My first full restore. Seiko 7002

[GuyJ]

About two months ago I bought a cheap 7002 from Ramon via his eBay listings and this turned up.



It wasn't running and I knew the risks of these purchases but from what I could tell the watch looked OK. Genuine dial and hands although I've confirmed with Ivor that the seconds hand is AM. The bezel and insert looked original and actually in not too bad nick.

The watch arrived some time ago and I got stuck in. Case cleaned and gaskets checked. I had to send the crystal to Stefan to sort and he did a great job.

Prior to that I'd stripped the movement and checked it and rebuilt it. It was the first movement I'd done with an oiling and luckily had no balance wheel accidents! I will tackle this again but at least it's working and the crown is operating the date change without issue.


With that done I wanted to remove the lume from the hands which was pretty grubby and not in keeping with original lume so to get that sorted I bought a lume kit and practiced that a few times. I remembered a thread about silver plating the other week and so thanks to Peter on here I bought some nushine silver plating polish and tried to follow his lead.

Wanting to give this a try I sanded the hands down as best I could with some 2000 grit as they were pretty poor. The plating had eroded enough to let me battle away and for the cost of the watch I didn't worry too much. Once I'd sanded them down they showed their gold finish quite considerably but at least didn't look all gunked up with black blotches.



After wondering how to use plating stuff I ended up blotting some on a clean soft duster rubbing it very liberally over the hands and let them sit for about 5 minutes. They went a dark grey colour and at this point I polished with the duster for about 10-20 seconds.



Not toooooo bad! Pretty decent, could be better, but an improvement to what they were when they arrived and what they were after I'd had a good go at killing them.

Leaving them for a short while I then tried to get a good mixture of lume. Small drop of the powder and a slightly lesser drop of the binder gave me a decent consistency that would hold well on the end of an oiler. However I will tackle this again as I think it needs to be slightly thicker.

Did the job and let them dry before fitting to the watch.

Only things now are to find a decent ish original seconds hand and get a click ball in place as I've lost the one spare I had!

Pretty happy but the movement needs a better service as although it's running I want to do it again and keep practicing. I will be attempting another lume as I don't quite think it was thick enough as I've said but and the dial could do with a touch up of paint in the centre but that's beyond me. Whoever previously had it had marked the dial quite badly when removing the hands. Weren't me guv oy swear!!









Ps I know it's not amazing and I really want to get the movement running a lot better. But it keeps time fairly well for now.

[69ChevelleSS]

Great result!  Congrats!

[leffemonster]

Cracking job, puts my little ole case clean to shame! 

I've seen reference to 'Ramon' quite a few times - out of interest, who is this elusive character?

[GuyJ]

Thanks guys. Nick you did a cracking job and when you do your first movement I bet you have a better time than I had.

Monkeys would have made less mistakes than me...

Thewatchcollector on eBay is Ramon. When you browse you might catch a listing that looks a little like my first shot.

I don't know much about him but evidently he has been selling beaten up Seiko for a while. Stories of selling 6309s in days gone for small money that would now fetch a lot more as their popularity had risen.

Many AM parts on his listings but he is always honest about it and movements that are clearly rusted but also still some gems it would seem and the advice on here a while back was to buy a watch from him to practice on. Can't remember who it was that said but they were right. It was worth it.

Also the case and dial match but there isn't a signature on the train bridge. And a different sig on the rotor. Still a 7002a but not one that matches the caseback and dial according to Ivor on SCWF.

Still I'm fairly chuffed I got it semi done. Need to get a crystal retaining ring from Adrian he said he might have for me and a replacement caseback gasket. Oh and a seconds hand if anyone has one!?

[leffemonster]

Thanks for the info Bodo. Hey - at least you had the balls to tackle a movement. Crystals will be my next move I think, and then I *may* move to tackling the internals, but only on something beat-up. I've thought about it a lot this last few months but need to source some spare wonga for tools first (damn, if I didn't spend so much on eBay watches Vyn...) and then source a suitable 'victim' watch.

Honestly though, posts like this just add to my enthusiasm and make me believe that, one day, I can do it myself. Well done.

[HiBeat]

Extremely well done. Congratulations !

[GuyJ]

Thank you!

Enjoying this a lot. But just went through doing a spreadsheet with my girlfriend and...well...ouch!

Guy

[solex]

Great job would like to hear more about how you plated the hands.

My first Seiko rebuild was also a 7002, the click ball can be replaced with one from a standard ball point pen.  That is how I fixed mine.

[GuyJ]

Ty solex.

Check this thread out:

wristsushi.proboards.com/thread/2015/watch-hand-restoration

It's thanks to Peter / penguinbce that this was the road I took.

I used a rough sandpaper at first and just held the hand with some rodico on the tip of screwdriver inside the pinion hole and gently took it to a finer finish with 2000 grit.

Once the hands were in this state I rinsed them, after blowing as much debris from them, in some lighter fluid and then some isopropyl.

I sat them on a piece of plastic and with a piece of sponge I doused them in this stuff:


Once that did it's job I rubbed it for about 20 seconds with a soft cloth. Cloth starts to pick up the silver particles and soon smoothes it to a sheen. 
It took a couple of goes and getting a sort of acceptable finish but I was OK with how it looked.
Maybe leaving them for an hour and either polishing again or applying more of the solution may be even better.

I have no idea how to plate them properly but this was better than I expected. I will probably give it another shot with the same hands and see if I can get them better.


By the way. I know it's not in bad condition as I received it. Crystal and movement really. And also calling it a service is a disservice to those who do this properly. So don't get me wrong. I know restore and service aren't really appropriate words here!! 

[Adrian-VTA]

Looks great!

