Joined
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1,206 Posts
......orange juice.
I'll try to give you the Reader's Digest version of this saga...
I sent a 7548-700H back to my customer after a refinish and the damned thing filled with water
somewhere between the ROC and its home. Not just mist or fog but WATER. For the life of me I
have no idea how this happened especially since I replaced all the gaskets as part of the job.
Needless to say it was back in my hands ASAP. The water settled on the lume of the dial and the
hands. Apparently the luminous material used by Seiko is highly hydrophylic. What moisture was
not dissolving the lume had spotted the dial.
Bear in mind, boys and girls, this is the very hard to find orange dial with silver lume surround and
silver hands. Try finding any of these parts of these at your local material house. A flurry of e-mail
inquiries to our friends who have been hoarding parts for years netted me zip, nada, bupkis.
Plan B was to find another 7548-700H for sale. Yeah, right!
Nearly six months after the original debacle, one of these turned up on the Trading Post. YAY!
I snapped this puppy right up as the dial and hands looked great.
And they were. The rest was so-so at best---dinged-up case (normal wear), aftermarket insert,
aftermarket crystal (no frosted bevel) which was not installed properly (the gasket was crushed), and
the stem snapped off at the crown's threaded cup. These are just the facts and not in any way meant
as a criticism of the seller. I think we both knew what we were dealing with.
I made my customer's watch right and sent it back. This time I wrapped it in about a half pound of
clear stretch wrap. It landed without incident and my customer is at last a happy camper.
So now I had the damaged parts of two 7548-700Hs on my bench. What to do?
I gathered some other "lemons" that have been sitting in the dark corners---a slightly flawed
320W10GN00 domed crystal, an aftermarket orange Planet Ocean insert bent in shipping because
the seller did not stiffen the parcel from Hong Kong, a nasty 6309, et. al., crown and set out to do
yet another orange mod.
I stripped and relumed the hands, the meatball broke off the sweep, however. I cleaned the markers
of the dial as best possible and stripped off the damaged lume and replaced it with new material. It's not too bad for a fat old carpenter with shaky hands and iffy eyesight.
The insert was flattened as best I could and will be treated to my jelly-look acrylic overlay later-on.
The crown was milled a bit to remove a few very deep nicks and gouges. The case being not so
great was dramatically reshaped then media blasted to a low-lustre mil. spec. finish. The back was
sterilized and milled with the "great wave" in high polish rather than half blasted.
The bracelet, one of Will Jean's new 22mm mesh is the only part of this exercise that was not in
some way damaged. Much has already been written about these great bracelets with which I
wholly concur. This one was media blasted to match the watch and though the photos don't do it
justice, it looks terrific in the low-lustre finish.
So here you go, a little OJ in the night....
I'll try to give you the Reader's Digest version of this saga...
I sent a 7548-700H back to my customer after a refinish and the damned thing filled with water
somewhere between the ROC and its home. Not just mist or fog but WATER. For the life of me I
have no idea how this happened especially since I replaced all the gaskets as part of the job.
Needless to say it was back in my hands ASAP. The water settled on the lume of the dial and the
hands. Apparently the luminous material used by Seiko is highly hydrophylic. What moisture was
not dissolving the lume had spotted the dial.
Bear in mind, boys and girls, this is the very hard to find orange dial with silver lume surround and
silver hands. Try finding any of these parts of these at your local material house. A flurry of e-mail
inquiries to our friends who have been hoarding parts for years netted me zip, nada, bupkis.
Plan B was to find another 7548-700H for sale. Yeah, right!
Nearly six months after the original debacle, one of these turned up on the Trading Post. YAY!
I snapped this puppy right up as the dial and hands looked great.
And they were. The rest was so-so at best---dinged-up case (normal wear), aftermarket insert,
aftermarket crystal (no frosted bevel) which was not installed properly (the gasket was crushed), and
the stem snapped off at the crown's threaded cup. These are just the facts and not in any way meant
as a criticism of the seller. I think we both knew what we were dealing with.
I made my customer's watch right and sent it back. This time I wrapped it in about a half pound of
clear stretch wrap. It landed without incident and my customer is at last a happy camper.
So now I had the damaged parts of two 7548-700Hs on my bench. What to do?
I gathered some other "lemons" that have been sitting in the dark corners---a slightly flawed
320W10GN00 domed crystal, an aftermarket orange Planet Ocean insert bent in shipping because
the seller did not stiffen the parcel from Hong Kong, a nasty 6309, et. al., crown and set out to do
yet another orange mod.
I stripped and relumed the hands, the meatball broke off the sweep, however. I cleaned the markers
of the dial as best possible and stripped off the damaged lume and replaced it with new material. It's not too bad for a fat old carpenter with shaky hands and iffy eyesight.
The insert was flattened as best I could and will be treated to my jelly-look acrylic overlay later-on.
The crown was milled a bit to remove a few very deep nicks and gouges. The case being not so
great was dramatically reshaped then media blasted to a low-lustre mil. spec. finish. The back was
sterilized and milled with the "great wave" in high polish rather than half blasted.
The bracelet, one of Will Jean's new 22mm mesh is the only part of this exercise that was not in
some way damaged. Much has already been written about these great bracelets with which I
wholly concur. This one was media blasted to match the watch and though the photos don't do it
justice, it looks terrific in the low-lustre finish.
So here you go, a little OJ in the night....
