Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

I'm the proud owner of a 7A38-7070 which is in very good condition, only let down by the poor condition of the hour and minute hands.

Is reluming the right thing to do here?

How easy is it, any pitfalls, tips, etc. etc.

Thanks,

Simon

Reluming hands is a black art in itself, Simon - and not something I've actually tried myself. Possibly best entrusted to a specialist. 

Especially given the rarity and peculiarity of this particular handset used on the early production run of 7A38-7070 and 7A38-7080.

Bear with me while I try and find a decent photo of them.

O.K. maybe these aren't the best photos of the actual hands, but they demonstrate quite well how I refer to them - the way I do.

This is the movement which came out of a water-damaged 7A38-7070 which I bought from another 7Axx collector in August 2010:

I call them the 7A38 'Polished Edge' hands (for obvious reasons). I have (re)used them to good effect on one of my 7A38 Frankens:

 As you can see from the above photos, they have polished beveled edges; the minute hand in the uppermost photo was tarnished. 

The central stripe nearest the mounting hole is painted white, then there's the lumed section in the middle, and a white painted tip.

Therein lies the problem with refurbishing this handset. How to get the old lume compound off.  When attempting to re-lume hands, absolute cleanliness is essential. Most re-lumers would soak the hands in a solvent, like Acetone, to remove all traces of the old lume, before polishing them. That course of action on these hands is also going to strip off the white paint. So not to be recommended. 

Before you start looking for a new (or better) pair of hands for your 7A38-7070 - a word of warning .... speaking from experience.

If you run a search on Seiko Oceania's database to find the part numbers (as I did 18 months ago), you may be confused or mislead.

These part numbers (also discontinued) are NOT the hands used on your 7A38-7070. 

Do a reverse look-up (i.e. ask 'where used') on both part numbers, and not only will you come up with the 7A38-7070 and 7A38-7080,

but also the stainless black-faced 7A38-7270 (which we are all familiar with), and the all-over black chromed 7A38-7290. Confusing ?

There is a good valid reason for this, because around 1986, Seiko stopped using the 'Polished Edge' hands on these models. 

Here's my later version 7A38-7070 from March 1986, factory-fitted with the narrow all-white handset as used on the 7A38-7270:

.... which might go some way to explaining why I have two (different) 'correct factory specification' 7A38-7070's in my collection:

.... and why when I built my all-black 709L dialed Franken from the original water-damaged one, I used NOS 7A28-7040/-7049 hands.

It wasn't just I wanted to make it look slightly more different - it was also the lack of availability of both the original 'correct' hand sets.

If anyone can come up with the part numbers (and a supply of) the original 'Polished Edge' hand set - I'm sure we'd all be interested.

As posted in another thread, earlier this morning by lanang:

Interesting, next project: 7A38/28 hands replacement  

Yes, indeed. We probably need to look at sourcing accurate reproductions of two types of white-painted lumed hands for 7Axx's: 

The hour and minute hands (12BH0KNH/M) used on the 7A28-7040 / -7049 and stainless 7A38-7020 / -7029 (and other models) 

And the slightly slimmer set (12BG4MUH/M) used on the 7A38-7270; later versions of the 7A38-7070 and 7A38-7080 (and others).

Anybody interested ? 

If you've read and digested the foregoing posts then you'll hopefully understand my concerns about having (any) painted hour and minute hands re-lumed - and still retaining the original factory painted finish. One of my own bugbears have been the silver painted hands fitted to early variants of Yema Spationaute III. Like it's sibling, the Yema N8 Flygraf (which uses different 'Mercedes' hands),

the lume compound used seems to be very prone to flaking - so you don't disturb the hands any more than you absolutely need to.

A couple of years ago I'd had a set of the later style Yema polished stainless hands re-lumed (they were completely missing their lume) in 'aged lume' by Steve Taylor, who used to post on RLT and SCWF as 'Clockworks'. They didn't turn out quite the colour I'd hoped for, so I couldn't use them on the watch I wanted to. But that's another story. What I do remember was that Steve steadfastly refused to have a go at re-luming my gash set of silver-painted hands which had come supplied with my Yema Spationaute III 'Mission Flags' dial.

So the fact that I didn't have a decent spare set of silver painted hands has meant I haven't dared risk swapping any hands (at all).

About a month ago, I read a couple of very good recommendations for James Hyman's re-luming capabilities, posted on SCWF.

So I contacted James and asked him if he fancied having a go at my silver-painted set. He said it shouldn't be a major problem.

By then, a lot more of the old flaky lume had fallen out (just by my gently handling them). Here's the photo I sent James at the time:

Note that the original Yema lume on the hour hand had been poorly applied and had overflowed onto the silver paint at the tip.

I didn't get around to posting the hands to James until last Friday. He received them Monday and I got them back this morning.

I'd asked James to re-lume them in a pale cream very slightly aged colour, and if possible as a 'nice to have' the luminescence could be blue (to match the Yema Spationaute III's dial colour). This is one of James's photos he'd emailed me earlier in the week.

Pretty damned good, eh ? 

Good job. I still haven't found a good guide on Youtube or elsewhere, on how to relume some of the hands I have and that are in the same condition yours were.

Really George ? 

I've seen this set of three Youtube videos before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyEB2yDBXbM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDumHBedBqw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUN2A4iHok

But someone I've been trading PM's with on TZ-UK just sent me a litte reminder. 

I've been experimenting with re-luming hands and dials for a few weeks now (not on 7Axx but on some other Seikos).

Today, my latest 7Axx arrived from Italy, a 7A28-7010 which had suffered at some point in its life from a battery leak which had caused quite bad lume rot on the dial and also the hands.

It was also suffering from a temperamental chrono seconds hand which I sorted out. Once I'd given it a partial strip down and clean, I decided to have a go at tidying up the dial and hands lume.

Here is how it looked when I received it:

and the dial / hands:

unfortunately along with the dial rot, there were several marks on the dial, two biggish ones in the 9pm and 3pm sub-dials. I can't restore these. But I did the lumed dial batons:

cleaning the old lume off was a painstaking and heart in mouth job but it went well with no damage.

Applying the new lume is actually quite easy as the lume flows to cover the baton, requiring just a little help in the corners.

I also did the hands. Cleaning the old lume off was very tricky as the slit in the hands that takes the lume is very narrow. Again, going carefully was all it took.

Here's how it looks with a new crystal fitted:

I need to re-seat the main chrono seconds hand (I always struggle to get this bang on) and also the 1/10s hand.

I'm very pleased with how this has turned out - it looks much neater.