neilnevill

Member
right, a photo from today…

Top tip: When taking a wrist shot hold your phone/camera as far away as possible and then crop the pic. It’s all about perspective. I have skinny wrists yet I can wear a Tuna with ease, but if I take a pic of my 36mm Avia too closely it looks like a hairy ten year old girl is modelling the watch.

sharkbait

Member
A good friend of mine showed me one of her watches that had just come back from the jewellers – I nearly fainted when I found out how much it cost!!

I’m a bit late to the party but I’m going to call fake here. I think the over polished ‘screw’ heads drew attention, but when opening the above pic in imgur and zooming in you can clearly see the minute counter sub dial printing is way off with the minute markers around 20 touching the step but at the opposite side theres a clear gap between the tip of marker and where the step is.

Here’s the same watch on AP’s website to compare.

On the tachymeter scale you’ll notice that if the red 75 line was extended it would hit the 5 whereas on the genuine one it would go right between the 7 and 5. Then there’s the centre holes on the sub dial hands which don’t appear to be centered…

Just because your friend is minted doesn’t mean they would never wear a fake. Plenty of millionaire slebs have been called out on social media with fakes on their wrists, but it’s also possible your friend thinks it gen and has paid accordingly. This one was posted earlier in the thread and I have my doubts with the same reasons as listed above.

I’ve looked at 007 cases, and even a rather battered one cost a bit, and you then need everything in order to build the complete watch, so I’m prepared to wait a bit and find one that isn’t silly money, and then it’s easier to mod it as an ongoing process.
If I get lucky with a reasonably priced 007, then I’d get the movement, face and hands and get the whole lot done in one go, then get the Tiger shroud fitted afterwards.
As you say, there’s a staggering range of bits out there for customising Seiko watches, not limitless, but certainly pretty huge.
And they’re good, reliable watches as well, not a shabby knock-off.

Sounds expensive. £100-£150 for a s/h SKX, a new movement and crown/stem to suit, different dial, hands and insert, sapphire glass and then £150 getting the case machined and you’re well into genuine Tuna money. The TST mod is great if you want an auto movement in a 300m style Tuna case which was why I bought a s/h TST’d 6309 case a few years ago, but even though mine was built with as many genuine parts as possible (SBBN007 dial, SKX hands and insert) I couldn’t get past it trying to be something it wasn’t so soon sold it at what would have been a 50% loss had I paid retail and bought the real thing in the shape of an SBBN015.

If you’re not bothered about the cost and just want to build something unique then by all means go for it as the options are virtually limitless. I have an SKX that owes me over £350 so I’m not averse to a Seiko mod but machining the case and fitting a Tuna style shroud is a mod too far imho.

lapdog – Member
Shinola The Rambler is a cool chrono around you price range.

As in the same Shinola who use £5 quartz movements and have the cases made by Fossil, the same Fossil who make watches for DKNY, Michael Kors and Armani…?

If I’m spending 1k on a watch I want one made by a watch company, not some fashion brand outsourcing the manufacturing to to China and then making 50x margin on the rrp…

Seiko, Longines, Oris, Fortis, Glycine, Sinn, Damasko and Hamilton to name a few are all worth a look. If you’re open to buying s/h and want a mechanical chrono then do a search for ETA 7750 or Valjoux 7750 on ebay. The 7750 is found in all-sorts and is a great Swiss automatic movement. Tag use it and call it their Calibre 16, Hublot badge it a HUB4100, Breitling refer to it as their Calibre 13 etc etc…

Plenty of options out there if you do a bit of homework first.

Thing is though that the nationalists don’t have the majority – the recent election results are more a reflection of how SF have their house in order and the unionist parties are a total shambles at the minute. I’m an NI resident and unionist but there’s no way I’m getting of my arse to go and vote for the corrupt christian fundamentalist shower that are the DUP, or any of the related parties such as the UUP or TUV… They are all as bad as each other…

SF have done well by focusing on common sense policies and moving away from their sectarian and IRA tainted past and I begrudgingly doff my cap to them for that. The sooner we have a unionist party prepared to consider what the voters actually want (gay marriage would be a start but failing that at least an acknowledgement that the earth’s not flat and dinosaurs existed beyond 8 thousand years ago) then the majority unionist vote will stay at home.

