Budong The Collector

 This is the blue Lefty. Took a while for me to find one, but I eventually found one for a price I'm willing to pay. It's really beat up, but still works like a champ. Here its is on my 6.25 inch wrist.

 Also known as the Citizen "Lefty", the Citizen Promaster diver NY0040 was first released in 1997. It was the preferred watch of the Italian Navy. A 500 meter water resistance version was made specifically for the  Marina Militare. The civilian version is only rated at 200 meters, but is advertised as an ISO rated diver. Some even go as far as to conclude that the military and civilian versions are made to the same specs theoretically making even the civilian version capable of going 500 meters. Specifications Case Material: Stainless Steel Case Dimensions: Diameter: 42mm Thickness: 12mm Lug tip to tip: 48mm Lug width: 20mm Crystal: Mineral Movement: Miyota 8203; Manual wind; Non-hacking. Bezel: 60 click, unidirectional dive time bezel with lume pip. Crown position: 8 o'clock. Screw down. Complications: Day and Date at 3 o'clock. Dial: Glossy black; Applied indexes with lume. Caseback: Solid; Screw down. The one I have here is the black version. This is the most commo...

 After a few more hours of tinkering, I finally gave up on the movement and busted out my backup movement. Eventually, I was able to put the watch together, but without the second hand. The completed watch without the second hand. It was quite bothersome for me to have a watch without a second hand. Since I had no indication whether or not the watch was still running. I wore this for a few days without any problems. Even my wife showed some interest in the watch and I can see she wanted it so i gave it to her. A few days later the watch just died. The watch before the movement replacement.  I had to buy another movement and this time I did my best to look for one that was advertised as being made by Seagull. I picked the Seagull 2813, assembled the watch all over again and the watch was resurrected. Here is the watch now with a new movement, new strap, and finally a second hand. Sterile white dial, mercedes hands, oyster case. I opted for a NATO strap because it is easy to ins...

 In the last post, the dial was finally attached to the movement. This time it's step 2 - "Attach the hands to the movement." By this time, I was confident that attaching the hands to the movement was going to be fairly easy. The dial snapped on to the movement with no problems and I was determined to attach the hands in one shot. Immediately, my confidence waivered a bit because I found it incredibly difficult to handle the hands with my tweezers. Tutorials online made it sound and look very easy. Oh man! For me, it was not easy. I could make an excuse about my tweezers, but in reality I did not have the manual dexterity to manipulate the hands. For this project, the hands need to go in the order of, hour hand, minute hand, then finally the second hand. In the image below, you can see the kind if tweezers I was using. These are shorter than the watch maker's tweezers. These are sold as eyelash tweezers and they have the finest tip I could find. Installing the hour ha...

 The plan was relatively simple. I had outlined the process I was suppose to do in my head as follow. Attach the dial to the movement.  Attach the hands to the movement.  Put the assembled unit (movement, dial, hands) into the case.  Trim the winding stem to size and attach the crown and screw on the case back. All was set. I readied my 5x loupe, set my tools, wore my gloves, and started with the movement and dial. It was relatively easy to attach the dial to the movement. The dial had pins that would fit through gaps on the movement edge and would firmly attach using screws that would pinch the dial pins against the movement. The movement was supplied with a small spacer so that the dial will not foul up the date complication. On some movements, this spacer is not needed, but for this type, it is definitely a must. This was a relatively easy install. I got a bit more confident after this. Loosening one of the screws that hold the dial pins. Movement: Seagull 2813. S...

 My enthusiasm for mechanical watches started a long time ago, but never really gained momentum until recently. While I pride myself for owning mechanical watches since I was young, I have never really put much effort in researching about them not wanting to know more about the specific models and how they came about. All I knew was mechanical watches were cool because you did not need any battery changes every now and then. Little did I know that mechanical watches needed maintenance as well. The recent events that limited our movement outside of our homes gave rise to a lot of free time and it gave me an opportunity to try watch making for myself. This was something I wanted to try for quite some time, but did not know where to begin. I first considered going through some sort of formal training, but there are limited options for formal training where I am from. And while online options were available, fees were quite steep for me. Of course there are a ton of content on the inte...

My Father bought identical Seiko 5 Watches in Australia back in 1997. Only difference is the dial color. He gave the black dial one to me and eventually he gave the white dial one as well. Both watches are still working. Dimensions Case Diameter: 38mm Thickness: 11mm Lug tip to Lug tip: 42mm Lug Width: 19mm Specifications Crystal: Hardlex Water resistance: 30m Case Material: Stainless Steel; Solid case back. Movement: 7s26 (Automatic 21Jewels; 21,600bph) Complications: Day/Date Case Code:  7S26-8760 Power reserve: 43 Hours Applied gold indexes and gold hands. Day and date nicely framed at 3 o'clock. Seiko and Seiko 5 shield applied below 12 o'clock. Printed "AUTOMATIC" and "21 JEWELS" above the 6 o'clock. Broad sword style hands are lumed and there are also lume dots above each hour marker except at the day and date.Second hand is plain and thin. Case style is from the 70's if I'm not...

Chinese watches are getting better. With the advent of social media, more and more people are being informed and convinced that Chinese watches are not at all as bad as we think. Of course in buying anything, one must take some risk and I would say much more so for these relatively new and sometimes very generic Chinese watches. One Chinese brand that caught my attention is Guanqin. I first saw this brand on Aliexpress and I got a bit curious about it. Thanks to Youtubers who have reviewed watches from this brand, I have also pulled the trigger and bought myself a Guanqin watch. Here it is! The Gaunqin GQ008815 Automatic Watch. Specifications Case diameter: 39 mm Case thickness: 12 mm Lug width: 19 mm Lug tip to lug tip: 48 mm Crystal: Sapphire Movement: Unknown Chinese movement Hacking: Yes Manual Wind: Yes Complications: Date only Price: Php 2,300 (Approx USD 44) Purchased Online:  https://www.lazada.com.ph/-i135106104-s151282258.html?urlFlag=true&mp=...