bauble time in the new year, and because everybody loves pictures –

I did enquire about buying a GMT Submariner as I was looking at some second hand.
Apparently the new model is out now but the waiting list is very long and I was advised if I bought another model of Rolex it would put me in a better position in the waiting list. But why would I buy say a Datejust model just to bump up the queue? This is sadly the way a lot of Rolex dealers work and trying to buy the actual watch you want is a minefield and they push you to buy something else to get the watch you want. I overheard another customer trying purchase a £25k watch and he was having the same issues and was politely pushed towards another very very expensive model until the watch he actually wanted became available.

There is no ‘waiting’ list. The in demand models go to Watchfinder the best customers first, so when a GMT for example comes in the store manager will have an ‘expression of interest’ list for that model prioritised by spending history. Time spent on the list is of little consideration

You can buy a new GMT tomorrow at a vastly inflated price and there’s no shortage of them, you just have to accept that its what they’re worth in a free market.

The current alternative is buy whatever Rolex the AD can offer, some jewellery for the Mrs and maybe Tag Heuer at RRP while you’re there. Return in a few months and buy a Breitling, mention the GMT while at it, then return and buy something else and repeat. By the time they do have one for you you’ll have sold all those unwanted watches you bought and hopefully lost no more than the five or six grand extra you’d have to have stumped up last year when you first wanted the GMT.

Can’t believe someone has bid that up to £400 already. The stainless case instantly gives it away as a snide

And the date window and just the overall quality of it. There are some good fakes out there but this isn’t one of them.

I’ve seen fakes get outed on TZUK, the watch gets reported to Ebay who do nothing, so then a few members get into a bidding war. So a fake Sub for example gets pumped to over £20k, the seller thinks he’s hit the jackpot and is spending the money in his head before the auction has ended, then he gets told to do one when he sends the invoice. It’s not like he can raise a non-paying bidder claim or force you to pay when you have a list of indicators that it’s a fake.

I had a gaming wheel with soft touch plastic that turned into a gooey mess. I’d heard of the plastics in Ferrari’s of a certain age going the same way and cleaning with meths was the recommended solution, so I spent an afternoon on it and it came up nice and shiny. I think it’s only a coating so once it’s removed it shouldn’t come back.

Interestingly, I believe Breitling used a Valjoux movement back in the 60’s…

Breitling, Heuer, Rolex and literally hundreds of others used Valjoux movements in the 60’s. Paul Newman’s $17m Daytona has a Valjoux 72 inside and you can find those in watches costing from around 1k today. You’ll pay over 70k for a Heuer Skipper with a 7733 inside, to as little as a few hundred for something less collectable with the same movement. Very few companies were making their own chronograph movements back in those days and Valjoux were the go-to supplier for most.

neilnevill
Free Member
Lunge, it’s a nice looking chrono. What’s the movement? Valjoux? I’m grateful I don’t really like chronos, so I have no real urge to buy them. Grateful as they are a bit no more costly to service, and for me it’s a complication I wouldn’t use. They said I think the Daytona is lovely and particularly the ceramic bezel ones, and I can appreciate the speedy. The Tudor, like most, does nod strongly at it’s Rolex brother and does it well.

It’s actually an in-house Breitling movement in the Tudor, and Breitling get to use Tudor three hand movements as part of the agreement.

https://monochrome-watches.com/tudor-breitling-alliance-movements-exchange-opinion/

The Lambo got an advisory for a worn rear tyre on the last MOT.

@Fudd (probably, but anyone feel free to chip in) can you recommend a set of jewellers screwdrivers that’ll be better than the 2 quid eBay specials I have. Not mega expensive, and I’m not bothered about a rotating stand or anything. Also, what’s the smallest size needed? 1mm still seems a bit chunky for many small screws.

If you’ve already got a cheapo set you can upgrade them with better blades from the likes of Bergeon, Horotec or AF Swiss. A set of five between 0.6mm and 1.2mm will cover almost everything you’ll encounter but a good oil stone is also essential as you’ll get some watches with very thin screw slots (vintage Omega for example). If you’re buying a new set AF Swiss are probably the best VFM and Horotec the daddies.

Awesome post Fudd!!

With regards to your Speedmaster, ever had any issues with it? Mine stopped working yesterday…its fully wound but nothing works – odd as I haven’t hit it or had it under water and its generally considered to be bombproof.

It could be any number of issues but without stripping it down almost impossible to diagnose. They have a great movement but it’s still a complex mechanical chronograph with a large number of components that can break or fail. They don’t have any particular weakness or common point of failure like some watches so time to send it off for an expensive service and repair I’m afraid.

A good mate of mine runs a golf course. It opened around 1997, just as Tiger was getting into his prime and making it cool and business was booming. Being in N Ireland there was also the Rory factor which helped, but then 2012 happened with Wiggo winning the TdF and the Brits cleaning up the cycling medals at the Olympics. Suddenly the club membership numbers started falling to the stage where a few years ago the course was on it’s knees and they were seriously considering winding it up. They’ve managed to survive and the future is looking more stable but there’s no doubt that it was the rise of the MAMIL that almost forced them to close.