What time is it? Watches and horology

Lovely stuff!

Bought a movement on Ebay, stripped it down fully including removing the jewels. Cleaned all the parts, reassembled and lubed.

Bought case, hands, dial from Otto Frei.

I got the confidence from the level 1 Timezone Watch School course online but there are loads of free guides if you're particularly practical. I think the $75 for the online course was money well spent though because you learn a lot of tips and tricks and get taught exactly how things work.

ETA also have really good online documentation including which oils to use.

https://secure.eta.ch/CSP/DesktopModules/ViewDoc.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=28&DocId=627&DocType=DT

Here it is. DaGaz was easy - webstore, paypal. Ordered them on Thursday night and they came by royal mail signed for this morning. A little cheaper than yobokies, although Harald has all the parts on a list so its easier to find what you need.

I didn't order hands/crystal in the end, as the shape of the stock hands is so close to the replacement ones. I reckon I might try a touch of enamel paint for the red tipped second hand, worst case is I f it up and have to order them anyway, but I thought I'd commit to the DIY ethic first. Ditto the sapphire - the dome on the SGZH was nice enough that I thought I'd see how it looked as is. It's tough to tell from pictures how different the replacement "domed" crystal is, and to be honest I'm really happy with it for now.

Dial swap was a doddle in the end. I wasn't too careful in taking the hands off, as I knew I was never going to re-use the old dial. (I think I'm going to experiment with baking/vintaging it), so I just pried them off with a plastic spatula. Definitely more intimidating to think about than to do though. It took a couple of goes to get the movement in without any dust etc (anything on the photo is external!) but other than that I'm really happy. Have put it on a tropical strap - might try the oyster strap it came on on my SKX - it's way nicer than the wobbly bracelet they come with stock.

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^ dial looks wonky there. guess the bezel was one click counter-clockwise when I took the photo. doh!

That FFF is ace.

Buy an old speaker and rip the magnet out of the back. Then scan your carpet for that missing hand.
Nice work by the way.

Looks great Giles. Makes me really tempted to get my own and try to do the same. Was about to order a G-Shock from Creation but now I'm not so sure. How much do you think it has cost all in?

Seiko was £116 from Creation (get both!), tropical strap and dial were $50 dead from DaGaz. If you really want to make it look like the Blancpain yobokies has the modern style dials and bezel inserts ($50) as well. Crystal is $53 dollars, handsets $25-30, custom FFF caseback is $43.

So mine was only ~£150 but you could probably add another ton or more if you wanted to go the whole hog, and I may still add bits as I get bored.

This is the 'modern' FFF dial/bezel if you really want the Blancpain look, and bradystraps do nice sail canvas straps. I went for 'in the style of,' because I'm still eyeing up a Helson

think Harold has coin edge bezels as well if you wanted to swap that, which might be my next move

did you try sticking a nub of bluetac to the second hand to manipulate it with?

I only recently realised yobokies is seikoboy backwards.

That's really inspiring, great work. Which ETA movement is it?

Sounds good value for what it looks like now.

I would love to grab both but after ordering the SKX recently with the other two it would be the neck end of $800-$900 +tax all in. Postage and tax in Canada starts to add up. :(

So I've narrowed my G-Shock choices to the following two.

I think I'm erring towards the Mudman (Green) but would entertain the Military Black GD.

Thoughts or opinions?

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No. Great idea.

Cheers. It's very therapeutic and quite straightforward.

ETA 6498 is the one I started with. Big and good for beginners.

I stripped down and serviced a 50 year old Fella 4000 tonight. It wasn't running before but is now. A movement screw was loose in the balance spring. Feeling very satisfied.

Nice work! And surprised cat is surprised. Bonus

That is very nice!

I've got 2 cheaper versions of the bottom one and I personally end up getting a bit annoyed by the 3 dials. I just look at them counting seconds and think, "they look nice but why are these better than the stopwatch or timer that are also built in?"

Is there a G Shock with a black screen that only displays when you hit the button? I kind of like the idea of a completely black face.

I agree. Such a weird use of 'dial' space.

I'd love to have a try at designing a dial but sadly I have literally none of the required skills.

Personally I prefer the ones with analogue hands as well as a digital screen, but then I would because I have one.

What a shop Alsal is - dropped my watch off yesterday and had a call a few hours later to say they'd got it working again. No charge.

Yeah they're great, I often wonder how they're making money.

Although I do chuckle sometimes at what the younger guy comes out with. He was telling me how shocked he was that a customer wore his Submariner swimming. I sort of wanted to ask what's the point in owning such a watch if you don't use it...?