Oh, and not all nationalist’s want a united Ireland. Fact is that the Republic can’t afford it right now and many of those nationalists in NI couldn’t stomach the upheaval in the short term, but long term it remains a romantic goal.

This survey from 14 months ago paints a pretty good picture of how the locals view things and I remember politicians from both sides of the border backing up the findings on a local BBC show –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34725746

*Obviously it’s a pre-brexit poll so maybe opinions have changed since then depending on views on the EU, but it’s still a pretty good and comprehensive survey of the local electorate.

mickmcd – Member
Whilst this is not really fair or directed at those poor buggers out of work now

this has to be some kind of price shagging Karma, Ironic that a company renowned for maybe contributing a wee tad to the demise of many a local bike shop because no one could pricematch and hope to put food on the table, then finds themselves culling their own in an effort to eek every penny out of a piss poor margin that they themselves have created.

Speaking as someone who lives 5 miles from CRC HQ, I haven’t seen too many local bike shops going under since the mid 90’s when I first started buying from them. My closest shop is still ticking over selling Trek and Raleigh BSO’s and much of their stock (tubes, tyres, gear cables etc) is sourced from CRC.

A year or two ago I needed a couple of BB spacers so decided to support another local shop, Madigans in Carrickfergus. The guy in the shop looked at me funny and said “nah, we don’t anything like that, try CRC.” So I did and the guy behind the counter of their swanky showroom wandered off to the workshop and came back with a handful of spacers, no charge.

Another time I was bitching to one of the guys at the counter how I was selling a frame but the only interest was from Aus and I was being quoted £240 for postage. He made a call upstairs then said they could post it for me for £25.

They may have been a faceless corporation to those on the mainland and WW, but they were always an ‘LBS’ in the truest sense for me.

As you’ve had it for over 30 years you’ll be clear on what type of Rolex it is, could you help the rest of us and steer us away from those that need a £600 service very two years?

I think you should budget £600 for every time any Rolex goes in for an official service, and 1k+ for chronograph/Daytona models, but every two years is excessive. Every 6-8 years is more like it but expect Rolex to say otherwise as they have a servicing monopoly to maintain…

I’ve had a 79090 Tudor for over twenty six years but only had that serviced twice so far and I’m now worried that it couldn’t be serviced again without buying into a brilliant business model…

The Tudor will be fine as long as the watchmaker doing the work has an ebay or Cousins account, plenty of nos parts still out there without having to resort to Rolex pricing.

Rolex recommend servicing every 2-3 years as the lubrication used is said to only last that length of time…

That may have been the case 30-odd years ago when you bought the watch but not these days with the modern synthetic oils that are now used. I think Rolex recommend every six years now and Omega’s with the Co-axial escapement have ten year service intervals.

CaptainSlow – Member
Ooh thanks Fudd. Wasn’t aware of that. Got his recommendation off here too…

So….where does one send ones timepiece to be serviced these days?

In my slightly biased* opinion this guy is good – https://www.instagram.com/benchdweller.uk/%5B/url%5D

*Very biased, it’s my account :wink:

The chap on the previous page stating his tag is boxed pending a £300 service. Send it to http://www.chealwatch.com/index.php

Reasonable, does a decent job. Repaired mine when I dropped it…

Erm… Chealwatch – “The Butcher of Rye”
It’s irrelevant anyway as I believe ‘The Butcher’ has closed up shop now.

If the chap with the Tag wants it sorted for a fraction of the quoted cost then drop me an email, I might just know a guy :wink:

’97 Merlin XLM. I lusted after a Merlin (the US made titanium and not the far east alu frames imported by a UK bike shop) back in the day but they were always a bit spendy, or about 10 weeks worth of my electricians wages for a frame to put it in perspective. They’re a bit cheaper these days so I use it as my ‘general duties’ bike and I take a perverse satisfaction that if I chain it outside the shops next to a £500 Boardman and some scrotes come along, it’ll probably be the Boardman that goes missing first.

There was an important email on this day that needed actioning…

Now y’see, I was just glossing over this thread, first world problems and all that, but then you state that you needed to action an email? Why not just reply to it and go on your way, or even just look at it and then decide on your drive into work how you’d deal with it when you got there?

Sitting in your car ‘actioning’ emails whilst someone is waiting for you to gtf paints a different picture…

I often think that when it comes to the time to change the battery, I’m facing a big bill to keep it waterproof, almost as much as buying the automatic version.