A little trick on the marks on the dial. Go to the hobby shop, get some acrylic matte paint, a toothpick, and dab some on ever so lightly and then use the other end of the toothpick to soak up the excess paint a little so it doesn't dome. I like the Vallejo or Tamiya. You won't even pick the repair under glass.

[GuyJ]

Ah great idea! I'll get some paint tomorrow and see how I fair.

Oh and by the way don't forget my order please Adrian?

The retaining ring is the one step away (apart from click-ball) to get this finished-ish now.


I have to get the movement running a bit better. I'll put a WTB for the seconds hand if anyone has one that they don't need that also doesn't have to be very good condition.

[C4L18R3]

Well done Bodo! I've always admired the skills you guys have here. I'll probably never go into fixing internals but I'm willing to go as far as what you did with the hands. 

Care to share some tips on the great reluming job you did?

[Adrian-VTA]

Haven't I'll be back to you today.

Mar 13, 2016 17:28:26 GMT -8 GuyJ said:

Ah great idea! I'll get some paint tomorrow and see how I fair.

Oh and by the way don't forget my order please Adrian?

The retaining ring is the one step away (apart from click-ball) to get this finished-ish now.


I have to get the movement running a bit better. I'll put a WTB for the seconds hand if anyone has one that they don't need that also doesn't have to be very good condition.

[GuyJ]

Thank you! Lume is using item id:

261105618925

I drop a small amount of powder into a little dish, no bigger than half a chocolate chip worth for this small job, and with the binder the liquid slowly sinks and drips instead of squeezing it out, to avoid air bubbles. This I guess about 4/5ths the amount of powder used seems to work but it takes a few practices to see how it is working. I think I could get away with slightly less binder for a thicker consistency.

Next I took an oiler and gently dragged a section of powder into the binder. Do this slowly and then stir slowly to avoid bubbles. Eventually mix in the two and you should end up with an model kit enamel paint type thickness, slightly more runny maybe. It's difficult to judge this but if you scoop up some on the end of an oiler it should form a small ball slightly bigger maybe than a 1mm ball bearing.


Once that's done get ready to find the thinnest part of the underside of the hand you're reluming. The hands are held horizontally with each tip resting in a worm of rodico so they won't move and the area to lume is exposed.

When placing the oiler with the mixture onto the shortest gap you can draw the liquid along the edges where it will tend to cover the gap and try and catch up with itself. When you draw it along it will naturally hold its position or fall back where it either stretches over the gap it was originally placed of split altogether but still covering the sides.

When this happens, start again with a fresh drop and pull the mixture along the hand where you left off, and again it will naturally want to spread and cover the gap. You'll need a steady hand and in one motion you may find you can draw it a long way before it splits where it'll stretch and cover the edges of the hand and nicely fill the area to be lumed.

Follow this all the way to the larger triangle section where guiding it first along the edges will lead to it being easy to stretch and catch the opposite sides, and again cover the area successfully. You might get lucky and the amount of mixture being stretched and drawn will naturally fill the area straight away though it might take another small drop to do this.

I hope that makes sense. It is easy to see how it works when doing it. Getting the consistency right and having a somewhat steady hand, so that once capillary action takes effect you can draw it in a smooth and uniform motion to not leave any sections thicker than others and no lumpy parts, is key it seems.

You get a lot of powder and the kit will last a while. I bought the green lume white powder kit and I've just ordered the vintage lume kit to match a slightly more yellow / tanned piece I want to match up with another. I'll try and take some pictures but far easier to watch these vids:



m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=oXV6JfZ7lnA


youtu.be/GyEB2yDBXbM
youtu.be/FDumHBedBqw
youtu.be/aQUN2A4iHok

Mar 13, 2016 19:05:38 GMT -8 C4L18R3 said:

Well done Bodo! I've always admired the skills you guys have here. I'll probably never go into fixing internals but I'm willing to go as far as what you did with the hands. 

Care to share some tips on the great reluming job you did?

[C4L18R3]

Mar 13, 2016 21:59:56 GMT -8 GuyJ said:

Mar 13, 2016 19:05:38 GMT -8 C4L18R3 said:

Well done Bodo! I've always admired the skills you guys have here. I'll probably never go into fixing internals but I'm willing to go as far as what you did with the hands. 

Care to share some tips on the great reluming job you did?

Bodo!  You are the man!!!  Thanks for this quick how-to, I really appreciate it.  I've been repainting some hands to get a more distinct look to some mods that I plan and reluming has always been the limiting factor.  There have been many tips given in the past but I must say your post makes a lot of sense and gives me the encouragement to actually give it a go.

Sending some good karma your way

- Tristan

[GuyJ]

Heh pleasure Tristan! And you'll be fine I'm sure.

Guy

[sdoocms]

Nice work!

[longbike]

Mar 13, 2016 13:32:26 GMT -8 leffemonster said:

Cracking job, puts my little ole case clean to shame! 

I've seen reference to 'Ramon' quite a few times - out of interest, who is this elusive character?

      Ramon based in the Philippines and is known by many as ..... " thewatchcollector " on eBay.
He is a alright guy to deal with, Up Front , Honest and a Real Nice Decent Guy.  He has many good
items on his store and they get to be very good deals most of the time. A lot of people deal with him and
know him quite well and often go back and get is items too. He at times have Real Gems to offer and
they turn out good.
Check him out for what you might want you wont be let down with dealing with him.
Aloha Louis

[steve855]

Congratulations on a job well done, Bodo! You learned some new skills and came away with a nice result, can't ask for more than that. I like how you restored the hands. I'll have to try this sometime.
Steve

[GuyJ]

Thanks Steve! Yeh do it was well worth it.
Managed to find a generous forum member who is sending me a meatball hand to plate and relume and this should be good to go.