Hello all,
I wanted to share something other than a "What Watch are you Wearing Today" photo or similar. I bought an original SKX779 Black Monster at a Seiko outlet store outside of Dallas back in 2006 as a gift to myself on a recent promotion at work and wore it daily on either the bracelet, rubber strap, or NATO. It was scratched and abused (just like my 51 yr old body), but was a constant companion with sentimental value. That was until 3 years ago, when I accidentally dropped it 6 feet from a gym locker onto a marble floor and destroyed the movement. I got several repair quotes, thought about it, and before I could get it repaired bought a Seiko Pepsi Solar Chrono Diver (that's a great watch as well) ahead of a trip overseas. I had nearly forgotten the Monster until I ran across it in a drawer about a month ago. In one of those "what's the worst that can happen" moments, I decided to attempt the repair myself despite never having done any watch repair other than replacing a battery on a quartz watch. I sourced a refurbished and calibrated 7s26 movement with the appropriate date ring from a shop in the Philippines for $30 on eBay, and found several helpful instructional videos on YouTube.
I received the movement yesterday and brought the Monster back to life last night. I didn't have specialized watch repair tools, but am equipped with enough similar tools to make it work. The work was not difficult - tedious is more accurate. It took some time and patience to get the very fragile hands on the spindle where the second hand would rotate cleanly without hanging up on the minute hand. Unfortunately, my clumsiness knocked out a section of lume on the minute hand (I had no idea it wasn't painted onto a solid surface instead of just filling a skeleton frame), but the end result of a half-solid minute hand similar to an Omega actually looks pretty good IMHO. If I had experience, I probably could have done this in about 10 minutes, but it ended up taking me about an hour. Overall, a great experience and only $30 to bring it back to life.
Cheers!
I wanted to share something other than a "What Watch are you Wearing Today" photo or similar. I bought an original SKX779 Black Monster at a Seiko outlet store outside of Dallas back in 2006 as a gift to myself on a recent promotion at work and wore it daily on either the bracelet, rubber strap, or NATO. It was scratched and abused (just like my 51 yr old body), but was a constant companion with sentimental value. That was until 3 years ago, when I accidentally dropped it 6 feet from a gym locker onto a marble floor and destroyed the movement. I got several repair quotes, thought about it, and before I could get it repaired bought a Seiko Pepsi Solar Chrono Diver (that's a great watch as well) ahead of a trip overseas. I had nearly forgotten the Monster until I ran across it in a drawer about a month ago. In one of those "what's the worst that can happen" moments, I decided to attempt the repair myself despite never having done any watch repair other than replacing a battery on a quartz watch. I sourced a refurbished and calibrated 7s26 movement with the appropriate date ring from a shop in the Philippines for $30 on eBay, and found several helpful instructional videos on YouTube.
I received the movement yesterday and brought the Monster back to life last night. I didn't have specialized watch repair tools, but am equipped with enough similar tools to make it work. The work was not difficult - tedious is more accurate. It took some time and patience to get the very fragile hands on the spindle where the second hand would rotate cleanly without hanging up on the minute hand. Unfortunately, my clumsiness knocked out a section of lume on the minute hand (I had no idea it wasn't painted onto a solid surface instead of just filling a skeleton frame), but the end result of a half-solid minute hand similar to an Omega actually looks pretty good IMHO. If I had experience, I probably could have done this in about 10 minutes, but it ended up taking me about an hour. Overall, a great experience and only $30 to bring it back to life.
Cheers!
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