The general public think there’s a dark art to ‘resealing’ a watch. There’s not. It’s a simple o-ring located in a groove in the case which gets compressed when the caseback is tightened. As long as the o-ring is seated correctly then it should be good for at least 10 years, but high street jewellers and authorised dealers would rather tell you that it needs resealed at every battery change and charge you silly money to replace a 20p o-ring.
Just take it to Timpsons or wherever and pay a fiver for a new battery and don’t worry about the resealing bollox.

I recycled a couple of old m/cycle brake discs today –

Euro – Member
CRC is my LBS. I know several who work for CRC and hope they keep their jobs for their sake and also for mine (staff discount on ‘own brand’ stuff is very good and i’m trying to save for a new Nukeproof bike).

Same here. Last year I needed a couple of bb spacers and decided to try somewhere different and called down to Madigans. “Nah mate, we don’t stock things like that, try CRC” they said. So I did. Asked the guy at the counter and he wandered off into the workshop, came back with five spacers and says “there you go”. How much do I owe you? “don’t worry about it”.

They may get a bashing for putting other LBS’s out of business but they still do a great job at the things you expect from a LBS rather than a multi million corporation.

Well, that’s a good part of it, if you look at what an average garage or whatever charges per hour, maybe £75 or so, then look at how long it takes to actually make a proper, hand-made watch, we might be getting somewhere, or even better, find out just how much a good goldsmith or horologist charges per hour..
I’ll have to ask my mate, who’s a goldsmith, what his work gets charged at per hour.

I think you may be missing the point. You can’t compare what the guy who designs the Lamborghini gets paid vs the guy who builds the engine vs the guy who changes the oil and filters come service time.

As for what a “proper handmade watch” costs as opposed to those from A Lange and Patek etc who employ a great deal of cnc in their manufacture – link

If my numbers came up I’d have no hesitation on spunking 50k+ on a Richard Mille or Urwerk and I totally get the investment grade vintage Patek or Rolex etc market, some of which can run over six figures… I could give you many reasons for my love of mechanical watches but Mr S summed it up better than I ever could with that A Lange pic above.

As for the intrinsic value some of these watches have, I’ll just leave you with a story my father told me in the late 80’s about a chap he worked with. Said fella had a good job, no dependents and hence lots of disposable and was by all accounts a bit of a flash t***. Range Rover, Harley Davidson and a Rolex hanging off his wrist etc. My Dad queried him about what was at the time probably a 1k watch and his reasons for spending so much on it. His response was that my dad’s Rotary was probably worth a fraction of what he paid for it, yet his Rolex was appreciating in value. So with that in mind, which one cost more when all is said and done?

Or to put it another way, you go out tomorrow and sign up for a new 6k Santa Cruz over 4 years on 0%. After the 4 years you own maybe a 2k bike and it still hasn’t stopped depreciating. Borrow the same amount to buy a new Rolex Submariner and by the time its paid off you’ll probably be in profit.

The Seiko Bellmatic above is automatic. £150 should get you a nice one and seeing as some are over 40 years old now spend the change on a service.

[mockney t**t] Go ahn then, stick yer ahnd aht, you just bought you self a motah! [/mockney t**t]*

*Typed during the ad break whilst watching the latest episode. I probably should’ve posted in the Guilty Pleasures thread instead…

No, I was referring to GM. Given the choice between sliding into an open field at 120 or getting tangled up in a hedge and potentially getting thrown into the path of another bike doing 120, I’ll take the field every time, as I’m sure every one of the competitors there would.

As for comparing the injuries, I’m missing the point. Surely you know that no two crashes are the same? Some people get killed riding a moped and others walk away after getting off at 180… Unless you are implying that the removal of the hedge has made that corner more dangerous…?

He’s a very lucky boy. The reason for the muddy patch is because they removed the hedge following Dean Harrison’s crash there last year –

cynic-al – Member
Ooh that Arnie Seiko is cool. I have an Arnie Casio (inherited).

Sadly both my inherited automatics (dad’s Certina and uncle’s Seiko) aren’t repairable

Hey Al, why are they not repairable? I’ve brought many watches back from the dead and parts for Seiko and Certina shouldn’t be too hard to find. The only ones that have defeated me are Omega F300 electronic and a Sicura with a low grade pin lever movement from the 60’s, both due to unobtanium parts.

When exactly is your birthday?

The reason I ask is because the correct answer to the op is to find a birth date watch – a nice and all original 40yr old Seiko classic such as the 6139-6002 will easily fit the budget but Seiko serial numbers also include the month it was made so finding the right one is approximately 12x harder than finding any other watch that was made the year you were born.

Happy hunting!

http://sniffpetrol.com/2014/07/04/hamilton-to-use-british-accent/#.VZZ7L_lViko

Slightly over budget at 375 of those American dollars, but it looks similar to the Damasko, it comes from a well respected micro-brand (just like Damasko are), decent Miyota/Citizen mechanical movement and it comes with a nice bracelet too –

http://www.dagazwatch.com/apps/webstore/products/show/3983024

Alex Zanardi

Some good suggestions so far, but this is the definitive answer –

Is it possible to change the bezel on a Seiko solar divers?

Is it the complete bezel or just the insert you want to change? I don’t know about the bezel but if its just the insert then you can compare the size here and then go from there.

Some Seiko’s are perfect just as they are…

Almost perfect but not quite. The seconds hand with the lume on the wrong end is my only gripe with the Tuna, same goes for the SKX divers.

How do you know which bits are compatible with which watch?

All the Seiko 3 hand autos have the same hand hole sizes so you can buy a new set of hands and fit them to a watch made in the 60’s. The dials are also the same size but the locating feet differ depending on the position of the crown. You can fit a dial with a 4 o’clock crown to a watch with a 3 o’clock crown but the feet have to be removed and the dial secured to the movement with glue or double sided tape. Quartz and kinetics have different hand hole sizes and are not compatible with autos.

Fudd, awesome photos. Love the last one, really getting into the Seiko watches/mods, just need to find some good forums and guides.

SCWF and Wrist Sushi are the two main Seiko forums I frequent and have all the info and inspiration you should need. The Seiko sub forum on Watchuseek is also worth a look.

Fudd – do you have any more pictures of the “SKX007 DLC coated fitted with a Murphy bezel, Dagaz superdome sapphire and stealth insert, SKX171 dial and Ti Samurai hands”? How much did it cost to do?

That is a really nice mod!

Cheers! The coating from memory was around £80 with me sending the bare case to be done. I had the 6309 and SKX done at the same time with the intention of selling the 6309 to recoup some of the cost but it didn’t turn out exactly as planned. The 6309 sold for £240ish on ebay so I lost about £40 on that one and when I eventually sold the SKX it fetched £320, which was exactly what I had invested in it but ebay and paypal still had to take their slice :| . I’ve posted all the details and more pics here – http://wristsushi.proboards.com/thread/3529/dlcd-superdomed-skx-mod

I’ve been trawling through my pics and thought I’d share some pics of a few of the mods that I’ve built over the last couple of years –

6309-7040 with orange dial, black day and date wheels and hands painted black and relumed –

6309 with the case machined to accept a Tuna style shroud, SBBN007 dial and SKX hands-

SNK809 with Yobokies dial and hands –

SKX007 DLC coated fitted with a Murphy bezel, Dagaz superdome sapphire and stealth insert, SKX171 dial and Ti Samurai hands –

SNK809 with Dagaz dial and hands –

SNK809 with Yobokies dial and hands-

SKX007 with a Murphy smooth bezel, polished aluminium chapter ring, unknown Seiko dial and Dagaz hands-

6309 with 6105 dial, Dagaz hands and insert-

DLC’d 6309 with domed sapphire –

Omega style 6309 with Dagaz dial, hands and insert and a sapphire crystal –

And finally,the only mod I currently own and the watch that’s on my wrist right now, a SKX171 with a Murphy bezel and 007 insert, Ti Samurai hands, clear case back and a hacking and hand winding 4R36 inside –

Some mods go for strong money on ebay. I had a SNK809 (£50) fitted with Yobokies dial and hands (£45) and it fetched £160.

Best bet is to buy the watch from Creation (007’s are £120ish), source the parts from Dagaz or Yobokies and pay a local watchmaker an hours labour to put it together. Then when you get bored with it, stick it on ebay and sell it for a profit.

awkwardkid

RC200 pic

I believe that’s the frame I bought off you :wink: . I didn’t have it long when a RC300 became available, which I then swapped for a smaller one, which I then swapped for a nos one from Germany. I loved that bike but it wasn’t getting used much and being a nos frame I was always scared of dropping it, so I sold it to a chap on here to fund a fatbike. Its probably the only frame I wish I never sold…

veedubba – Member
Rolex are one of the few mechanical watch manufacturers who own their entire supply chain, which is incredible given the size of the business.

Vertical integration as they call it. Everything is designed and produced in-house, from the movement and all of the components inside it to the onsite foundry that produces the metal for the cases. I think the only major part that Rolex don’t produce is the sapphire crystal… In fact there’s only one company who take it a step further and produce their own sapphires, along with their own oils and even going as far as growing their own quartz crystals… Guess who it is yet?

I’m 64kg with Nates / Rolling Darryl tubeless and run them at around 6psi. Above 7psi and the bike is too bouncy and below 5psi the tyres fart air. I did run as low as 4.5psi when I had tubes in but the extra drag was noticeable.

I grew up in a mostly protestant area on the outskirts of Belfast and always viewed him as a bit of a comedy figure back in the day. He certainly didn’t speak for me with his ultra conservative views, but he was loved by both sides of the community in his constituency of Ballymena for getting things done at a local level and I think that’s why he kept getting elected. I could choose to remember him as the shouty extremist who contributed to the troubles as much as the guys on the other side who were blowing things up, or as the crazy preacher who banned ELO from doing a gig in Ballymena in the early ’90s because they played the devils music, but he chilled out in his later years and formed a warm friendship with Martin McGuinness, the public face of the IRA. With that in mind I’ll remember him as an example of the reconciliation that has occurred here in recent years and hopefully our current politicians will continue to follow this example.

I always thought that once the Catholic population where in the majority, they would be given the choice to join Eire?

It’s a bit more complicated than that. There are many catholics who regard themselves as Northern Irish or British and wish to stay in the UK. In the last census 45% of the population was catholic but only 25% of the population considered themselves as only Irish. The nationalist politicians know this and I think that’s why they’ve been relatively quiet about a referendum.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20673534

The prices of all Japanese bikes shot up after 2008 when the Yen started getting a lot stronger. In 2010 new R1’s & ZX10’s etc were almost the same price as a 1098 or S100RR which was madness as the European bikes were always a bit more exotic and expensive. Since then the Jap bikes have stayed pretty much the same price here with a weakening Yen and the Euro bikes have risen with inflation. I was lucky in that I bought my 08 R1 in 2010 just before the price rises started to affect the 2nd hand prices and I reckon I could sell it now for maybe £500 less than the £5.5k I paid for it.

Suggsey – Member
I had a seiko five that I believe was a genuine one as I know there a lot of copies on the market and I sold it! It was utter shite I’m afraid to say, riding with it on caused it to be so far off time it was untrue and it would never last the night off my wrist without stopping !

Some ebay sellers would describe this as character! In all seriousness though, I’d love to know more about the one you owned. What model was it and was it new or s/h? There are loads of pretty but nasty old Seikos on ebay being sold as completely overhauled etc when they are nothing of the sort, but if you are buying new from Amazon etc then its very hard to go wrong. The movements are assembled by robots and the timing is only adjusted once so +/-20s per day is not uncommon, but bear in mind that we are talking about a mechanical auto winding watch which costs less than £50 new and they can always be adjusted for better accuracy if you wish…

I got one of those 5s, Its alright but I brought it to just wear biking and whatnot. Then someone on here tells me they cant cope with the vibration on the bike, but if you don’t wear it for a couple of days cos you’re riding the damn thing stops,
Should have bought that bloody al quaida casio.

Whoever told you about them not being able to cope with vibration is talking poo. Sure, they’re not unbreakable but they are as robust as the vast majority of auto movements out there. This is from Seikos website –
Shock resistance was assured with two Seiko inventions. First, the mainspring was made from “Diaflex,”
an unbreakable alloy, and the “Diashock,” system was created to protect the movement from shock within the case.

As for the water resistance, the SNK’s are rated to 30m yet some people insist that this means that it is only splashproof. I have tested one to 60m so rest assured that you can safely go swimming with one, or even pop it in the washing machine if you wish.

And for the OP, check out strapcode.com. They are Hong Kong based but any time I have bought from them they have shipped from the UK.